Posted on 12/12/2007 1:50:09 PM PST by knighthawk
Chairman of the Experts Assembly Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Wednesday that the "important" report issued by 16 US intelligence agencies is neither against Tehran nor benefits Washington. The report released on December 3 by the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), said, they did not "assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons."
Addressing the 4th congress of Moderation and Development, he commented on reasons for issuing the report, stressing: "My primary speculation is that the report has been issued either by the Democrats or independent groups. The report might have been issued by experts since their investigation has indicated that Iran has not been pursuing nuclear weapons in these years."
"The US president had already been informed of the report and as the Israeli prime minister announced, the report was presented to him during the Annapolis conference by President Bush," Rafsanjani added, according to IRNA.
They knew that if the White House opposed the report, they would face another defeat at international arena, he said, adding that they knew that they had to respond to the public opinion therefore the situation was in a way that the report had to be published.
Referring to the recent report of Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei, he said, "The two reports (NIE and IAEA) changed the situation in a way that the White House was faced with problems in issuing further sanctions against Iran and other issues such as military invasion against the country," Rafsanjani, who is the former Iranian president reiterated.
Despite such reports, the US and its allies have intensified their anti-Iran efforts to show their hatred towards the Iranian nation, he said commenting on recent anti-Iran moves by Washington and certain European states.
Gracious, I am amazed once again that people (that means you, Bender2) get so tied up in knots when I simply say I’ll give my fellow countrymen (i.e., Democrats, some of whom are my neighbors and co-workers) the benefit of the doubt before I believe the word of some radical Islamic fundamentalist from Iran. But if you’d rather automatically take the side of the Islamofacists before looking for evidence, go right ahead. Ever stopped to think that sowing division and distrust among Americans is part of the Islamists plan to hurt us?
“Ahmadinejad is harmless” bump
Yea, i find it curious also that Chomsky an overated intellectual that plays fast and loose with facts seems to have received the same information.
Thanks for the ping.
Then I guess we are facing a mighty brilliant Islamic brain-trust as they must have stared sewing this distrust of the Liberal Democrats' traitorous activities back in 1968 when they and the new media said we lost the Tet Offensive.
Listening to you, perhaps we should just give up now and have our wives, daughters and granddaughters fitted for Berkers!
And BTW as to (i.e., Democrats, some of whom are my neighbors and co-workers) if they want to vote for the Democrats, I will still tell them they are voting for traitors intent on destroying what is left of the America I was born into and have lived for the past 60 years. I don't need any foreign source to tell me that, the Liberal Democrats have proven that over and over again in the past 40 years.
I have immediate family that are still Yellow Dog Democrats and I have stopped talking to them. I find it is a waste of breath and effort to try and talk any sense to them as I figure the same applies to you, old sport.
If you are dead set on giving all Democrats 'the benefit of the doubt' after all the years of mounting evidence of their traitorous ways, then you might as run up the white flag and start voting with them. They already have you by the mental shorthairs.
Information on Rafsanjani from a Newsmax article:
Newsmax sources in Tehran believe that Ahmadinejad has come out on top of a recent power struggle with his chief rival, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who has portrayed himself as a “pragmatist” willing to come to an accommodation with the West.
But other sources believe that Rafsanjani continues to play a major role in checking Ahmadinejad’s power, and could succeed in toppling him before his presidential term expires in the spring of 2009.
On Wednesday, Rafsanjani said that he believed the NIE had been “issued either by the Democrats or independent groups,” since it concluded that Iran did not intend to acquire nuclear weapons.
One clear sign of the behind-the-scenes jockeying for power was the forced resignation last week of a Rafsanjani protégé, Gen. Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, from his position as deputy interior minister in charge of intelligence affairs.
Gen. Zolqadr, a former deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, rallied to the Rafsanjani camp along with his former boss, Gen. Mohsen Rezai.
He is best known for his role in providing training and support to al-Qaida during the 1990s, when Osama bin Laden was still based in the Sudan, as I reported in my 2005 book, Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran.
Adding to the confusion were rumors of a foiled assassination plot against Rafsanjani last week, when his convoy was attacked by armed men who succeeding in wounding two bodyguards. Apparently forewarned, Rafsanjani was traveling separately in an unmarked car when the convoy was attacked.
Ahmadinejad was summoned to the residence of Supreme Leader ayatollah Khamenei on Thursday, Dec. 6, during the early morning hours, just as the Zolqadr controversy was brewing.
He cut short an official visit to Ilam province to make the meeting and was accompanied by body guards from the Ansar-e Mehdi, a special unit of the Revolutionary Guards Corps that is personally loyal to him.
“The regime is nervous that the US and the Europeans have spies inside the nuclear program,” said Sardar Haddad, an Iranian dissident living in the United States.
The shadowy kabuki dance would appear to be an effort to smoke out the positions – and the vulnerabilities - of various Iranian leaders.
Haddad pointed to the arrest earlier this year of former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian, whom Ahmadinejad accused in public of being an American spy.
“The Mousavian business is serious. He has been attacked because he is close to Rafsanjani,” Haddad told Newsmax.
According to one interpretation, each faction in Tehran is trying to blame the other for having leaked real information that wound up in the NIE. According to another, each side is trying to take credit for having passed off false information to the CIA.
Despite the spying charges, Moussavian was later released, a move seen in Tehran as a defeat for Ahmadinejad and his faction.
“It is true that they have rolled up U.S. [intelligence] networks in Iran,” said Haddad. “But they have also found people who were just about to defect, and have given them bogus info to feed to the Americans and to other intelligence services, to give a wrong impression of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”
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