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CIA analysis finds NO IRANIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS DRIVE: report (Another classified leak)
Yahoo ^ | 11/19/06

Posted on 11/19/2006 2:41:41 PM PST by Mr. Brightside

CIA analysis finds no Iranian nuclear weapons drive: report

Sat Nov 18, 11:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A classifed draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter has said.

Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week.

A month before the November 7 legislative elections, Hersh wrote, Vice President Dick Cheney attended a national-security discussion that touched on the impact of Democratic victory in both chambers on Iran policy.

"If the Democrats won on November 7th, the vice president said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran," Hersh wrote, citing a source familiar with the discussion.

Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions "and thus stop Congress from getting in its way," he said.

The Democratic victory unleashed a surge of calls for the Bush administration to begin direct talks with Iran.

But the administration's planning of a military option was made "far more complicated" in recent months by a highly classified draft assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency "challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb," he wrote.

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running paallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Hersh wrote, adding the CIA had declined to comment on that story.

A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis and said the White House had been hostile to it, he wrote.

Cheney and his aides had discounted the assessment, the official said.

"They're not looking for a smoking gun," the official was quoted as saying, referring to specific intelligence about Iranian nuclear planning.

"They're looking for the degree of comfort level they think they need to accomplish the mission."

The United States and other major powers believe Iran's uranium enrichment program is ultimately aimed at producing fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Iran insists it will use the enriched uranium only to fuel nuclear power stations, something it is permitted to do as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The major powers have been debating a draft United Nations resolution drawn up by Britain, France and Germany that would impose limited sanctions on Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile sectors for Tehran's failure to comply with an earlier UN resolution on halting enrichment.

On Wednesday, Israel's outgoing US ambassador Danny Ayalon said in an interview that Bush would not hesitate to use force against Iran to halt its nuclear program if other options failed.

"US President George W. Bush will not hesitate to use force against Iran in order to halt its nuclear program," Ayalon told the Maariv daily.

Israel, widely considered the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, views Iran as its arch-foe, pointing to repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to wipe the Jewish state off the map.


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cialeak; compromised; doubleagent; espionage; geopolitics; iran; moles; proliferation; seymourhersh; sovietspy; whodeykiddn
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To: sono
The next Bush Cabinet Big who needs to check out is AG Gonzalez who is conspicuously missing in action.

He is NOT. He's just been too busy composing Memos to his lap dog, PC, Idiot Feeb Director Mueller, instructing him to continue sending his Agents to Muzzie Sensitivity Training Classes.

Gonzales, Mueller AND THE WORST PC JERK IN THE ENTIRE BUSH ADMINISRATION, Chertoff, should ALL be fired, but will never happen, no matter how inept they are.

41 posted on 11/19/2006 3:17:09 PM PST by Traditional Vet
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To: Mr. Brightside

seymour hersch is a hack


42 posted on 11/19/2006 3:17:16 PM PST by italianquaker (Democrats its time to fish or cut bait, no more blaming Prez Bush.)
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To: Mr. Brightside
no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons

The key word is secret....they are doing it in broad daylight!!!

43 posted on 11/19/2006 3:19:06 PM PST by panzer_grey
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To: txflake

Don't forget that Mike Wallace was there for a week...and he LIKES Ahmanutjob....so, hey, between Wallace and Hersch, I am convinced.


44 posted on 11/19/2006 3:20:16 PM PST by Txsleuth (Bolton/Cheney (that would be Lynne) 08)
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To: Mr. Brightside

From the same New York Times:

"Intelligence Analyst" Larry C. Johnson: "The Declining Terrorist Threat (July 10, 2001)

Posted on 07/20/2005 10:12:47 PM EDT by Sam Hill
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1447248/posts


45 posted on 11/19/2006 3:20:26 PM PST by Sam Hill
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To: Sam Hill; El Gato; Billthedrill
Iranian-9/11 link

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1735517/posts

46 posted on 11/19/2006 3:22:09 PM PST by txhurl (We had to destroy the party in order to save it)
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To: Osage Orange

I was joking.

I have always had my suspicions.

If we're still finding munition from WW2, god only knows about WMD in Iraq, a country the size of France.


47 posted on 11/19/2006 3:23:48 PM PST by UKrepublican (I)
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To: Mr. Brightside

Amazing how this keeps happening!

Just when we start to believe that dictators who openly call for our destruction actually mean it, low and behold--some report comes out about a (always unamed) "government official" who has found that the threat is not true at all, and that our leaders are plotting to harm the harmless.

And always by some embittered, sullen lefty reporter.

Do we see a pattern here?


48 posted on 11/19/2006 3:23:54 PM PST by Grateful One
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To: txflake

http://www.dia.mil/publicaffairs/Testimonies/statement25.html

Lieutenant General Michael D. Maples, U.S. Army Director, Defense Intelligence Agency


Statement for the Record
Senate Armed Services Committee
15 November 2006


excerpt:

DIA judges the continued Coalition presence as the primary counter to a breakdown in central authority, which would have grave consequences for the people of Iraq, stability in the region, and U.S. strategic interests. No major political figure in Iraq has endorsed the notion of civil war or partition, and most political and religious leaders continue to restrain their communities. Moreover, DIA judges that Iraqi Arabs retain a strong sense of national identity and that most Iraqis recall a past in which sectarian identity did not have the significance it does today. Although leaders across the political spectrum who are participating in the government continue to talk and search for a positive way forward, the challenges to bringing stability and security with a cohesive, unified, and effective government remain significant.

(does sound as if he's saying everything was under control while Saddam was in power, doesn't it? If sectarian identity was not significant then, who ended up in the mass graves, I wonder?)



49 posted on 11/19/2006 3:24:29 PM PST by Fred Nerks (lost my tagline...)
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To: Mr. Brightside

I have no problem with them saying this but to state this without also adding "... but we do not have boots on the ground to determine what is being developed in large underground facilities so we simply do not know what Iraq is doing in this regard ...


50 posted on 11/19/2006 3:26:13 PM PST by plain talk
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To: Mr. Brightside
The first time the CIA will confirm Iranian nucs is when they vaporize Tel Aviv. Then, it will be "Bush's fault!"...


51 posted on 11/19/2006 3:26:24 PM PST by Gritty (The CIA isn't licenced to kill. It's licenced to kill time! - Mark Steyn)
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To: Fred Nerks
LOL

Headline

DIA finds IRAQIS BETTER UNDER SADDAM, RECOMMENDS RE-INSTALLATION

52 posted on 11/19/2006 3:29:11 PM PST by txhurl (We had to destroy the party in order to save it)
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To: oolatec
Iran has been quite open about it...

That reminds me of a joke I heard

Seems a car broke down in front of framer Johns house just about every week.

Dutifully framer John would go out and drag the wreck off the road and bury the dead.

So one day sheriif tom comes by and asks if framer John had seen an accident lately.

Framer John said "yep, happened last night"

So sheriff Tom asks "did what did you do?"

"I buried 'em"

"Were they all dead?" the sherriff asks.

"some said they weren't but you know how those city slickers lie"

Same with Iran, they say they're going to get nukes. the Dems want us to belive they aren't telling the truth. GO figure.

53 posted on 11/19/2006 3:38:15 PM PST by strange1 ("Show the enemy harm so he shall not advance" Sun Tzu The Art of War)
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To: Mr. Brightside

I stopped readin at Seymore Hirsch.


54 posted on 11/19/2006 3:39:24 PM PST by ShandaLear (Perfect People Need Support, too.)
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To: Mr. Brightside

I was just listening to a program about the first Iraqi war. The CIA told the military that their vehicles could not cross the sand. SpecOps went in and took some samples and said no problem, which there wasn't. So much for the CIA and its agenda.


55 posted on 11/19/2006 3:45:11 PM PST by Bahbah (Regev, Goldwasser and Shalit, we are praying for you)
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To: Mr. Brightside

oh, we nuked their nuclear facilities before the elections so that Republicans would win, didn't we?


56 posted on 11/19/2006 4:01:01 PM PST by gusopol3
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To: Mr. Brightside

didn't the CIA say the sme thing about nort korea?


57 posted on 11/19/2006 4:09:20 PM PST by rottweiller_inc (inter canem et lupum)
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To: Mr. Brightside
Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker

No need to read any further.

58 posted on 11/19/2006 4:10:44 PM PST by Howlin (Pres.Bush ought to be ashamed of himself for allowing foreign countries right on our borders!!~~Zook)
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To: Mr. Brightside

The CIA couldnt find their butt-crack with both hands and a flashlight.

We could save millions if we just turned Langley into a housing development.


59 posted on 11/19/2006 4:11:59 PM PST by sgtbono2002 (The fourth estate is a fifth column.)
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To: Mr. Brightside
CIA works for the ChiComs....
ChiComs work for Putin Inc.

Putin works for Rasputin...

60 posted on 11/19/2006 4:13:02 PM PST by Maeve
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