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.
Johnson had been out of the CIA for over ten years when he wrote that piece.
Seymour Hersh apparently gets fed BS from CIA vets regularly.
Well, heck, now we can't send Joe Wilson to check it out.
Hersh makes these 'sources' up in his delusional head.
Isn't there a way the CIA or SOME agency to monitor the isotopes released by weapons production plutonium or uranium-238?
I was under the impression that US satellites could determine a great deal about ongoing nuclear activity simply by monitoring the radiation "signatures" put off by nuclear production.
Even if that production is underground.
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| CIA analysis finds NO IRANIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS DRIVE: Hmm... Is this the very same CIA that didn't see the Iranian Revolution coming in 1979? It doesn't surprise me to hear they haven't found any evidence of a nuclear weapons program. I'm not convinced they could find their own feet, while holding a compass in one hand and a sextant in the other. |
He's working on the next Olympic gymnastics team. Trying to find nubile young girls is a full time job. /joking
Euros are still finding munitions from WW I, iirc. Just read about one a while back.
Not only that, consider the source.
Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance...
Oh, here we go again!!! :-(
I am not only furious with this "man", I am frustrated and weary of the foolishness...the costly wasteful nonsense! My nephew's life is on the line, along with so many other wonderful, brave American military men and women, and this character is endangering them and all the rest of us!
Oh for a brighter day ahead!!
"melancholy", please keep us informed about these awful dangers. We need the likes of you to help us reason through the facts and all the propaganda!
Thank you!
Nancee
I will believe the Israelis.
If Israel says Iran will have them in 6 months, you can be sure of one thing;
Whether 6 months, a year or three weeks, the day before Iran announces they have an active nuke, the Israelis will destroy it.
Oh, yeah, Iran's Mullahs have deceived the IAEA for years and are ramping up vast numbers of centrifuges to enrich uranium just because they are about to run out of oil with the world's #3 supply??? OK, Sy Hersch, you leftist sack-of-XXXX, let's see you put your own life where your mouth is: if Iran does produce any nuclear weapons within the next 10 years (probably much much sooner), will you stand on the Washington Mall, publicly apologize for being such a dishonest, treasonous, anti-American wanker, and commit hari-kari?
I love how this leftist jackal is always writing anything he can think of to weaken the USA, and he manages to find a few like-minded weasels with access to classified info to leak stuff to him for his one-sided "analysis"..... he is scum.
This is a Seymour Hersh article. Therefore it is more likely to be made up than based on any actual leak.
Since I'm the guy saying that Hersh is a bad journalist, it's up to me to provide evidence.
OK. Here's NRO's Jed Babbin taking apart Hersh's Chain of Command (with a few well-aimed darts to skewer other parts of Hersh's phony ouevre):
http://www.nationalreview.com/babbin/babbin200409170630.asp
But... Jed is one of us, a conservative. Maybe he's just part of the international conspiracy to silence Hersh! OK, here's one of Hersh's lefty fellow-travelers catching him in a misstatement that is key to his narrative in the story, and that shows that Hersh is not even familiar with the established facts of the subject he's writing about:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00213.htm
But hey, there's someone who will defend poor Sy Hersh's previous fabrications about torture. Problem is, he's defending them on an anti-semitic hate website, on the theory that Hersh is a member of a plot by the sinister Elders of Zion or something, and so only revealed PART of the evil CIA-Mossad plan to put panties on the heads of mohammed worshippers:
http://www.monabaker.com/pMachine/more.php?id=A2293_0_1_0_M
Now, whether Sy is just fantasizing this stuff, or lefties in DC are fantasizing it and telling him, beats me. If it's the latter, though, he's not checking or using a second source, and his editors aren't, either. (You should NEVER EVER EVER run a story on a single anonymous source.. unless you're a chump).
The reason Sy and/or editors swallow this line is because it matches their pre-selected narrative.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
He's working diligently for the anti-war movement. Lives in Colonie, NY near Albany. Took a trip to Iran not too long ago.
'the day before Iran announces they have an active nuke, the Israelis will destroy it.'
Hopefully alot sooner.
Who was it that said the Serbs were slaughtering Albanian Kosovars?
State? NSC? DCIA?
Oh, different President...no longer important.
bttt
Well, hindsight is 20/20. Of course, we will never know until we invade and figure it out ourselves.
This from an agency that could see the fall of the Berlin Wall until someone dumped a cinder block sized chunk of it on the Director of Intelligence's desk in Langley.
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