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There's an excellent timeline about who knew what when with regard to the NIE that emptywheel has compiled. I'd just like to add a couple of data points about the activities of everyone's favorite war hawk, Slummy Joe Lieberman (my additions in bold):
February 2007: NIE completed; Cheney objecting to content
February 7: Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Ali Reza Asgari arrives in Turkey; he disappears there, and is presumed to have defected or been kidnapped; in March he was reported to be cooperating with western intelligence
March 22: S.970 introduced with cosponsors Lieberman, Clinton and Obama -- "A bill to impose sanctions on Iran and on other countries for assisting Iran in developing a nuclear program, and for other purpose." It supports the adminstration's claims that it's all about, you know, Weapons of Mass Destruction.
April 26: Thomas Fingar announces NIE will be delayed due to Ahmadinejad's demagoguery
May 12: Cheney meets with Saudi Arabia
July 2007: Intelligence community intercepts communications that verify claim Iran's nuclear program remains suspended; Senior Administration Officials briefed
July 11: S.Amdt. 2073, the Lieberman Amendment passes the Senate by a vote of 97-0, which Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both vote for. It requires " a report on support provided by the Government of Iran for attacks against coalition forces in Iraq." Lieberman's floor speech makes little mention of an Iranian nuclear threat any more.
July 13: Lieberman goes on Hugh Hewitt's show:
HH: Right. In a statement earlier this month, Senator Lieberman, you said that, and I’m quoting here, “The fact is that the Iranian government, by its actions, has declared war on us.” Given that, if President Bush announced he felt compelled to take military action against Iran, would you support him?
JL: Yeah, of course I would.
So largely thanks to the help of Joe Lieberman, the narrative shifts to Iranians attacking US forces in Iraq.
August 2007: Bush claims he learned new intelligence exists
August 9: Bush substitutes the claim that Iran was seeking nuclear technology for earlier claim that they were seeking nukes. (h/t Froomkin)
September 26: S.Amdt. 3017 passes by a vote of 76-22, Clinton voting "yea" and Obama not voting. "To express the sense of the Senate regarding Iran." It categorized Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp a "foreign terrorist organization." No WMDs here any more, either.
So perhaps it was just a happy coincidence, but it would appear that Lieberman played a critical role in re-directing the anti-Iranian narrative away from WMDs to the fact that they're a bunch of foreign terrorists.
As emptywheel notes today, Cheney was trying to twist arms -- and intelligence -- regarding Iran as little as two weeks ago. I'm sure Joe's stalwart help in the effort to bomb the shit out of Iran has been much appreciated.
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zedmeister????
Ho Ho Ho, Joe’s gotta go!
zed?
Whatta we got, five more years of this asshole?
If the Dems get the Whitehouse and Clinton wins.you have to know that Lieberman will continue his two faced ways with Hillary’s blessings.
That.just.pisses.me.off..
Iran was dangerous, is dangerous, & will be dangerous…. now and ever shall be, world without end (unless Bush starts WWIII), amen. This story gets more & more interesting. And you have Joe Klein on TV sayiong what a great job the president did handling it. And this is… what???? …. a week after the world called bullshit on the guy over his FISA statements that were spoon fed to him by a loony Republican?
If they pick up a couple Senate seats can the Dems just tell the guy to piss off? I mean it.
Oops. Meant my 6 as a reply to Busted @ 4. Not talking to myself here.
That would seem logical, but then you have to consider who holds the leadership positions, so it’ll never happen no matter what the seat counts become.
Well, Jeebus, we already HAVE nukes and our leaders are obviously crazier than theirs — already having destroyed at least one innocent country for nothing.
I want to know who’s gonna be watching US.
The NYT has another in its series of neocon op-eds: In Iran we Trust?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12…..ollin.html
Sometimes I think that the only thing that is necessary for a neocon to get an op-ed published in the NYT is a pulse, and sometimes I have my doubts about that. The op-ed repeats the developing right wing talking points countering the NIE findings. Iran has a heavy water facility at Arak. It is still working on centrifuge cascades. It is working on missiles. It doesn’t need nuclear power. Etc.
The Times notes about the authors: “Valerie Lincy is the editor of Iranwatch.org. Gary Milhollin is the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.”
This makes it sound like that two groups are involved in writing the op-ed. What it doesn’t tell you is that Iran Watch is a website published by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. (Yes, I used the google.) According to the WPNAC site, the Wisconsin bit comes in because it was created “under the auspices” of the University of Wisconsin. (Its founder Gary Milhollin taught at the law school there.)
There is something oddball about the WPNAC. It portrays itself as against nuclear proliferation in general but it is clear that it has drunk the Bush Administration koolaid on both Iraq and Iran. So even if at some point in its past it was a legit organization, it is not now. This is, of course, of no importance to the NYT.
In my dreams Iran declares Joe Lieberman a terrorist.
What would make you think she wouldn’t put him in her cabinet?
Hillary has to make a very public break with Lieberman, or her Lieberman-Kyl vote is going to take her down with Bush.
Not that Iran is some sort of democratic paradise, but we ourselves are clearly in the running to be considered a “rogue nation” (with nukes as you note)
Hugh at 10
Anybody got time for a phone call to the UW Madison press office to clarify?
petracca had this link of Joe Klein praising Bush’s reaction to the NIE:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/06/klein-candor/
So I get up to this from Mork Romney:
WTF? Freedom requires religion?
Nahnoo, nahnoo.
Glad I missed that speech.
Why doesn’t somebody call him on this shit! “Since the first bomb dropped on Iran could just as easily ignite WWIII, what are you saying? That you prefer to start WWIII now, before they get nuclear weapons?” And if so, “Whose to say other Muslim nations with nukes won’t come to their assistance as a way of telling us to stay the hell out of the ME? Then they will not be responsible for starting the war, we will! Again, the first dropped bomb on Iran could be the trigger for the Muslims of the ME, the ones whose countries we have been trying to control (what else would you call “regime change”,)to send us a “present” and bring the war to our own shores.
Sorry for the multiple posts, I kept getting a “database error, please try again” msg.
The only thing that throws people off is that our terrorists have suits and haircuts.
I have felt for a while that Lieberman was supporting Israel’s interests a little too much for our country’s good. With that in mind here is Pat Lang from his blog.
Here’s Joe Klein’s reaction to the NIE release. He was on Joe Scar this morning. I was amazed by it. He’s gone so far off the cliff that he sounds like Rush or Hannity.
I now keep getting a “database error, please try again” Grrrrrhhh…
What makes this push to bomb Iran especially evil is that it’s been said that traditional bombs won’t be enough to destroy the underground labs. So, we weren’t just going to bomb them. We were going to nuke ‘em.
as much as i’d like to blame lieberman for the redirection, i think michael gordon at the nyt should get first billing and the supporting role of the house leadership should not be forgotten. hugh has an excellent time line on this too (see item 280)… here’s a bit to tempt you:
OT: Forgive me, trying to catch up during lunch. Anything on the contempt issue?
Close the window and reopen it. That fixed it for me.
Yes but you make that sound so bad. It was just going to be teeny tiny little precision tactical strikes. Honest.
Joe Klein’s interviewers are worse than Joe Klein. They’re either too partisan, too ignorant, too fearful or too stupid to question a particular dumbfuck properly.
I keep getting the same thing. So far, just attributing it to growing pains. I’m sure the techs will get it under control soon.
OK Steve. Thanks. Done. lessee….
Anyone see this?
US Vice President Dick Cheney admits that there is no reason to question the NIE report which confirms that Iran is not a nuclear threat.
“I don’t have any reason to question what the [intelligence] community has produced,” he said in an interview with three former Washington Post reporters Mike Allen, Jim Vandehei and John Harris…
Playing “Good Cop”?
(”Reply” doesn’t work)
reply to Hugh @10.
I like how ”PNAC” is in there. D’oh!
BobbyG @32
That’s just prefatory to a bold-faced lie about what the NIE says.
Long past time to break out the white jacket with long sleeves…I’ll volunteer to stitch one up if someone can provide a size estimate.
I’d listen to Cheney like I’d listen to any psychotic. True, false, sane, insane — who the hell knows? So I never listen to him.
Congratulations fdl: 46,000,000 site visits!
—Geeks R Us
Meanwhile, W is out there blowing in the wind as an obvious bald-faced liar…Cheney trying to appear rational…
Impeach both of these mofos.
Dana Peroxide briefing up on CSPAN-3. “Was the President completely candid about when he knew the contents of the NIE?”
“Yes. The President was not told the details. He could’ve been more precise in his language.”
Martha Raddatz hammering Dana on the NIE.
It looks like a ruse intended to have everyone see how “reasonable” Cheney the putative warmonger is, and relax.
Then one day we wake up to BOOM!
A Tonkin incident perhaps awaits.
Targets to be named later, no doubt…. Sheesh. Anyone who thinks it’s just Muslim states we need to worry about retaliating for a pre-emptive strike by the US oughta look a little further north. Maybe this is what Bush meant when he talked about looking into Putin’s eyes. What’s a little Armageddon among friends….
Heck,
I’d kinda like to know what gives the US the “right” to determine whether a country “needs” nuclear power or not?
Lying is part of Dana’s job. It’s either that or she’d better start updating her resume.
She lies, the press types.
Maybe she’ll come clean when her book comes out.
I am amazed at just how brazen these criminals are
here we are, mired in Iraq because these very same people refused to allow our intelligence agencies report the truth
so it worked with Iraq as far as they are concerned and they think they can do it again?
it’s as if they live in a vacuum, it’s as is they don’t know that we know they lied us into war
how friggin brazen and how detached ARE these people?
Are you saying that Mitch McConnell briefed the President every day, and Bush never asked him for an update?
Dana: Let me clarify..
OT Specter blocks contempt vote.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/…..empt-vote/
does the president not ever ask any questions?
I still wonder about those Minot nukes…that may have been a failed attempt at something…it also may have something to do with NIE getting leaked. The “Admirals” don’t like the fake Iran policy either.. ‘Tis a puzzlement.
This whole timeline stinks of poorly hatched plans. Does Cheney have the same influence shaping Pentagon directives since Rumsfelds been fired?
And Asgari’s role in this is very important. Top general of Iranian Revolutionary Guard? Did he defect, was he kidnapped, or assassinated outright?
Implausible deniability.
They open their mouths = they lie.
My rant to the Las Vegas Sun yesterday, which will probably be in tomorrow (they called me):
Scottish Haggis is at it again? I really wish Leahy would tell him to go Cheney himself.
That dude is seriously harshing my buzz.
He never fails to haul water for these criminals.
Dana: I don’t think the rhetoric has been heating up.
If he was told there was new information, why didn’t Bush back off the rhetoric.
Dana: the NIE confirms what we’ve been saying-Iran has a covert weapons program. They’re still enriching uranium-we think they’re passing info to a new covert-eapons program that we don’t know about.
Dana’s Dumb as Dogshit
Need I be more precise?
congratulations on publishing your oped bobby g…many more
Keep an eye on holy joe, he is the key to reading what the mossad
katzas have in store for anyone on the hill that breaks with the
consensus in re Iran.
Scottish Haggis strikes again!
Speaking of Hugh Hewitt, the Mitt-Love is strong today (as in everyday)…The ol’ albino has a “ragin’ Mitt-On”
you know, you are right, joe can be a barometer for what the administration is planning
all we have to do is follow what he says and we know what their agenda will be
good call
Good job. Congratulations!
There they go again, the Emperor’s new clothes…imaginary nuclear programs that must be stopped….this administration exhibits zero actionable “intelligence”….
Senior officials who briefed the press said Iran wants to build a nuke. Does the President agree?
Dana: we’re concerned, and must keep the pressure on, or they might re-start a weapons program in the future.
All I want for Christmas is my edit button back, well, that and a very naked Marissa Tomei.
Yeah, Dana, and I still might hammer-dunk a basketball one day.
On Iraq: Does the President believe that Iraq will be a self-governing democracy by the time he leaves office?
Dana: we have one more year under the UN mandate, and then we can move forward. Violence is down, and that’s what Maliki wants.
hey, got this from think progress, huckabee smacks the president around a bit and doesn’t even realize that’s what he’s done
check out this quote in defense of himself for not knowing about the nie;
joe-lying-bastard is playing with the lives of our soldiers with his dishonest macho posturing.
and ghouliani time is worse,
Joe’s performing a very useful function for progressives. He’s showing us just what side our so-called Democratic leaders are on.
Clinton…she luvs her some Bush and intends to continue his policies in Iraq and Iran. This is the only explanation for her vote here.
Obama…exposed as a tool of the Lieberman wing of the ‘Democrat’ Party. His support here very telling.
Slowly the progressive blogosphere is coming to the realization that something is indeed rotten in Denmark. The Democratic Party leadership and much of the caucus are no different in their policy positions than the ‘Rubber Stamp’ ReThugs.
They’ve all gotta go. Yes, it will take more than one cycle and be a very big job to rid the party of Pelosi, DiFi, Boxer, Reid, Schumer, Rahmbo and the rest of the Bush Dogs and Bitches but I ask you….
Ya got something more important to do than take back our country from these bought and paid for scumbag war-profiteers?
They’ve become so arrogant that DiFi doesn’t even try to hide her votes to enrich her husbands war-profiteer company….
That arrogance will prove to be their undoing.
Speaking of books, Rover is asking $3M for his “Sweet Memoirs of a Turd Blussom”?
the right wing will buy them up at 10 cents a copy thus insurang a second edition
The surge was there to create space for political reconciliation-is that happening?
Dana: they’ve accomplished a lot. They’re moving forward. Oil exports are up. More to be done-what WE need to do here is fund our troops. Petraeus and Crocker know what they need, and Congress needs to give it to them.
I don’t think he’ll sell many copies at that price.
I haven’t checked everything in the timeline, but the claim about July 2007 is quite wrong: “intelligence community intercepts communications that verify claim Iran’s nuclear program remains suspended; Senior Administration Officials briefed.” If you go read the Washington Post article linked to that item, it reads “briefing senior members of the Bush administration on the intercepts, beginning in July,” which would suggest rather strongly that the intercepts themselves occurred long before July. Indeed, it is likely that they occurred at least as much as a year before, considering that Seymour Hersh was revealing the essence of this NIE at that time.
But actually, the most egregious error of all is the simple acceptance of that statement as true. I ask you to remember Colin Powell’s presentation of “intercepts” in his famous speech at the U.N. before the invasion of Iraq. Those intercepts, portrayed as a smoking gun, were laughable in their lack of actual content (and we had no reason to believe they were even legitimate to begin with). Likewise here, the belief that the intelligence services haven’t completely fabricated these intercepts is touching, but entirely unwarranted.
And why might they do that? Look around. The world, including this post, has now accepted as fact something which most definitely is not fact (see this post and its link to a FAIR article for more on that) - that Iran had a “nuclear weapons program.”
Does anybody else find the coincidence of Iran suspending its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and Iran trying to initiate no precondition diplomacy with the US in 2003 interesting? There really seems to be something worth exploring here. Did Iran make a unilateral decision in 2003 that nuclear weapons were not in its interest? What else was happening besides Iraq in 2003?
And hand this steaming pile off to the next president.
Just as Bu’ush gonna today take public credit for “fixing” the subprime mortgage mess. Kick that can down the road as well.
WOW. Dana just totally smacked down a reporter who tried to ask about HIV statistics. “inappropriate.”
i have seen no convincing evidence that iran has had a nuclear weapons program at any time during the last decade. in my mind that is very much an open question.
recommend bernhard’s post on this issue, “The NIE is a Ruse“
WH presser over. That little freak-out over the AIDS question was the strangest thing I’ve seen at a presser in quite a while.
OT..Speaking of books..The Sec. of Commerce supports radical Islam:
(snip)
Harper’s
“A Republican official close to Karl Rove, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to disclose information, confirmed that his book will be pure fuckery.”
BTW- It bears repeating:
“Freedom Requires Religion.”
- Mork Romney
After 11/08, Joe’s influence will drop big time. Then I trust he’ll be humored as simply that strange guy down the block who was the product of the marriage of cousins.
Deserves to be an amazon review. Go for it.
That timeline should also include the January Herzliya speech by Edwards and well-attended by Z*oni*ts and the Bush Administration officials, and his later AlPACA speech (full of Guano-co, that one). Edwards is right up there calling Iran “the World’s Greatest Sponsor of Terrorism”. And supplying and training Hezbollah, Hamas, the Syrians, etc. I don’t think that he was suggesting that Iran’s Department of Parks was behind this. He was calling the Military “terrorists”…right in front of the Bush Administration.
That’s a big “Green Light” in “Red Rover, Red Rover”.
And just to be fair there were lots of so-called progressives that swallowed the Nuclear-Iran Kool Aid…and “they’re terrorists”.
Take a look at the S.970 co-sponsorship list…it’s not just Obama and Clinton. Besidesthe Republicans and a large number of Blue Dogs, we’ve got Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Christopher Dodd, Richard Durbin, Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Amy Klobuchar, Debbie Ann Stabenow, Sheldon Whitehouse. A lot of these folks voted against the Iraq War Authorization Resolution. That’s also true of the Kyl-Lieberman Act, which has the same text in their declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization as S.970.
hey, lefti - is this you? if so, great blog… and a request: please update your profile with your blog link so everyone can easily link to it from your name when you comment. thx!
There was a major earthquake, and I believe that we actually sent some aid.
Perhaps relevant?
Uh, oh, we now have grave national peril:
yes. it’s human nature to want to blame our enemies and make excuses for our friends (at least i feel the urge all the time)…. something to struggle against in our quest to be a reality based community.
Thanks for the tip about the profile. Done.
Recall that Edwards said he has Republicans and Independents on his list of potential cabinet members…those who will strongly disagree with him!
Hmmmm! Just who is the only Independant in the Senate likely to argue with President Edwards? I fear for the Department that would be run by this idiot.
U.S. airlifts disaster aid into Iran
The location is Bat, in the far northern part of Iran near the Turkmenistan border. My first thought was that the CIA might be sending spooks in to check out the area, but it looks as though it’s in the middle of nowhere. Who knows?
I just read some quotations from Romney’s speech - couildn’t find the whole thing. And I read JFK’s from 1960. Unless the qoutes of Romney i’ve seen have been chosen for fluff value, he didn’t really address his faith. Kennedy did so repeatedly andspecifically addressed “pamphlets” with (undoubtedly looney)”quotations” from Catholics from other countries in other centuries. It just seems JFK was more head-on in addressing the issue. Romney more “religion is good.” Some intetresting things JFK said:
“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds. . . .”
-and -
where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its official.
-and-
where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source
My emphases, obviously. Again, I haven’t seen the whole speech, but I’ll bet Mitt’s position doesn’t come close. Separation of church and state “absolute”? No use of public funds ? “Directly or indirectly”?
“Or any other ecclesiastical source”? Far more reassuring, and less pedestrian, than what I’ve seen of Romney’s. So I just don’t get the people who are already calling Romney’s speech superb or whatever they’re calling it.
Good link to Moon of Alabama on the non-existence (or non-proof of existence, in any case) of any Iranian nuclear weapons program, thanks. I’ve been writing the same thing since the day the report appeared, as well as noting other problems with it.
Very astute, and very possible, LeCarre always warned about field agents
banking on knowing what they do not know… trojan horse anyone?
Dana=D.A.D.
Earthquake happened well after the Swiss fax of the Iranian’s offer for comprehensive diplomacy Dec 30,2003 for the earthquake, Swiss fax was May 4, 2003. Swiss fax
RonD, you’ve got me intensely curious now. What was asked and what was the nature of Peroxide’s freak-out?
But don’t you get it? The “neoconservative” desire to attack Iran is as much or more about Hezbollah than it ever was about speculative nuclear weapons. That’s what “sponsor of terrorism” means and always meant.
By way of comparison to the ugly compound of bellicosity and wormish obsequiousness demonstrated by Edwards and the rest at Herzliyah I’m including a link to Shimon Peres speech there:
http://www.herzliyaconference&.....goryID=223
I believe in his entire speech he didn’t mention mormon once, kennedy mentioned his religion a number of times
Probably that would be Putin, who has been jumping around waving his arms — figuratively and ballistically — trying to semaphore that it won’t take much more to convinced him to MIRV the continental U.S.. (I strongly object to using nouns as verbs; I will never write such a sentence again. Not much, I won’t.)
A reporter tried to ask about some HIV statistics coming out of the CDC, and she chopped him off right now. He then tri