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Bush’s Future Iran War Speech: Three Charges in the Case for War

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Sometime this spring or summer, barring an unexpected turnaround by Tehran, President Bush is likely to go on national television and announce that he has ordered American ships and aircraft to strike at military targets inside Iran. We must still sit through several months of soap opera at the United Nations in New York and assorted foreign capitals before this comes to pass, and it is always possible that a diplomatic breakthrough will occur – let it be so! – but I am convinced that Bush has already decided an attack is his only option and the rest is a charade he must go through to satisfy his European allies. The proof of this, I believe, lies half-hidden in recent public statements of his, which, if pieced together, provide a casus belli, or formal list of justifications, for going to war.

Three of his statements, in particular, contained the essence of this justification: his January 10 televised speech on his plan for a troop “surge” in Iraq, his State of the Union Address of January 23, and his first televised press conference of the year on February 14. None of these was primarily focused on Iran, but the President used each of them to warn of the extraordinary dangers that country poses to the United States and to hint at severe U.S. reprisals if the Iranians did not desist from “harming U.S. troops.” In each, moreover, he laid out various parts of the overall argument he will certainly use to justify an attack on Iran. String these together in one place and you can almost anticipate what Bush’s speechwriters will concoct before he addresses the American people from the Oval Office sometime later this year. Think of them as talking points for the next war.

[Truthout.org::via::TomDispatch.com]

US intelligence on Iran does not stand up, say Vienna sources

“Much of the intelligence on Iran’s nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by American spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, according to diplomatic sources in Vienna.

The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme.

That report, delivered to the security council by the IAEA director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, sets the stage for a fierce international debate on the imposition of stricter sanctions on Iran, and raises the possibility that the US might resort to military action against Iranian nuclear sites.”

[The Guardian (UK)]

Arab States, Wary of Iran, Add to Their Arsenals but Still Lean on the U.S.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Feb. 22 — As fears grow over the escalating confrontation between Iran and the West, Arab states across the Persian Gulf have begun a rare show of muscle flexing, publicly advertising a shopping spree for new weapons and openly discussing their security concerns.

Typically secretive, the gulf nations have long planned upgrades to their armed forces, but now are speaking openly about them. American military officials say the countries, normally prone to squabbling, have also increased their military cooperation and opened lines of communication to the American military here.

Patriot missile batteries capable of striking down ballistic missiles have been readied in several gulf countries, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, analysts say, and increasingly, the states have sought to emphasize their unanimity against Iran’s nuclear ambitions…

As tensions with Iran rise, many gulf countries have come to see themselves as the likely first targets of an Iranian attack. Some have grown more concerned that the United States may be overstretched militarily, many analysts say, while almost all the monarchies, flush with cash as a result of high oil prices, have sought to build a military deterrent of their own.

“The message is first, ‘U.S., stay involved here,’ and second, ‘Iran, we will maintain a technological edge no matter what,’ ” said Emile el-Hokayem, research fellow at the Henry L. Stimson Center, a research center based in Washington. “They are trying to reinforce the credibility of the threat of force.”

[NYTimes]

U.S. Used Base in Ethiopia To Hunt Al Qaeda in Africa

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 — The American military quietly waged a campaign from Ethiopia last month to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa, including the use of an airstrip in eastern Ethiopia to mount airstrikes against Islamic militants in neighboring Somalia, according to American officials.

The close and largely clandestine relationship with Ethiopia also included significant sharing of intelligence on the Islamic militants’ positions and information from American spy satellites with the Ethiopian military. Members of a secret American Special Operations unit, Task Force 88, were deployed in Ethiopia and Kenya, and ventured into Somalia, the officials said.

The counterterrorism effort was described by American officials as a qualified success that disrupted terrorist networks in Somalia, led to the death or capture of several Islamic militants and involved a collaborative relationship with Ethiopia that had been developing for years.

[NYTimes]

N. Korea Agrees to Nuclear Disarmament

BEIJING (AP) – North Korea agreed Tuesday after arduous talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor and eventually dismantle its atomic weapons program, just four months after the communist state shocked the world by testing a nuclear bomb.

The deal marks the first concrete plan for disarmament in more than three years of six-nation negotiations. The plan also could potentially herald a new era of cooperation in the region with the North’s longtime foes – the United States and Japan – also agreeing to discuss normalizing relations.

“Obviously we have a long way to go, but we’re very pleased with this agreement,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters. “It’s a very solid step forward.”

Making sure North Korea declares all its nuclear facilities and shuts them down is likely to prove difficult, nuclear experts have said.

The country has sidestepped previous agreements, allegedly running a uranium-based weapons program even as it froze a plutonium-based one – sparking the latest nuclear crisis in late 2002. There are believed to be countless mountainside tunnels in which to hide projects.

[Guardian (UK)]

Iran on course for nuclear bomb, EU told


Iran will be able to develop enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear bomb and there is little that can be done to prevent it, an internal European Union document has concluded.

In an admission of the international community’s failure to hold back Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the document – compiled by the staff of Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief – says the atomic programme has been delayed only by technical limitations rather than diplomatic pressure. “Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have not so far succeeded,” it states.

The downbeat conclusions of the “reflection paper” – seen by the Financial Times – are certain to be seized on by advocates of military action, who fear that Iran will be able to produce enough fissile material for a bomb over the next two to three years. Tehran insists its purposes are purely peaceful.

“At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons programme,” says the paper, dated February 7 and circulated to the EU’s 27 national governments ahead of a foreign ministers meeting yesterday.

[Financial Times]

Related:
Iran president ‘ready for talks’

Blowup? America’s Hidden War With Iran


‘They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for,’” says Hillary Mann, the administration’s former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs U.S. officials insist they have no intention of provoking or otherwise starting a war with Iran, and they were also quick to deny any link to Sharafi’s kidnapping.

But the fact remains that the longstanding war of words between Washington and Tehran is edging toward something more dangerous.

A second Navy carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf, and NEWSWEEK has learned that a third carrier will likely follow. Iran shot off a few missiles in those same tense waters last week, in a highly publicized test. With Americans and Iranians jousting on the chaotic battleground of Iraq, the chances of a small incident’s spiraling into a crisis are higher than they’ve been in years.

[Newsweek via RawStory]

Israeli missile test ‘successful’

Israel has carried out a successful test of its Arrow missile, the defence ministry has said.

The test took place as Iran celebrated the 28th anniversary of its Islamic revolution.

Israeli public television called the test a “message to Iran”.

The anti-ballistic missile system was developed jointly with the United States after Israel came under attack by Iraqi Scud missiles during the first Gulf War.

[BBC News]

Putin in landmark visit to Saudi Arabia


Russian President Vladimir Putin kicks off a Middle East tour, seeking to enhance ties with traditional US allies in the region after launching a scathing attack on Washington’s foreign policy.

On the eve of his departure, the Russian leader attacked the United States as a reckless “unipolar” power that has made the world more dangerous by pursuing policies that have led to war, ruin and insecurity.

“The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres — economic, political and humanitarian and has imposed itself on other states,” Putin said at a conference on security policy in Munich.

Such a situation “is extremely dangerous. No one feels secure because no one can hide behind international law,” Putin said. US dominance, he said, was “ruinous”.

“Local and regional wars didn’t get fewer. The number of people who died didn’t get less, but increased… We see no kind of restraint, a hyper-inflated use of force.”

The United States, he said, had gone “from one conflict to another without achieving a fully-fledged solution to any of them.”

…Decades of Saudi suspicion about Moscow’s intentions in the Middle East have given way to warming relations, with the two sides recently discussing the sale of Russian T-90 battle tanks and Mi-17 military helicopters — the sorts of arms Riyadh has traditionally bought from the United States.

[RawStory/AFP]

Low Turnout Undercuts Portugal Vote on Abortion

LISBON, Feb. 11 — Portugal voted decisively in a referendum on Sunday to liberalize its restrictive abortion law, but the result was not considered valid because of low voter turnout.

Still, Prime Minister José Sócrates, a Socialist who supported the liberalization, declared victory and said he would ask Parliament, where his party enjoys a comfortable majority, to change the law.

[NYTimes]

‘Dubious’ Intelligence Fueled Push for War

Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included “reporting of dubious quality or reliability” that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general.

Feith’s office “was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,” according to portions of the report, released yesterday by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). The inspector general described Feith’s activities as “an alternative intelligence assessment process.”

An unclassified summary of the full document is scheduled for release today in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Levin chairs. In that summary, a copy of which was obtained from another source by The Washington Post, the inspector general concluded that Feith’s assessment in 2002 that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a “mature symbiotic relationship” was not fully supported by available intelligence but was nonetheless used by policymakers.

[WashingtonPost]

Violence Erupts at Jerusalem Holy Site

JERUSALEM (AP) – Hundreds of Israeli police stormed Islam’s third-holiest shrine Friday, firing stun grenades and tear gas to disperse hundreds of Muslim worshippers who hurled stones, bottles and trash in an eruption of outrage over Israeli renovation work nearby.

The clash at the end of noon prayers came after days of mounting tensions over the work and raised concern that protests at the site could spread to the West Bank and Gaza, as they did at the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. No serious injuries were reported.

About 200 police streamed on to the hilltop compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, to try to quell Muslims rioting over the repair work, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

[Guardian (UK)]

The Pentagon’s not-so-little secret

As the president and Republicans continue to hype the surge — and stifle debate about it — Bush’s own war planners are preparing for failure in Iraq.

Feb. 8, 2007 | Deep within the bowels of the Pentagon, policy planners are conducting secret meetings to discuss what to do in the worst-case scenario in Iraq about a year from today if and when President Bush’s escalation of more than 20,000 troops fails, a participant in those discussions told me. None of those who are taking part in these exercises, shielded from the public view and the immediate scrutiny of the White House, believes that the so-called surge will succeed. On the contrary, everyone thinks it will not only fail to achieve its aims but also accelerate instability by providing a glaring example of U.S. incapacity and incompetence.

[Salon.com]

‘A Platoon Of Lesbians’ Could ‘Chase Us Out Of Baghdad’


Yesterday, during hearings on the State Department’s 2008 budget, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) slammed the U.S. military’s ban on gay servicemembers, saying the Pentagon “seems more afraid of gay people than they are [of] terrorists,” and that if the terrorists were smart, “they’d get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.”

video and full transcript at the link below:

[ThinkProgress]

Hackers Attack Key Net Traffic Computers

Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.

Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the resiliency of the Internet. Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet’s most vital pipelines.

The attacks appeared to target UltraDNS, the company that operates servers managing traffic for Web sites ending in “org” and some other suffixes, experts said. Officials with NeuStar Inc., which owns UltraDNS, confirmed only that it had observed an unusual increase in traffic.

Among the targeted “root” servers that manage global Internet traffic were ones operated by the Defense Department and the Internet’s primary oversight body (ICANN).

[AP News]