* Ignored Saddam's Exile Documents, WHAT ABOUT '03 IRAN PROPOSAL PASSED BY NEY?

[mod mom]

WE ARE AWARE OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DETERMINATION TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAQ WITH CHERRY PICKED INTEL AND IGNORING DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS, BUT WILL A POSSIBLE MILITARY ACTION WITH IRAN LOOMING, SHOULDN'T WE REVISIT THIS STORY?

February 17, 2007
Trita Parsi's Role in Promulgating Knowledge of 2003 Iran Proposal



IPS Correspondent Gareth Porter has an important article out today, "Rove Said to Have Received 2003 Iranian Proposal."

Porter writes:

Karl Rove, then White House deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush, received a copy of the secret Iranian proposal for negotiations with the United States from former Republican Congressman Bob Ney in early May 2003, according to an Iranian-American scholar who was then on his Congressional staff.

Ney, who pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to prison in January for his role in the Jack Abramov lobbying scandal, was named by former aide Trita Parsi as an intermediary who took a copy of the Iranian proposal to the White House.

Parsi is now a specialist on Iranian national security policy and president of the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), a non-partisan organization that supports a negotiated settlement of the conflict between Iran and the United States.

Parsi revealed that the document was delivered specifically to Rove, in an exclusive interview with IPS. Within two hours of the delivery of the document, according to Parsi, Ney received a phone call from Rove confirming his receipt of the document. Parsi said the proposal was delivered to Rove the same week that the State Department received it by fax, which was on or about May 4, 2003, according to the cover letter accompanying it.

Ney was chosen by Swiss Ambassador in Tehran Tim Guldimann to carry the Iranian proposal to the White House, according to Parsi, because he knew the Ohio Congressman to be the only Farsi-speaking member of Congress and particularly interested in Iran.

The revelation that Trita Parsi made about Congressman Ney's interaction with the White House on the Iran proposal was made at a conference co-sponsored by the New America Foundation and the National Iranian American Council titled US-Iran Relations: Collision, Stand-Off or Convergence?
The revelation that Rove is involved is huge -- because it further raises the stakes for exactly why then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that she never "saw the fax" of the Guldimann-couriered Iran offer.
Foreign policy officials confirm to this writer that the fax did make it to National Security Council official Elliot Abrams, who has not admitted seeing the memos sent by Guldimann.

-snip

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001953.php


Rove Said to Have Received Iranian Proposal in 2003
By Gareth Porter, IPS News. Posted February 20, 2007.

Who else in the Bush administration was aware of the secret proposal?

Karl Rove, then White House senior political advisor for President George W. Bush, received a copy of the secret Iranian proposal for negotiations with the United States from former Republican Congressman Bob Ney in early May 2003, according to an Iranian-American scholar who was then on his Congressional staff.

Ney, who pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to prison in January for his role in the Jack Abramov lobbying scandal, was named by former aide Trita Parsi as an intermediary who took a copy of the Iranian proposal to the White House.

Parsi is now a specialist on Iranian national security policy and president of the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), a non-partisan organisation that supports a negotiated settlement of the conflict between Iran and the United States.

Parsi revealed that the document was delivered specifically to Rove, in an exclusive interview with IPS. Within two hours of the delivery of the document, according to Parsi, Ney received a phone call from Rove confirming his receipt of the document. Parsi said the proposal was delivered to Rove the same week that the State Department received it by fax, which was on or about May 4, 2003, according to the cover letter accompanying it.

-snip

http://www.alternet.org/story/48238/

[mod mom]

1. Here is a Democracy Now interview with Trita Parsi

Trita Parsi is the President of the National Iranian American Council, the largest Iranian-American organization in the US:

Monday, February 26th, 2007
Ex-Congressional Aide: Karl Rove Personally Received (And Ignored) Iranian Peace Offer in 2003


As Seymour Hersh reports the Pentagon has created a special panel to plan a bombing attack on Iran, we examine how the Bush administration ignored a secret offer to negotiate with Iran in 2003. We speak with the National Iranian American Council's Trita Parsi, a former aide to Republican congressman Bob Ney.

While the Bush administration continues to insist it has no plans to go to war with Iran, the New Yorker magazine is reporting the Pentagon has created a special panel to plan a bombing attack on Iran that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President Bush. According to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months.

In response to the report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman denied the US was planning to go to war with Iran and said "To suggest anything to the contrary is simply wrong, misleading and mischievous." Whitman went on to say the White House is continuing to address concerns in the region through diplomatic efforts.

This comes against the backdrop of last week's allegation that Bush's chief advisor Karl Rove personally received a copy of a secret offer from the Iranian government to hold negotiations four years ago. The Bush administration decided to ignore the grand bargain offer. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently claimed she had never even seen the document. At the time Iran said it would consider far-reaching compromises on its nuclear program, relations with Hezbollah and Hamas and support for a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel.

interview follows at:-snip

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/26/157241

[mod mom]

2. MUST READ FROM THE INTERVIEW w TRITA PARSI:

(WORTH READING ENTIRE INTERVIEW )from the Interview:

"Basically, they said the United States has a couple of aims, Iran has a couple of aims, and there is a process to be able to proceed with the negotiations.

And what the Iranians agreed to discuss as a framework of the negotiations was how to disarm the Hezbollah, how to end support to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, how to open up the nuclear program, how to help the United States stabilize Iraq, and, in short, that the government there would not along sectarian lines, and also how to sign onto the Beirut Declaration, which is basically a former recognition of the two-state solution. These are far-reaching compromises that Iran potentially would have agreed to in the negotiations, but the Bush administration, as you reported, decided simply not to respond to the proposal."

[mod mom]

3. Well guys, doesn't this sound like Iran is PNAC business as usual? Ignore diplomatic

efforts and full steam ahead?

[mod mom]

4. ok...one more kick because I believe this ties right in w Iranian momentum.

[autorank]

5. Mod Mom ... have a question for you, and YES this is outrageous.

Ney has been a guilty guy for a long time. Maybe the intention of the indictment was to discredit him in case he ever shot off his mouth about this. Neat isn't it. Indict a guilty guy who has information that makes you look guilty, then his testimony is irrelevant. But what they forgot is this is not the court of public opinion. Federal prosecutors put people away all the time with testimony from crooks.

Excellent!

[Auntie Bush]

6. Thanks for your kick and comment.

Yes, this is outrageous and too important to be ignored. But it's a hard topic to respond to...hence the lack of response. No one knows much about the subject but thanks to Mod Mom...we're getting educated.

If bush et al ignored Saddam's offer to leave Iraq...why shouldn't we believe they ignored Iran's offer to? Of course the lying bastards did!

Maybe this will come out in some sort of investigation...fat chance!
About the same odds of bush* being impeached by this congress.

[malaise]

7. K & R

Nothing surprises me anymore.