Marjorie Cohn: Fool Us Twice? From Iraq To Iran

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/stories/47994/

Fool Us Twice? From Iraq to Iran

By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet. Posted February 14, 2007.

Hyped claims of nuclear weapons with no evidence to back it up ... Why does that sound familiar?

It's déja vu. This time the Bush gang wants war with Iran. Following a carefully orchestrated strategy, they have ratcheted up the "threat" from Iran, designed to mislead us into a new war four years after they misled us into Iraq.

Like its insistence that Iraq had WMD, the Bush administration has been hyping claims that Iran seeks nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), however, has found no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei says there is plenty of time for negotiation with Iran.

- snip -

This "evidence" -- or "packaging," as the Associated Press calls it -- doesn't pass the straight face test with most reputable observers. "The officials offered no evidence to substantiate allegations that the 'highest levels' of the Iranian government had sanctioned support for attacks against U.S. troops," according to Monday's Washington Post.

- snip -

Any Iranian weapons in Iraq may belong to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite resistance group the U.S. used to support. There could be old Iranian munitions lying around which are left over from the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s. A former high-level U.S. military officer told me it was not uncommon to find large caches of weapons around Iraq. He cited the 2004 discovery of 37,000 American Colt 45 handguns in a warehouse near the Iranian border on the Iraq side, likely procured "when Saddam was our friend." The United States armed both sides in the Iran-Iraq conflict.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, released last week, concluded that Iranian or Syrian involvement is "not likely to be a major driver of violence" in Iraq.

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[peacebird]

1. Didn't fool most of us the first time, but Congress was derelict in their duty.

Will they be again and allow bush to get away with attacking Iran?

THAT is the million dollar question.