Bu$hCo Looks for Another Blank Check

According to Ray McGovern :

Whatever plans Dick Cheney and his neo-conservatives may have had to conjure up a nuclear threat from Iran as "justification" for military action have been sharply undercut by some timely leaks to the Washington Post. In a redux of President George W. Bush's spin on the "grave and growing" danger from Iraq, Cheney protégé and newly appointed U.N. Ambassador John Bolton is on record warning that Iranian "deception" must not be allowed to continue much longer: "It will be too late. Iran will have nuclear weapons."

Not for ten more years, report sources close to the U.S. intelligence community in yesterday's lead story in the Post. Several government officials with access to the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran have told journalist Dafna Linzer of its main judgments. By doing so, Linzer's sources seem determined not to sit idly by as our country is misled once again into a war favored only by "neo-conservatives" in Washington and their counterparts in the far-right Likud government in Israel who share a vision of remaking the map of the Middle East.

Linzer has shown commendable tenacity on Iran and the nuclear issue-tenacity highly unusual by today's lax media standards. According to Linzer's sources, the National Intelligence Estimate states that, while there are credible signs that the Iranian military is doing some clandestine work, there is no information to connect that work directly to a nuclear weapons program. Moreover, U.N. inspectors have found no convincing proof that Iran is conducting a nuclear weapons program or that it has a nuclear warhead design.

The NIE concludes that Iran will not be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon until "early to mid-next decade," with general consensus among intelligence analysts that 2015 would actually be the earliest...

The exposure of these intelligence judgments is extremely well timed. It comes amid rumors that Vice President Cheney's office has ordered up contingency plans for a large-scale air assault on Iran using not only conventional weapons but also tactical nuclear weapons to take out hardened underground nuclear facilities. The action would be framed as a response to a terrorist act-whether sponsored by Iran or not-on the United States. According to former CIA operative Philip Giraldi, senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are appalled that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked attack but, sadly, no one wants to jeopardize a career by posing objections... ( Thanks to Truthout for the link. )

It's nice to see despite the best efforts of Goss that not everyone in the Agency belongs to the Company. They're playing Spy vs. Spy in Washington. The problem is we have met the enemy, and he is us.

You might ask what would be the point of risking your career by posing objections. If you did, you'd be out on your ass in a moment. No, I commend the Agency people and the real American soldiers at the D. o'D. who keep their lips buttoned in front of the Company people, but do their best to try to inform the main$tream media who will listen (and the progressive blogsphere) about what treasonous nonsense Cheneyburton and Bu$hCo are planning.

Still, the harder it is for Big Time Dick to sell his shiny new War in Iran, the closer we are to a major terrorist event here at home.

If someone lights a nuke on American soil, look for a mushroom cloud over Tehran, and Company men taking Iranian oilfields.

No matter who actually does it.

But does it matter who does it? We know precisely who profits from it. The real question is how far does the secret war between the Agency and the Company have to go before things get really out of hand.