Top U.S official: There's no way to stop Iran's nuclear program

[Poll_Blind]

Source: Haaretz

"There's no way and no chance to stop the Iranian nuclear program," Republican U.S. Congressman and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra told the independent American news site Newsmax in an interview on Tuesday.

The Congressman, who has access to top secret information, indicated that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be "incredibly difficult and complex."

Hoekstra explained that while Israel's attack on a Syrian complex in 2007 completely destroyed in a single blow what the committee believes was a nuclear reactor located at a remote site, the case with Iran is entirely different. "In Iran you'd have to make multiple attacks against very difficult targets, with very precision bombing. That's very very difficult," he said.

When asked if the United States would be involved if Israel was to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Hoekstra replied that "It might, because if Israel decides to attack Iran's nuclear facilities it would have to be a broad-based attack and a pretty extensive attack."

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1059583.html

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Emphasis mine. Proof-positive Hoekstra and other Republicans are still living in the dreamiest of dream worlds. Dream on, dreamers, dream on.

PB

[Tempest]

1. Funny how they waited until Obama was in office to announce this

Something we knew all along.

[closeupready]

2. Maybe they just forgot to mention it.

:sarcasm:

[JayMusgrove]

3. They were still trying to push the myth that Sarah Palin would ...

stop the Iranians dead in their tracks, and had 46% of voters believing she and John would do so.

[stillcool]

4. Just like Saddam..

what the hell, it worked then, why not now?

[sabra]

5. this is the guy who said that we found WMD in Iraq...

[Wizard777]

6. He forgot a word. Militarily. There's no way to militarily stop Iran's nuclear program

I guess the republicans are finally getting up to speed on this. We Democrats have known this for quite sometime. This is why we want to focus on diplomatically stopping them from producing nuclear weapons. That actually has a chance of succeeding. If the radical Ahmadinejad is defeated by a more moderate voice in the next election. The chances of reaching an accord with Iran greatly improve. We have a common ground to work from in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that we are both signatories too. In the past we shared that ideal with Iran. We have democratically corrected our diversion from our ideals and values. Now it's Iran's turn by electing a more moderate voice to represent them. Ahmadinejad has done well in laying down the hard line. Now we need a moderate voice to lay down a workable line. Something that works or Iran as well as the rest of the world.

[Texano78704]

7. Of course it was Newsmax interview

They do all the interviews that the National Enquirer won't touch. That should tell you something.

[lelgt60]

8. How would most Americans feel if the shoe was on the other foot?

Imagine some other country, way more powerful than us, was telling us that we couldn't develop nuclear technology. Imagine that, while we had our share of loud-mouthed politicians, we had no aggressive military record. Imagine they had no proof, only fear, that we only wanted to develop nuclear technology in order to get a bomb. Imagine we had a neighbor that we had strong differences with that had the bomb, and a strong military, and a record of using that military when it felt threatened.

I don't doubt that hardly a single American would take this lying down.

BTW, as anybody who has checked my posts here, I'm as strong a supporter of Israel as anyone. I don't want Iran (or anyone else) to have nuclear weapons. I just don't see how this is fair. I'd like to hear reasonable analysis that says I'm missing something. Really.

[struggle4progress]

9. House Intelligence Committee Chairman is now Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), not Peter Hoekstra:

Here's a nice tidbit

When Hoekstra was House Intelligence Chairman, the Committee released a report “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States”

The report was so bad, the IAEA wrote Hoekstra a letter complaining it was “outrageous and dishonest” and contained “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated statements”

Actually, the Committee never voted on that report: Hoekstra released it without a vote so Democrats couldn't review it

See:
Context of 'August 23, 2006: Republican Intelligence Report on Iran’s Nuclear Program Is Fundamentally False'
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=us_plans_to_use_military_force_against_iran_371