James Woolsey & Military Action Against Iran ...Drumbeats of War Starting.

[RedEarth]

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Committee on the Present Danger, two front organizations in the neoconservative network, will try and move a "military strike" against Iran a notch closer tomorrow.

Monday morning, 9:30 a.m., in SC-6 of the U.S. Capitol, war-profiteer and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey will be joined by former RNC Spokesman and President for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies President Clifford May and Arizona Senator (and staunch supporter of the recess appointed John Bolton) Jon Kyl to help roll out public opinion research that allegedly states that Americans support military action against Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons program.

Some may try and laugh this off -- but it's no funny matter.

James Woolsey successfully master-minded the mass communication fiction that Saddam Hussein was connected to the 9/11/2001 al Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington by alleging that connection on major news stations on the day America was under siege. And while connecting Iraq to America's new terror problem, Woolsey failed to disclose that he was assisting his legal client Ahmed Chalabi who had everything to gain from a war against terror that included Iraq.

Woolsey & Co. are at it again on Iran.

From the press advisory:

As President Bush prepares to deliver his sixth State of the Union address (Jan. 31), the CPD (Committee on the Present Danger) will release a new Iran Policy Paper calling for stronger actions to prevent Iran -- ruled by the most radical regime in the Middle East and a long-time sponsor of international terrorism -- from acquiring nuclear weapons. The paper will argue that it is time to impose tough economic sanctions and to take action to promote regime change in Iran.
FDD (Foundation for Defense of Democracies) will release new polling data from Public Opinion Strategies showing that an overwhelming majority of Americans strongly opposes Iran's development of nuclear weapons. In addition, most Americans would support the U.S. joining with other countries to initiate "a limited military action to destroy Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons."


What is fundamentally disturbing about Woolsey's move is that they coincide with other movement.

I cannot validate the accuracy of a report I have -- but with the caveat that this may be erroneous information -- TWN has been told that senior Congressional leaders, including senior Democratic officials, were given a top secret briefing on Tuesday, 17 January, on potential military options against Iran. No Congressional leaders have publicly stated that they received such a briefing, but others close to the intelligence community have conveyed that information to TWN.

This briefing date coincides with Secretary of State Rice's meetings with European officials over next steps to take with Iran.

Another disturbing part of the brewing Iran problem is a classified Air Force bombing study that allegedly reports that it is possible for an American bombing campaign to destroy and/or incapacitate 85% of Iran's nuclear program.

This study is classified but has been informally referred to repeatedly by many intelligence and American military officials. The study is not new and has been making the rounds for more than a year, but there seems to be significantly greater confidence in the report now than a year ago -- and more celebration of the potential "85%" number.

Others in the government, the intelligence community, the nuclear weapons laboratories, and the military with whom I have spoken think that it is lunacy to adopt a highly confident position that the U.S. Air Force can knock out Iran's nuclear program.

more...........



http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001199.php

[Oreo]

1. Why wouldn't we be confident?

We all know how well the Iraqis greeting us with flowers line went.

85% to them means probably about 20% at most

[LoKnLoD]

2. Let us

send, dimson, crashcart, sleezy and wolfman over to Iran with some BB guns, and copies of Salmon Rushdie books and let them have at it.

[bigtree]

3. Woolsey

Former CIA director Woolsey was a Member of the 'Committee for the Liberation of Iraq' whose membership included John McCain, Newt Gingrich, William Kristol, General Barry McCaffrey and others.

The CLI lobbied for the installation of the so-called Iraqi National Congress to replace the Hussein dictatorship. This group was the creation of the U.S. Congress which, following testimony from Ahmed Chalabi, and defense policy executive, Zalmay Khalilzad, passed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, and sanctioned the new U.S. policy of regime change. Almost $100 million in taxpayer funds was provided to the group.(Woolsey later proposed the reinstatement of a constitutional monarchy in Iraq, in which a king would appoint the prime minister)

Gen. Lee Butler, of the Strategic Air Command, along with former Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed, and Col. Michael Wheeler, made a report in 1991 which recommended the targeting of our nuclear weaponry at "every reasonable adversary around the globe." The report warned of nuclear weapons states which are likely to emerge." They were aided in this by John Deutch, President Clinton's defense Secretary; Fred Iklé, former Deputy Defense Secretary, associated with Jonathan Pollard, Condoleezza Rice, who was on the National Security Council Staff, 1989-1991, and future CIA Director R. James Woolsey.

The new nuke report recommended that U.S. nuclear weapons be re-targeted, where U.S. forces faced conventional "impending annihilation ... at remote places around the globe," according to William M. Arkin and Robert S. Norris, in their criticism of the report in the April 1992 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ("Tiny Nukes").

[Arkansas Granny]

4. The more I hear them talk about Iran, the more it sounds like

the talk leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

[Disturbed]

5. James Woolsey- PNAC

SOS different year.

The Neo Fascists think that they can win a war with Iran.

I believe that they are insane. I also strongly feel that the Neo Fascists will be nuetered by the Amerikan Oligarchy who do not wish to see Amerika destroyed by the PNAC Neo Fascists.

[Hardrada]

7. I'd like to see the old cons in a real shootout with the

neocons. Then we can lock up whoever of them is still standing!

[RedEarth]

8. It sure does......some of the same people coming forward

I just can't imagine the impact an attack on Iran would have on the US, the Middle East, Europe and for that matter the entire world. It's a scary thought to think Bush and company is in charge of our foreign policy now.

[leveymg]

6. My response at Clemons blog

So, 85% - that's a Gentleman's B. No doubt, that sounds pretty good to the present occupant of the Oval Office. If the AF indeed met that goal, however, that would still leave more than fifty Iranian nuclear sites operating. As we all should know, Iran has no lack of uranium deposits. A preemptive strike that kills hundreds of Iranian scientists would leave the survivors highly motivated to put their knowledge and talents to quick use.

Anyone want to bet how long it would take Iran to construct a batch of radiological "dirty bombs"? Poor man's neutron bombs -- leaves urban neighborhoods standing but really brings down real estate values. A preemptive strike would therefore only prompt a nuclear strike on American soil of only a slightly less destructive type, but years earlier, and much more likely to actually happen.

That plan has an unacceptable cost/benefit ratio. I can guarantee that it isn't anywhere close to a Gentleman's B. The Pentagon and CIA surely know this, but that part's in the classified annex. Mr. Woolsey won't be the one to leak that part, surely.

Posted by: leveymg at January 23, 2006 05:35 PM

[EVDebs]

9. $100 per barrel oil translates into, what, $6 per gallon ? Did DOD think

this out first ?

[meganmonkey]

10. I think if the SOTU is all about Iran

and beating the war drums, I may have to leave this fucking country.

I can't take this shit anymore.

x(