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Herein lies the rub: positive relations and/or economic ties with Iran are inceasingly becoming part of the security calculus of some other important players. The Bush Administration has consistently been so weak on diplomacy and foreign policy that they have essentially let the Iranians have the game at this point.
I also think the Bush Administration has been weak diplomatically. I think that other nations are not calculating Iran in terms of security, but in terms of economics. Both Russia and China draw large amounts of petroleum from Iran. Hence, normalized relations with Iran would only beneficial if they gave the U.S. oil.
My fantasy is to exterminate the Iranians and take their oil. I feel the 'Supreme Dictator' thread flowing in my veins!
Originally posted by Swift Sword
If we set aside nationalism, it's associated jingoism and the general ideologic trash that both the Bush Administration and the Mullahs pimp for internal consumption, it appears that a quick thaw and some sort of normalized relations with Iran are decidedly in the American self interest and would be of great benefit to the transformation of the Iranian economy and society as well.
Again, normalized relations are only valuable to the U.S. if Iran can offer something in return. The status quo is not helpful. Even if we establish peaceful relations with Iran, that nation will continue to feed oil to China and Russia. China is a serious strategic rival of the United States and should be deprived of Iranian assistance.
Originally posted by Swift Sword
Furthermore, it is worth pointing out that the United States and Israel do not appear to have the intelligence resources or strike assets to make a credible threat of WMD pre-emption or decapitating strike against the Iranians.
American intelligence is embarrassed after its failures in assessing Saddam Hussein. However, Israeli military and intelligence capabilities are always superb.
American intelligence is embarrassed after its failures in assessing Saddam Hussein. However, Israeli military and intelligence capabilities are always superb.
You're crapping me! Who do you think was pushing the US into the Iraq War?
United Press International
March 28, 2004 Sunday
HEADLINE: Knesset committee criticizes intelligence
DATELINE: JERUSALEM, March 28 (UPI)
A Knesset intelligence subcommittee Sunday criticized the failure to assess Iraq's military capabilities and Libya's attempts to develop a nuclear bomb.
The subcommittee on intelligence affairs noted that the military intelligence had estimated Baghdad had chemical and biological weapons as well as dozens of missiles. The closer the war became, the higher the estimates of Iraq's arsenal, it noted.
Early estimates that Iraq had few long-range missiles changed on the eve of the war to reports that it had 50 to 100 missiles. Estimates were presented as facts, the committee said.
Israel's failure to learn, from its own sources, about Libya's nuclear plans was "intolerable," the committee added.
It suggested that assessments provided American and other agencies eventually made their way back to Israel as opinions of other intelligence services and thus strengthened the original Israeli notions.
The Israeli government's decisions to order citizens to open gas masks and inoculate 17,000 first responders was "reasonable" because weapons of mass destruction are easy to hide and the Iraqi air force's training showed it was preparing offensive options, the committee added.
Agence France Presse
March 28, 2004 Sunday
HEADLINE: Israeli intelligence criticised for wartime assessment of Iraq threat
BYLINE: HAZEL WARD
DATELINE: JERUSALEM, March 28
Israeli deputies criticised the intelligence services for exaggerating the risk of an Iraqi attack before and during last year's conflict, saying in a report released Sunday they had relied too much on speculation rather than facts.
An initial draft of the report drawn up by a defence subcommittee blamed the intelligence establishment for having both exaggerated the threat of Iraq having non-conventional weapons, while remaining ignorant of Libya's nuclear developments.
On the Iraq front, the report slammed the fact that Israeli intelligence assessments pointed to a "high probability" Baghdad had a long-range or non-conventional weapons capability, despite having no hard evidence to prove it.
"What really bothered us was why we and other agencies in the West didn't have signal and visual intelligence so we could rely on hard facts and not on estimates and speculation," said subcommitee chairman Yuval Steinitz, who also heads up the foreign affairs and defence committee.
Presenting the findings to reporters at the Israeli parliament, Steinitz said the problem of mistaken security assessments was compounded by information sharing between various international intelligence agencies.
"The Israeli intelligence services gave information to the foreign services and they used that, and in the next consultation it came back to us," Steinitz said, describing it as the 'what goes around, comes around' effect.
"There was a circle of feedback that was self-perpetuating without substantiation."
The report, which was presented to President Moshe Katzav Sunday, also slammed the fact that Libya developed its nuclear capabilities to the point it could have posed a very serious threat to Israel "without the intelligence services giving so much as a warning", Steinitz said.
However, the committee's findings cleared the intelligence establishment of any attempts to deceive the political echelon about Iraq.
"There was no sign of deliberate deception or distortion of intelligence data. If there were mistakes made, they were made innocently and in good will," Steinitz said.
Despite the shortcomings, the 80-page report stops short of pointing the finger at individuals or placing blame, and instead recommends far-reaching structural changes within the intelligence services.
In order to counter problems of information gathering and distribution between the various services, such as military intelligence and the Mossad spy agency, the committee recommended the appointment of an intelligence secretary and the establishment of a ministerial committee for intelligence.
Four months ago, Israeli analyst Shlomo Brom published a report accusing the Israeli intelligence community of overstating the risk of an Iraqi attack, saying they "greatly exaggerated the risk of a non-conventional attack without daring to say that it was little or nil."
In his report, Brom said the Israeli intelligence services had lost credibility with both their overseas counterparts and the public while also spending "a great deal of money on addressing threats that were either non-existent or highly unlikely."
Precautionary measures taken included the mobilisation of troops, the deployment of anti-missile defences and the distribution of millions of gas masks to the population.
Towards the end of the US-led campaign which ousted Saddam Hussein last April, Israel's military intelligence chief General Aharon Zeevi said there was "no doubt that Iraq has non-conventional weapons."
During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles armed with conventional warheads at Israel.
XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
March 28, 2004, Sunday
HEADLINE: Writethru: Israeli Parliament report slams assessment of dangers posed by Libya, Iraq
DATELINE: JERUSALEM, March 28
A Knesset (Israeli parliament) report released Sunday criticized the Israel Defense Forces'(IDF) Military Intelligence branch and the Mossad for their lack of an accurate assessment of dangers posed by both Libya and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
The report, compiled by a special investigation panel of the Knesset subcommittee supervising Israel's secret services, slams the intelligence services for failing to discover whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to recognize Libya was in the advanced stages of developing its nuclear capability.
The committee, headed by Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz, said this was a "serious intelligence failure that must lead to housecleaning and reorganization."
On the issue of Iraqi WMD, the report said, "It could be that these weapons could yet be uncovered, but it remains a significant gap between intelligence assessment that this weaponry existed and they are ready to be fired."
It recommended the structure of the intelligence community could be changed in such ways as removing intelligence-gathering unit " 8200" from Military Intelligence auspices and transforming it into an independent national intelligence agency.
Sources close to the panel claimed it has concluded that intelligence officials issued mistaken assessments of Iraqi WMD.
The panel, however, said Israel's intelligence officials did not make a fundamental error in assessments on Iraq, so it did not recommend that any official be censured or removed.
While an 80-page public report is to be released, the investigation committee's main findings and conclusions are to be relayed in a classified section of the document.
This classified section with graphs and tables will be finished in a few weeks, and submitted to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, and IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon.
The investigation committee held 50 meetings over an eight-month period, and heard testimony from 70 witnesses, including Sharon, Mofaz, Ya'alo and the heads of the Mossad, Military Intelligence as well as the Shin Bet security service (General Security Service).
The panel considered a number of issues, including what intelligence officials knew about Iraq's ability to fire conventional or non-conventional missiles at Israel, the nature of intelligence cooperation between Israel and friendly nations and whether the decision to order citizens to open gas masks was warranted.
The Jerusalem Post
March 28, 2004, Sunday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 2
HEADLINE: Knesset report on Iraq War due today
BYLINE: Arieh O'Sullivan
A Knesset probe into intelligence assessments before and during the US war on Iraq is to be released Sunday.
According to a report on Army Radio, the inquiry did not find that the Israel Defense Forces purposely misled the political echelon about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - programs. However, the report does blame the IDF's intelligence branch for its assessments of Iraq's weapons capabilities.
Recommendations of the inquiry could have ramifications on the debate in the US concerning failures of the American intelligence community to accurately assess whether Iraq had WMD, a claim US President George W. Bush used to garner support for American action there.
Channel 1 reported that US officials have already received an advanced copy of the report and were examining it.
The inquiry was conducted by a classified subcommittee set up by Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuval Steinitz (Likud). He is to hand the report to President Moshe Katzav at noon.
The subcommittee began its work last summer and immediately ran into huge opposition from the Israeli defense establishment. It wanted to investigate Israel's readiness and the intelligence community's activities in preparation for the Iraq war. At the time, the defense establishment exaggerated the assessments of the intelligence community.
Prior to the US invasion, the intelligence assessments had indicated the presence of weapons of mass destruction and ground-to-ground missiles in Iraq. That information led to the costly decision to have citizens here open gas mask kits and the enlistment of reservists.
This decision was based mainly on intention rather than capability, something the subcommittee questioned whether this should have been the basis for an assessment.
Aside from Steinitz, members of the panel include former Mossad chief Danny Yatom (Labor) and his brother Ehud (Likud), a former Shin Bet official. David Levy (Likud), Eli Yishai (Shas), Ilan Leibovitch (Shinui), and Haim Ramon (Labor) are also members of the panel.
Steinitz has said that the IDF was not especially cooperative with the probe, but more than 40 meetings have already been held.
"All of the IDF brass and, to my regret, the defense minister too were against this," Steinitz said. "But they understood their full subordination to the parliament."
Steinitz said the inquiry would be a sort of case study to develop a doctrine for dealing with enemies without borders with Israel. This included examining the overlap between the Mossad and Military Intelligence, and the use of technological versus human intelligence gathering.
Steinitz said he saw this as a case study to learn and develop Israel's intelligence doctrine regarding the second- and third-tier states, which are becoming more relevant as threats to Israel because of missiles and jets and non-conventional weaponry.
"The discussions were fascinating and I can tell you that today I am more convinced of the necessity of the committee," Steinitz said.
MK Matan Vilna'i (Labor), a former deputy chief of General Staff, on Friday called for the establishment of a commission which has the power to actualize the findings and recommendations of the report.
"Israelis are left unsatisfied over questions of how decisions are made in extremely sensitive matters. This is a weak point and requires a swift solution," Vilna'i told Army Radio on Friday.
In December, conflicting reports published by a respected Tel Aviv think tank indicated deep disagreement over the failure by Israeli intelligence regarding Saddam Hussein's threat to strike Israel.
One report, penned by veteran IDF intelligence officer Col. (res.) Ephraim Kam, the deputy head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, claimed Israeli intelligence was correct in assuming Iraq had the capability and intention of striking Israel during the recent US invasion - if only to play it safe following the previous conflict, in which Israel was hit by 39 Iraqi Scuds with conventional warheads.
The other report, by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shlomo Brom, claimed Israeli intelligence not only was a "full partner" in the failure to correctly assess Saddam's capabilities and intentions, but had participated in an "exaggerated assessment" with the Americans and British. While not overtly political, this was mainly due to "excessive intelligence anxiety" to adopt the worst-case scenario in order to be heroes if validated, and forgiven if their bleak prophecies did not materialize, Brom said.
He warned that the good reputation enjoyed by Israeli intelligence could be jeopardized by this failure, and hinted there may have been subtle political influence on the intelligence assessment.
Knight Ridder Washington Bureau
March 29, 2004, Monday
HEADLINE: Israeli intelligence off the mark on Saddam's military, report says
BYLINE: By Michael Matza and Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
JERUSALEM _ Israeli intelligence seriously overrated the military capacity of Saddam Hussein in the runup to the Iraq war because its secret services based their assessments on broad estimates and not hard data, a parliamentary committee said Sunday.
Israel had "insufficient founded intelligence and so we had to work with conjectures and estimates. ... There's a big difference between gambling and knowing," said Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset subcommittee that monitors Israel's security services.
The declassified portion of the report released Sunday asserted that Israel's Military Intelligence and Israel's equivalent of the CIA, the Mossad, had not deliberately misled Western allies in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.
The findings will be closely watched in the United States and Britain, where reassessments of pre-war intelligence are under way following the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair cited such weapons as the basic reason Saddam Hussein had to be forcefully disarmed, but the weapons stockpiles have not been found.
Among the issues considered by the panel were what Israeli intelligence officials knew about Iraq's ability to fire conventional or nonconventional missiles at Israel, the nature of intelligence sharing between Israel and other nations, and the decision to order Israeli citizens to carry gas masks and to vaccinate 17,000 medical "first responders" against smallpox at a cost of millions of dollars.
Part of the problem, said Steinitz, a ranking member of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's governing Likud Party, is the way intelligence was shared.
"What goes around comes around," he said, alluding to how Israeli assessments were shared with Western intelligence services and came back to Israel in repackaged form looking like confirmation of the original reports.
It was "a circle of feedback ... feeding itself without any substantiation in the field," he said.
Nevertheless, Israel played "a very minor role" in Washington's prewar planning, said Steinitz, because "the American and British intelligence services had much better access to Iraq by simply sitting in Kuwait" and flying reconnaissance missions "almost freely over Iraqi soil."
Committee member Haim Ramon, of the opposition Labor Party, said when he pressed Israeli intelligence officials to corroborate their "high probability" assessments that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, "they didn't have an answer."
The report recommended legislation to better define the roles of Israel's military and civil intelligence services and the appointment of a special intelligence adviser to the prime minister.
In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles carrying conventional explosive warheads at Israel, causing serious damage but few casualties.
Feeling the sting of that trauma, and the onus of having misjudged the pan-Arab threat before the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the intelligence services this time covered themselves with "exaggerated estimates ... not based on actual data," said Ramon.
Several intelligence analysts insisted the committee's report would not change the way intelligence is gathered in Israel, and that the military would retain the main control over it.
Gerald Steinberg, a consultant to Israel's National Security Council, predicted the impact of the report would be negligible.
"It was very hard not to go along with the American and British estimates when there was so much uncertainty," said Steinberg.
"And there was also such a residual impact from the 1991 Iraqi missile launches. Certainly there were chemical weapons available in 1991, so faulting any Israel decision maker for having adopted that position is mostly Monday morning quarterbacking," he said.
The committee also chided the secret services for failing to pick up on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's weapons of mass destruction program until Libya abandoned it in December.
"There was a worrying failure when we woke up one clear morning to find out from foreign intelligence services about (Libya's) race to acquire nuclear weapons that could threaten the very existence of the state of Israel," the report said.
The investigative panel held hearings over eight months and heard testimony from more than 70 witnesses. The committee was supposed to complete its work four months ago, but it widened its probe after Libya's arms program appeared to take Israel by surprise.
The Times (London)
March 29, 2004, Monday
SECTION: Overseas news; 15
HEADLINE: 'Flawed circle' of intelligence
BYLINE: Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem
BRITISH, American and Israeli intelligence agencies passed information around in circles before the Iraq war, reinforcing each others' exaggerated analyses of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction capability, an Israeli parliamentary investigation concluded yesterday.
In a scathing indictment of its own intelligence services, including Mossad, it said that there was a general failure of intelligence based on mutually reinforcing evaluations based on "speculation" without any hard data.
"The uniform evaluation of the international intelligence bodies was implanted somewhat in a sort of 'magical circle' and in a way of reciprocal feedback, which for most cases was harmful rather than useful," an 81-page report by the Knesset's all-party Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee concluded.
"This created a structural failure, it led to exaggerated self-confidence and lack of scepticism among the international intelligence communities in the Western world."
The report is a severe blow to Israel's much-vaunted and highly secretive intelligence agencies. Yuval Steinitz, the committee chairman, called for changes in intelligence- gathering and analysis and demanded to know why officials had not relied on signals and intelligence technology instead of "speculation."
The problem, he said, arose after 1998, when the withdrawal of United Nations inspectors from Iraq removed the intelligence community's best source of hard information.
While other Western services focused on Saddam's nuclear capability, he said that Israeli intelligence began an "inexplicable escalation" in its estimates of Saddam's missile arsenal "without the committee finding any data to support this change in estimates".
Mr Steinitz refused to say what Israeli intelligence received from its Western counterparts before the war, but said that the United States and Britain had big advantages in intelligence-gathering capability because their jets were flying over Iraq, their troops were based in neighbouring Kuwait and they had satellite data.
He described what he called the circular "trap" that Western intelligence agencies appeared to have fallen into.
"The Israeli services give information to the foreign services, who use it for their own purposes and pass it on and it comes back to the Israeli intelligence services," he said. "That is a circle of feedback that feeds on itself without any substance in the field."
The Toronto Star
March 29, 2004 Monday Ontario Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A15
HEADLINE: Israel 'exaggerated' Iraq threat
BYLINE: Mitch Potter, Toronto Star
HIGHLIGHT:Report criticizes spy agencies over faulty intelligence But says mistakes 'made innocently' on weapons risk
Israeli intelligence failures are partly to blame for the mistaken belief that Saddam Hussein was poised to unleash weapons of mass destruction on his enemies, a government committee concluded yesterday in a rare and scathing report on its own secret service agencies.
In an 81-page report to the Knesset, or parliament, the foreign affairs and defence subcommittee criticized the culture of Israeli intelligence gathering, which allowed unsubstantiated speculation and conjecture to acquire the weight of fact in its dealings with British and U.S. intelligence agencies during the run-up to war.
But the committee concluded unanimously that although Israel may have had much to gain from the ouster of Saddam, the intelligence mistakes "were made innocently and in the spirit of goodwill" rather than as a campaign of deliberate misinformation.
The report is likely to reverberate loudest in Washington and London, where separate investigations are under way to probe the flawed intelligence assumptions that created an impetus for the March, 2003, invasion.
In summarizing the report, lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, who led the inquiry, outlined for reporters how a pattern of speculative assessments from both Israeli military intelligence and the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency, contributed to the growing consensus among overseas agencies that there was a "high probability" Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and the will to use them.
"It was a circle in which what goes around comes around. Israel gave information. Foreign agencies used that information, added to it," said Steinitz.
"There was a circle of feedback that feeds itself without any substantiation from the field."
The committee was divided on whether, in light of the lack of hard facts and surfeit of speculation, intelligence officials erred in urging the Israeli government to order severe defence precautions, including the deployment and activation of gas masks to the public and the inoculation of an estimated 17,000 "first response" rescue officials against attack by biological weapons armed with smallpox.
A majority of the committee concluded the precautions were "reasonable." A minority opinion, voiced yesterday by committee member and Labour party lawmaker Haim Ramon, was far more critical.
"Nobody, not one single agency, not Israel, nor the British, nor the Americans, saw a single launcher or missile in Iraq," said Ramon. "This is after six years of United Nations inspections, and after every intelligence satellite in the world was watching.
"So what I said now, just as I said before the war, is this: If it doesn't look like a missile and it doesn't sound like a missile, then it isn't a missile," Ramon told reporters. "Just as British and U.S. intelligence failed, Israeli intelligence failed. Unfortunately, I think we exaggerated the threat."
Ramon said the root of the intelligence failures date back 30 years to the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, when Israel's intelligence community is widely seen to have let the nation down by drastically underestimating the likelihood of attack by its Arab neighbours.
Former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit, an adviser to the panel, defended Israel's pre-war precautions, noting that Israel sustained 39 Scud missile strikes from Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He also pointed out Iraq's prior use of unconventional weapons against the Iraqi Kurdish enclave of Halabja in 1988 in which 5,000 people were killed.
"A lot of experts had to eat their hats in 1991. And Saddam used weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds," said Shavit. "You cannot ignore these two factors."
Though the committee was careful not to single out one agency in its spoken comments, the report itself recommends an overhaul of Israeli intelligence services in such a way that would substantially curtail the responsibilities of the Military Intelligence Agency and empower the Mossad to take a leading role on the question of global weapons proliferation.
The report also calls for the appointment of an intelligence secretary and a committee to deal with long-term intelligence issues. And it calls for the Israel Defence Forces branch known as 8200, a service dedicated to electronic intelligence gathering, to be removed from the military chain of command to ensure its independence.
Chicago Tribune
March 29, 2004 Monday
Chicagoland Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS ; ZONE CN; Pg. 6
HEADLINE: Intelligence units overstated Iraq's arms, Israelis say;
But panel finds intent was not to promote war
BYLINE: By Joel Greenberg, Special to the Tribune.
DATELINE: JERUSALEM
Israeli intelligence estimates exaggerated Iraq's military capabilities and influenced assessments in the U.S. and other countries but were not deliberately distorted to support the case for war, an Israeli parliamentary inquiry said in a report issued on Sunday.
The 80-page report, a rare public review of the performance of the Israeli intelligence agencies, was published as the United States and Britain are conducting their own investigations into intelligence failures that preceded the war in Iraq.
Issued after eight months of work by a parliamentary inquiry committee, the Israeli report was based on closed-door testimony of dozens of witnesses, including the chiefs of army intelligence, the Shin Bet domestic security service and the Mossad overseas spy agency, as well as the prime minister, the defense minister and the army chief of staff.
Lacking solid indications of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Israeli military intelligence made erroneous assessments of Iraq's offensive capabilities, the report said.
Assertions by senior intelligence officers went significantly beyond the information gathered by Israeli agencies, which failed to either confirm or rule out the presence of long-range missiles and chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, according to the report.
Prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a year ago, Israeli intelligence officers described Iraqi unconventional and missile capabilities "not at the level of low probability, but as a solid assessment, treating these capabilities as facts," the report says.
Intelligence assessments inflated the Iraqi threat as the war drew near, the report said. Estimates of the number of long-range missiles held by Iraq grew from several missiles to dozens, and in the weeks prior to the outbreak of hostilities reached between 50 and 100, the report said.
Raising the alarm
A few months before the war, a parliamentary subcommittee was told by military intelligence officers that there was a high probability of an Iraqi air strike on Israel at the outbreak of hostilities.
As for the presence of chemical and biological weapons, the chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, told the foreign affairs and defense committee of parliament at the height of the fighting that he believed there was "a very high probability of unconventional weapons" in Iraq, the report said.
Israelis were ordered to put plastic sheeting on windows and unseal gas-mask kits and carry them during the war, moves that were later widely criticized as unwarranted and costly. In the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles with conventional warheads at Israel.
In the months before last year's campaign in Iraq, cooperation and information exchanges with American and other foreign intelligence agencies tended to reinforce threat assessments, the report said.
It suggested that a circular process was at work, in which Israeli estimates given to U.S. or other foreign intelligence agencies "played a central role in formulating the assessments" of those agencies, and later came back to Israel as a foreign estimates, and were "immediately perceived as reinforcement and corroboration of the original Israeli assessment by another authoritative source."
But Yuval Steinitz, a lawmaker from the right-wing Likud Party who chaired the panel, said the Israeli assessments played "a very minor role" in American planning for the war.
U.S. better informed
"The American and British intelligence services had much better access to Iraq by simply sitting in Kuwait and being able to fly almost freely over Iraqi soil," Steinitz said.
He added that the committee found no evidence suggesting that Israeli intelligence reports were tailored to support the case for war in Iraq.
Steinitz said "there were mistakes, but they were genuine, not purposeful distortion to serve the political echelon in Israel or elsewhere."
"They had to estimate too much," Steinitz said. "The question that bothered us is why they had to estimate so much and knew so little."
Given the intelligence assessments of Iraqi capabilities, the government acted reasonably when it ordered Israelis to carry gas masks and prepare for a possible chemical or biological attack, the panel found.
The committee also criticized the Israeli failure to detect Libya's nuclear weapons program until shortly before it was abandoned in December by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, calling it "a serious intelligence lapse" that requires a shakeup of the intelligence community.
The report recommends steps to revamp Israel's intelligence-gathering network that would put the Mossad in charge of political and strategic intelligence, while limiting the military intelligence branch to monitoring the armed forces of neighboring states.
Exactly. That is what my poli sci professor said (although in his version of chicken, it's not waiting for the train, it's two cars driving at eachother...he even showed a clip from Footloose to demonstrate the point ;) ), he was an advisor in the Pentagon to the joint cheifs of staff during Bush's first term.
You can not negotiate with a tyrant, least of all a self-proclaimed pious one.
The Bush Administration negotiates with dictators and other crumb bumbs Monday through Friday and sometimes on the weekend as well. Iran, unlike the some of the other despotic regimes the Bush Administration has chosen as friends and allies, actually has something substantial to offer so negotiantions are clearly indicated.
As the situation currently stands, the Bush Adminstration's failure to constructively engage Tehran has caused the US to isolate itself into a position of decreasing relevance viz the whole situation.
A tremendous amount of wealth and influence in the Middle East is about to change hands, probably by the end of the decade and the foreign policy lightweight in the White House are shooting the United States in the foot by not jockeying for position.
Pharoh was pimp but now he is dead. What are you going to do today?
Well, shame on them for letting themselves be bought by commecial concern ahead of the security of the entire region. If they've chosen to pimp themselves out to the Iranians, then clearly THEIR foreign policy is the short-sighted and impotent one, in marked contrast to the point you make below.
I've got a fiver that says what the PRC considers a policy relevant time frame is a window longer by a decade at least than what Washington considers a policy relevant time frame.
And yet, the Bush administration is THE only entity that has or ever WILL have any real leverage over the Iranians. I think you have the situation completely upside down.
The facts do not seem to support your conclusion, Sir. Leverage implies the abililty to influence and I am not seeing much headway from the Bush White House in the influence department with regards to Tehran.
Reward them for bad behavior, eh? NO. How do you suppose THAT would play in Tehran? As a sell-out of anti-government forces; as weakness on our part, and an unwillingness to back our interests, and as serving the interests of the ones bad-mouthing us.
Who said anything about rewarding bad behavoir? Encouraging them to change their behavoir to that which suits US interests while at the same time **** blocking competitors and potential threats is the gist of it. (Besides, reawarding bad behavoir seems to be the status quo in US foreign policy right now, but that really is not germain to my position)
TERRIBLE move. I would have thought, with all the historical evidence so abundant in the last century, that appeasement would be out of style.
I never by word or deed advocated appeasment. What I am advocating is trying to get a favorable quid pro quo in the quickest amount of time and the only way to do that is to start talking.
The window for American influence on the Iranian situation is starting to close and will most likely be closed by the next election cycle so the Bush Administration better do something productive whilst it has the chance.
And just how do you come to THAT completely erroneous conclusion?
Late in the Twentieth Century, R.W. Chandler proved in theory that the United States did not have the intelligence or strike assets to mount a pre-emptive strike against WMD facilities. Read his "Tomorrow's War, Today's Decisions: Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Implications of Wmd-Adversaries for Future U.S. Military Strategy". I read it before Mr. Bush was elected; more people should have.
Early in the Twenty First Century, G.W. Bush proved in fact that the United States did not have the intelligence or strike assets to mount a pre-emptive strike against WMD facilities. You might study Operation Iraqi Freedom is you want some factual information.
I also think the Bush Administration has been weak diplomatically. I think that other nations are not calculating Iran in terms of security, but in terms of economics. Both Russia and China draw large amounts of petroleum from Iran. Hence, normalized relations with Iran would only beneficial if they gave the U.S. oil.
Hi Bulgaroctonus,
Iran is not an oil play. Iran is a methane play with all the implications therein.
Again, normalized relations are only valuable to the U.S. if Iran can offer something in return. The status quo is not helpful. Even if we establish peaceful relations with Iran, that nation will continue to feed oil to China and Russia. China is a serious strategic rival of the United States and should be deprived of Iranian assistance.
I feel Iran has a tremendous amount to offer the United States in areas such as energy security, regional stability, WMD/BM counterproliferation, to name a few.
Too, in terms of Islamic jurisprudence, Iran appears to be the only potential source for a Muslim Reformation which I think we can all agree is something that could be supremely helpful to US interests.
American intelligence is embarrassed after its failures in assessing Saddam Hussein. However, Israeli military and intelligence capabilities are always superb.
But Israeli strike assets do not appear to be up to the job of a theoretical WMD pre-emptive strike against Iran...which is probably a bad idea anyway.
Pharoh was pimp but now he is dead. What are you going to do today?
gosh, i remember lcol yu repeatedly knocking down the people whom claimed that the israeli armed forces were the best in the world!! better be careful, colonel, the israelis might not like that you're popping the balloon of israeli armed superiority
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov
Iran is not an oil play. Iran is a methane play with all the implications therein.
Iran produces large quantities of natural gas and petroleum. From the Energy Information Administration, a U.S. government body. The following excerpts are taken from their file on Iran. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/iran.html
Originally posted by Energy Information Administration
Iran is OPEC's second largest oil producer and holds 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. It also has the world's second largest natural gas reserves (after Russia).
Iran's economy relies heavily on oil export revenues - around 80-90 percent of total export earnings and 40-50 percent of the government budget. Strong oil prices the past few years have helped Iran's economic situation. For 2004, Iran's real GDP increased by around 5.8 percent; for 2005 and 2006, it is expected to grow around 5.4 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively.
I won't make you read the enourmous amount of information on that site. I advise you to take a look at it. It supports my point that Iran is very important in the geopolitical struggle for petroleum.
Originally posted by Swift Sword
I feel Iran has a tremendous amount to offer the United States in areas such as energy security, regional stability, WMD/BM counterproliferation, to name a few.
I suppose that all of those options are theoretically possible. Of course, Iran could start exporting petroleum to the U.S (energy security), it could disavow its aggressive stance towards Israel (regional stability), and it could stop its nuclear program (WMD/BM counterproliferation).
However, I don't think any of those things will happen. Iran's ruling mullahs base their power on a perennial hatred of the West, especially America. I think it is extremely unlikely that Iran assists the U.S. anytime soon.
Originally posted by Swift Sword
Too, in terms of Islamic jurisprudence, Iran appears to be the only potential source for a Muslim Reformation which I think we can all agree is something that could be supremely helpful to US interests.
Iran's government is probably the last place to look for Islamic reform. They expound a violent, fundamentalist form of Islam. There is a possibility that Iran's youth could stage a rebellion and install a moderate regime, but this has yet to happen.
Originally posted by Swift Sword
But Israeli strike assets do not appear to be up to the job of a theoretical WMD pre-emptive strike against Iran...which is probably a bad idea anyway.
Although Officer of Engineers has pointed out that Israeli intelligence has failed recently, I still think Israeli military forces can do a lot of damage to Iran.
Iran produces large quantities of natural gas and petroleum.
Yes, but Iranian gas reserves must be taken in combination with CIS and Qatari reserves to understand the true importance.
I won't make you read the enourmous amount of information on that site. I advise you to take a look at it. It supports my point that Iran is very important in the geopolitical struggle for petroleum.
You do not have to make me read that stuff: I have already read quite a bit of it and turned it to suitable financial advantage. If you have not already done so, take a look at their "Annual Energy Outlook 2005 with Projections to 2025". It is only a 250 some odd page PDF but it is a great place to start.
I suppose that all of those options are theoretically possible. Of course, Iran could start exporting petroleum to the U.S (energy security), it could disavow its aggressive stance towards Israel (regional stability), and it could stop its nuclear program (WMD/BM counterproliferation).
Not theoretically possible, just possible; only a matter of leadership.
Iran's ruling mullahs base their power on a perennial hatred of the West, especially America.
That might be construed as shallow.
Iran's government is probably the last place to look for Islamic reform. They expound a violent, fundamentalist form of Islam. There is a possibility that Iran's youth could stage a rebellion and install a moderate regime, but this has yet to happen.
Ok, lets start with Islam 101. Fundamentalist Islam seems to consider Iran to be an apostate state as near as I can tell. Too, in terms of Islamic jurisprudence, Iran is probably the first and only place to look for true Islamic reform. Survey the state of the subject and focus on the notion of "ijtihad". The law is the master science and to communicate we must look at it as they do.
Although Officer of Engineers has pointed out that Israeli intelligence has failed recently, I still think Israeli military forces can do a lot of damage to Iran.
It would be a dumb idea seeing as how the Israelis must pre-emptively strike from within the effective radius of Iranian retaliation with the very weapons the IDF would seek to be pre-empting; not smart. Stands to lack of suitable Israeli strike assets and a poor position to strike from.
Pharoh was pimp but now he is dead. What are you going to do today?
Not theoretically possible, just possible; only a matter of leadership.
Precisely the reason why what you say would never work. You can not negotiate with a person who has already dismissed reason.
It would be a dumb idea seeing as how the Israelis must pre-emptively strike from within the effective radius of Iranian retaliation with the very weapons the IDF would seek to be pre-empting; not smart.
The IDF would use an air-strike, not nuclear weapons.
Stands to lack of suitable Israeli strike assets and a poor position to strike from.
They can fly around the Arabian peninsula and refeul in the air over the ocean to make it all the way to Iran. Once they hit the targets they can come back the same way or land in Iraq (if the US is in on at as well). They are capable of doing this, it is just very risky.
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