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By Tony Blair
$18.89
By Ellen Goodman
$24.95
$24
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payvand.com
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A new report released by American intelligence officials profoundly contradicts President Bush’s claims on the Iran nuclear threat and casts his “World War III” fear-mongering in a dubious light. The National Intelligence Estimate’s declassified assessment, compiled from 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, says Iran actually halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 “in response to international pressure.”
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AP photo / Hasan Sarbakhshian
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In what may be a sign of turning tides within Iran, a powerful paper in Tehran, The Islamic Republic, published an editorial Wednesday slamming President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s treatment of his political opponents—an auspicious critique, considering the paper’s close ties with Ayatollah Khamenei.
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White House photo by Eric Draper
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Just weeks after publicly fretting about Pervez Musharraf’s dictatorial power grab, George W. Bush has decided that the Pakistani president “hasn’t crossed the line” and “truly is somebody who believes in democracy.” It’s an assessment that would be comical if it didn’t have to do with the freedom of millions of people and the security of dozens of nuclear weapons.
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AP photo / Vahid Salemi
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stopped off in Tehran to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday after the weekend’s OPEC summit in Saudi Arabia, marking Chavez’s fourth trip to Iran in two years. During their tête-à-tête, the two least likely leaders to drop in for dinner at the White House discussed, among other things, the dollar’s recent and precipitous decline.
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By Will Durst — The rule is simple: The good guys get the nukes, the bad guys don’t. And who decides who’s naughty and who’s nice? Not Santa—it’s the Decider.
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AP photo / Vahid Salemi
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The good news, according to the U.N.‘s nuclear agency, is that Iran earlier was forthcoming with information about its nuclear program. The bad news is that Iran is not now offering the same level of transparency, is reportedly still enriching uranium in defiance of the Security Council and may be, according to the BBC, cooperating just enough to avoid additional sanctions. Above, Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili.
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AP photo / Brennan Linsley
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By Chris Hedges — The last, best hope for averting a war with Iran lies with the United States military. We will be saved or doomed by our generals.
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AP photo / Vahid Salemi
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Iran is another step closer to reaching its long-term nuclear goals, now that 3,000 centrifuges are up and running as part of its uranium enrichment program. Some experts in the West say 3,000 centrifuges technically could be sufficient to produce a nuclear weapon within a year.
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A contract worker who was apparently attempting to bring a small explosive device onto the grounds of Arizona’s Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station on Friday was stopped and detained, according to the Associated Press, and officials would not let anyone enter or leave the plant after the incident.
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Historians may one day debate Rudy Giuliani’s recent preposterous comments at a New Hampshire town hall meeting. “Did he mean it?” they might ask. “Or was he just dehydrated?” While addressing voters, the candidate said that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were debating whether to invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden to their inaugurations. But wait, there’s more.
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AP photo / Jose Goitia, file
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Joining in the exciting game of apocalyptic Mad Libs that President Bush kicked off with his recent pronouncement that a nuclear-equipped Iran could start World War III, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has swapped out “Iran” for “Bush” and turned Bush’s accusation back at him in this latest round of doomsday fun.
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The Mosaic Intelligence Report tackles Bush’s heated rhetoric about Iran and the connection with the president’s chilly relationship with Russia.
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AP photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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Let’s review these key ingredients from a White House news conference on Wednesday and see if they remind us of anything, shall we? We had: President G. W. Bush—check! Fear-mongering about weapons that a Middle Eastern nation is allegedly developing—check! Accusations from the Bush administration about said Middle Eastern nation lying about said weapons to the U.N.—check!
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AP photo / RIA Novosti / Mikhail Klimentyev / Presidential Press Service
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Continuing to broadcast a clear message of disapproval to the U.S. regarding its foreign policy and commercial interests abroad, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on Tuesday to discuss Iran’s nuclear program and to present a unified front against Washington’s possible plans vis-à-vis Iran.
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The hawks have taken to the Sunday morning air to beat the war drums over Iran, while those who oppose them, including former President Jimmy Carter, try to prevent a disaster worse than Iraq. TPM TV has this roundup.
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AP photo / LM Otero
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James Harris and Josh Scheer —
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Philip Coyle knows a thing or two about the “staggering” amounts of money the U.S. funnels into the military-industrial complex, and why it is so difficult to stanch the profiteering.
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AP Photo / Stephen Chernin
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Addressing harsh criticism from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, as well as allegations about the treatment of homosexuals in Iran, the status of the Iranian Jewish population, his take on Israel and his country’s nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad raised as many questions as he answered during his controversial appearance at Columbia University on Monday.
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad was branded a “madman” on the front page of the New York Daily News on Monday, the day he was set to speak at Columbia University amid widespread protests and not so subtle references to Adolf Hitler, whom Columbia’s Public Affairs Acting Dean John Coatsworth said would also have been allowed to speak on campus, at least in his pre-Holocaust era.
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The disturbing security slip-up at North Dakota’s Minot Air Force Base on Aug. 29, which resulted in the unintentional—not to mention unsupervised and unauthorized—transport of six nuclear warheads across the country to Louisiana, has touched off a major military inquiry and raised serious security concerns.
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The North Korean government has denied allegations that it shared nuclear technology with Syria. A senior U.S. nuclear official earlier insisted that North Koreans were in Syria, possibly to supply the latter with illicit equipment.
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Not surprisingly, Iranian officials are none too pleased with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner after he warned on Sunday that Iran’s developing nuclear program constitutes cause for alarm—and potentially for war.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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France’s foreign minister has issued an alarming warning over Iran’s nuclear program: “We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war,” Bernard Kouchner said. Those are troubling words coming from a recently elected conservative French government that has tried to buddy up to the White House. It makes us wonder what he knows that we don’t.
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tinker-af.org
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This is the kind of human error story that makes a strong case for worldwide nuclear disarmament: Armytimes.com reported Wednesday that five nuclear warheads were mistakenly carried on a B-52 bomber from North Dakota to Louisiana on Aug. 30—which means they were effectively missing for more than three hours.
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AP Photo / Keystone, Salvatore Di Nolfi
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If the Bush administration is now in peacenik mode with North Korea, why not more aggressively follow the diplomatic track with Iran? As a result of a startling turnabout by an administration committed to wage war against “rogue nations,” it turns out offers of aid and diplomatic recognition might work wonders in stemming the spread of the nuclear threat.
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President Bush has once again accused Iran of supplying militants in Iraq, colorfully referring to “Tehran’s murderous activities” in a speech Tuesday. The heated rhetoric, including references to Iran’s supposed nuclear ambitions and mysterious evidence of unsavory behavior, bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the administration’s push for war with Iraq.
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Pakistan has put on another act in the ongoing show of military prowess between the South Asian nation and its neighbor India by successfully testing a new cruise missile, the Hatf VIII (aka Raad, or thunder in Arabic), which is designed to carry an array of different nuclear warheads.
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Great—along with the United States’ ongoing (and escalating) international debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan, the current administration has clearly worked its particular brand of diplomatic charm on Russia. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country’s air force is once again sending nuclear-equipped bombers on regular overseas patrols.
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AP Photos / Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Jeff Roberson
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By Kasia Anderson — In what may have been one of the most controversial (and contradictory) missteps made yet in this pre-election season, Hillary Clinton refused, however ambiguously, to rule out using nuclear weapons to combat terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Though the media at large barely registered her comment, it wasn’t lost on Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who takes Clinton to task in an exclusive interview with Truthdig.
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday revealed details of an extensive arms package totaling $20 billion for Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other nearby countries—along with a $30-billion 10-year plan for Israel—with the purported aim of shoring up Middle Eastern states against the potential regional threat posed by Iran.
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By Joe Conason — For the first time in a long time, encouraging news is emerging from North Korea. Yet the Bush administration so far has drawn little attention to this happy achievement by its own diplomats.
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Here’s some good news from Iran that President Bush and his flock of hawks may not be eager to hear: United Nations officials have reported that Iran is slowing its nuclear program and inspectors are returning to Tehran.
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AP Photo / Vahid Salemi
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A report released by the International Atomic Energy Agency reveals that Iran is moving forward with its nuclear program, in defiance of sanctions imposed in March by the United Nations. The watchdog agency says Tehran is obstructing the IAEA’s investigative efforts to monitor suspicious nuclear activities, according to the BBC.
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AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian
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By Robert Scheer — Relations between the U.S. and Iran are shifting as U.N. inspectors discover that Iran’s uranium enrichment program appears to be further along than previously believed. These new developments only underscore the increasing volatility in the very region the American invasion of Iraq was supposed to secure, and they put the Bush administration in a codependent relationship with Iran’s ruling regime.
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Vice President Dick Cheney made the symbolic move of delivering a warning to Iran while aboard a nearby U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. Cheney said the U.S. would use military force if necessary to prevent Iran from interfering with oil trade or “gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.”
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A South Korean newspaper has quoted CIA Director Michael Hayden as saying “the United States does not recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. ... It’s because the nuclear test last year was a failure.” Hayden reportedly made the comment while speaking with a South Korean defense official. The administration has said in the past it was uncertain of the test’s success.
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North Korea simply refuses to engage in the six-party talks until it receives $25 million in disputed funds. The disarmament deal struck by Washington and Pyongyang is now being held up by “technical problems.” U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill expressed his frustration: “The problem is, you can’t expect all these large delegations to sit around while it is being sorted out.”
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The former U.N. weapons inspector, who was scorned for saying there were no WMD in Iraq, speaks with Robert Scheer about American ignorance, the lies that led us to war, Iran’s nuclear program and more. Update: Transcript now available.
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Reese Erlich and Muhammad Sahimi —
The writers explain why a pre-emptive attack on Iran would backfire, and they challenge the Bush administration’s claims that Iran is supplying explosives to Iraqi insurgent groups.
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bbc.co.uk
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Nuclear experts from the Oxford Research Group have some words of advice for world leaders about their future dealings with Iran. Scientist Frank Barnaby, who co-authored the think tank’s report, warned that pre-emptive military action “could speed Iran’s progress to a nuclear bomb.”
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AP Photo / IRNA
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By Tad Daley — There’s a clear lesson to be learned from George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” approach to foreign policy: Get a bomb or get invaded. The administration’s thinking can produce nothing but unprecedented nuclear proliferation.
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ucar.edu
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For the first time in two decades, the United States will produce a new design of the hydrogen bomb. The weapon is meant to ease insecurities caused by the aging of America’s nuclear arsenal but probably will be a mortal blow to the administration’s credibility as it attempts to deter other countries from building nuclear weapons.
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washtimes.com
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A top North Korean leader on Thursday reaffirmed his nation’s intention to disarm, calling a nuclear-free Korean peninsula the “dying wish” of former dictator Kim Il Sung. Kim Yong Nam, the North’s second-in-command, said his regime “will make efforts to realize” that wish.
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AP Photo / Greg Baker
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By Robert Scheer — There is nothing wrong with negotiating with our enemies rather than weakly blustering at cartoon images of them—I wish we would do the same in our dealings with Iran—but it would be nice if we would stop shooting ourselves in the foot first.
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Israel will shore up its defenses by staging simulated chemical and nuclear attacks around the country in March. The large-scale rehearsal probably reflects increased security concerns in light of Iran’s nuclear developments and recent clashes with Hezbollah forces.
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wikipedia.org
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India and Pakistan have agreed to a deal meant to limit the possibility of inadvertent nuclear war. The two nuclear states have gone to war several times and frequently rattle sabers at each other.
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that his nation is willing to shut down its nuclear enrichment program in order to hold talks, but first the West must do likewise: “We say how is it that your [nuclear fuel] production facilities work 24 hours a day, but you feel threatened by our newly established complex and we need to shut it down for talks?”
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starbulletin.com
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U.S. Central Command has developed a plan for airstrikes against Iran that includes hitting not just nuclear facilities but most military targets throughout the country. According to the BBC, either confirmation that Iran is building a nuclear weapon or evidence linking Tehran to a high-casualty attack inside Iraq could set the plan in motion.
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The Bush administration hopes its deal with North Korea will serve as a “template” for Iran, but convincing Tehran to abandon its nuclear program won’t be a walk in the park. Unlike North Korea, Iran has no use for energy aid and has managed to outmaneuver the U.S. in several regional conflicts.
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ABC News
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During a contentious interview with Diane Sawyer, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that his country is “ready to cooperate” with regard to its nuclear program “within the framework of regulations.” He also called the Holocaust an “excuse” for the occupation of Palestinian land.
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