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Spinning Iran's Centrifuges
RAY McGOVERN
Counterpunch
Sunday December 9, 2007
Those who know about the centrifuges used to refine
uranium tell me they must spin at an almost unrivaled velocity—almost
unrivaled, because Bush administration statements are being spun
at equivalent speed by White House and corporate media spiders.
Without Spinmeister Karl Rove and former spokesman Tony Snow,
it is amateur hour at the White House. And the theater would be
as funny as The Daily Show, were the subject not so serious.
Judging from President George W. Bush’s words and body language
he is far from giving up on ways to “justify” attacking
Iran’s nuclear program—weapons-related or not.
He appears convinced he must honor the pledge he has made to
Israel’s current leaders to eliminate what they have called
an “existential threat” to Israel. This came through
in a particularly pointed way on October 17, when an agitated
president ad-libbed about the possibility of World War III, complaining
loudly, “We’ve got a leader in Iran who has announced
he wants to destroy Israel.”
Not at all helpful to the president was the judgment of U.S.
intelligence that the Iranians halted their nuclear weapons-related
program in 2003, a judgment the administration made public this
week. The White House knew only too well that that this bombshell
could not be kept secret very long—the more so since Congress’
intelligence committees, Pentagon brass, and senior CIA officials
reportedly made it quite clear they would go public if the White
House did not publish a sanitized version of the key judgments
of the latest National Intelligence Estimate.
(Article continues below)
On Oct. 26, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell launched
a trial balloon, declaring he would no longer declassify and release
summaries of National Intelligence Estimates, but that balloon
was quickly shot down.
So what can Cheney and Bush do now to “justify” striking
Iran? Several months ago, about the time new intelligence established
there was no active nuclear weapons program in Iran, there were
signs in the rhetoric coming from the president and Gen. David
Petraeus that the argument was going to hinge on claims that the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards were supplying the wherewithal to
kill our troops in Iraq. Petraeus was clearly ready to play that
game, but his superior, Admiral “we’re-not-going-to-do-Iran-on-my-watch”
William Fallon would not play along. And neither would the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is now back from a brief visit
to Iraq and his caution so far on this issue suggests he is paying
more heed to Fallon than to Petraeus. In other words, there is
no sign that Gates wants to abet using Iranian meddling in Iraq
as a pretext for a military strike on Iran. Gates’ well-deserved
chameleon-like reputation counsels caution here, since a word
from Cheney or Bush could conceivably make Gates a fervent champion
of this pretext for war. But people do mature; Gates is smart;
and I doubt he would want to be so closely associated with starting
a regional war, if not WW III.
Spinning Enrichment
So where does that leave the beleaguered president? This week’s
spinning by the White House and subservient media suggests the
administration still thinks it can make a case for war, by obfuscating
the nuclear program in Iran. This has become clearer as administration
mouthpieces blur the distinction between uranium enrichment for
a civilian energy use (permitted to signatories of the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty) and the much more demanding requirements
of a nuclear weapons program.
The spinners have resurrected the discredited argument that Iran’s
nuclear program must be for weapons, because Iran’s oil
and gas should suffice to meet all its energy requirements. Thus,
the administration’s Pravda, also known as the editorial
page of the Washington Post, on Dec. 5: “Iran’s massive
overt investment in uranium enrichment meanwhile proceeds...even
though Tehran has no legitimate use for enriched uranium.”
And thus another major administration mouthpiece, also known
as the New York Times, on Dec. 6, in an op-ed, “In Iran
We Trust?” by Valerie Lincy and Gary Milhollin: “Why,
by the way, does Iran even want a nuclear energy program, when
it is sitting on an enormous pool of oil that is now skyrocketing
in value.”
This is a familiar canard; i.e., that Iran’s claim that
its nuclear program is for electricity production is given the
lie by its own large oil and natural gas reserves, so uranium
enrichment must be for nuclear weapons development. Condoleezza
Rice took that line over a year and a half ago (shades of those
(in)famous aluminum tubes that she said could “only”
be used in a nuclear application but turned out to be for conventional
artillery). At about the same time Dick Cheney complained that
since the Iranians are “already sitting on an awful lot
of oil and gas. Nobody can figure why they need nuclear as well
to generate energy.”
It all makes me think of Harry Truman’s complaint: “They
must think we were born yesterday!” Rice and Cheney have
selective memories—or take us for fools. Back in 1976—with
Gerald Ford president, Dick Cheney his chief of staff, Donald
Rumsfeld secretary of defense—the Ford administration bought
the Shah’s argument that Iran needed a nuclear program to
meet its future energy requirements. That argument, of course,
is even more valid today, with the price that can be obtained
for oil and the specter of Peak Oil.
Cheney and Rumsfeld persuaded a hesitant President Ford to offer
Iran a deal that would have meant at least $6.4 billion for U.S.
corporations like Westinghouse and General Electric, had not the
Shah been unceremoniously dumped three years later. The offer
included a reprocessing facility for a complete nuclear fuels
cycle—essentially the same capability that the U.S. and
Israel now insist Iran cannot be allowed to acquire.
A pity that our domesticated media seem unable to catch the disingenuousness.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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