The war with Iran that didn't happen

An incredible thing happened this week: the agencies who write the National Intelligence Estimates released their report on the status of the Iranian Nuclear Weapon Program, which stated that Iran had stopped their covert program in the fall of 2003. The report has been in the works for a year.

This raises questions: Why did the administration seem to threaten war with Iran over a nuclear program that was halted four years ago? Why did the intelligence agencies release the report in the face of opposition from the administration?

Bush/Cheney want the American people to live in a constant state of fear; they believe that it strengthens their power base and furthers their American Empire ambitions.

The same thing happened after 9/11. It wasn’t enough to just go into Afghanistan and capture or kill Bin Laden (which is what we should have done). That would have only taken a few months.

We needed a bigger war to secure our oil, which unfortunately was located under their sand, so we invented intelligence reports of Saddam working on WMDs and ignored all reports to the contrary (for the last time, please go to the White House Web site, where they confirm that no WMDs were found and that the war was a mistake).

But, as the Iraq War dragged on and support for the war faded, we needed a new bogeyman. So, Bush/Cheney started pointing fingers at Iran.

The problem was that since Bush/Cheney cried wolf over Iraq, many in the US and around the world doubted the word of the same people who claimed to “know” that Saddam had WMDs.

Defense Secretary Gates, high-ranking Pentagon officers and the Intelligence Agencies trumped the fear mongering and pre-empted a military strike against Iran.

It was reported long ago that many generals and admirals would quit rather than carry out an order to attack Iran. The release of the report was a sign that the military and intelligence communities would no longer back the neo-con agenda.

Jon Monday