The Neo-cons either lost a big internal struggle in Washington or got caught completely off-guard, and man are they pissed. John Bolton in the WaPo:
That such a flawed product could emerge after a drawn-out bureaucratic struggle is extremely troubling. While the president and others argue that we need to maintain pressure on Iran, this “intelligence” torpedo has all but sunk those efforts, inadequate as they were. Ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions in an essentially unmolested fashion, to the detriment of us all.
Equally pissed was Frank Gaffney on Hardball last night:
GAFFNEY: The question is not cause and effect here. The question is the president doing his job telling the truth to the American people about how dangerous a world this will be if the mullahs in Iran who want to bring about the apocalypse, who say so, have nuclear weapons? I think the president is doing his job.
Now, the question is will he be prevented from doing his job in the future by what is A, I believe, an ill considered, ill advised, and incomplete assessment of this? I think we need a second opinion on this, much as team B, something you supported, Pat, if I recall directly back in the Cold War, and the Rumsfeld commission on the missile threat.
BUCHANAN: Did you call for a team B in the 2005 report to really check out whether they were really driving for weapons?
GAFFNEY: I did not. It didn‘t seem to me that was necessary because it seemed to me that‘s about right. But here it would be useful to have one. You can bet that other people .
All of this should be interpreted through the Admiral Fallon quote the Agonist highlighted yesterday:
‘A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch”. Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, “You know what choices I have. I’m a professional.” Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, “There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box.” ‘
Of course, there is no way of knowing whether or not Iran really has stopped their nuclear program. Just as there is no real way of knowing whether they are plowing full speed ahead with designs to send the entire world into nuclear armageddon. But in a sane world, the burden of proof before lauching yet another war lies on those who suggest they are developing weapons.
So far, the crazies haven’t provided anything other than a window into their own thinking, which, loosely stated, is that war is good. I tend to disagree.
Peter Johnson
Do you have a substantive critique of anything Bolton said? Or is this just another excuse to throw the word “neocon” (with all its anti-Semitic connotations) around?
Zifnab
But reporting that Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon, the NIE has opened up a window of opportunity for Iran to finish developing a nuclear weapon?
Tell Douglas Feith to move over. There are some big balls in this room.
John Cole
Is that all you got, DougJ?
How the mighty have fallen.
pharniel
i thought neo-con was the zionist front force? i’m confused
are neo-cons anti-semetic or pro-semetic?
hewlp
Peter Johnson
This is a tough one, John.
Pb
John Bolton is a Lutheran, but Peter Johnson is still an idiot.
jenniebee
Do you mean that you have no way of knowing it, or that the NIC had no way of knowing it? Because I think the NIC and the IAEA both have a pretty damn good way of knowing what’s going on, and both of them say that there’s no there there. So either ElBaradei and the NIC are throwing their very good international reputations, what remains of political stability in the ME, and their own countries’ national interests (ElBaradei is Egyptian and there is no way that Sunni Egypt wants Shi’a Iran to have the bomb) under the bus all for the sake of keeping Bush from launching bombers (which he says he doesn’t want to do anyway, although he sure doesn’t sound relieved about the prospect of not having to), or else the IAEA and NIC are spot on and Bush and the neocons don’t really give two shits about whether or not Iran has the bomb, they just think the best thing that can possibly happen is to completely deconstruct the ME and rebuild it from the rubble up.
Since they’ve come out and explicitly stated, repeatedly, that it would be a good thing to completely deconstruct the ME and rebuild it from the rubble up, I’m going to have to go with Option B, they don’t give two shits about whether Iran has the bomb.
demimondian
Hey, Peter, are you Cassidy, too? If not, do you know who he is?
John Cole
Yes and Yes. I think they are right in their assessment, but there is no way of being 100% accurate. There never is.
28 Percent
So John Cole you admit that the NIE is a CONSPIRACY by this so-called Admiral Fallon if that is his real name to stop the PRESIDENT from using force as a last resort by saying that the last resort is not here! It is a sad day this Fallon does not support the troops if he is willing to throw away all they have suffered for by letting Iran pursue its nuclear ambitions. And how does he know that they will not develop a bomb? they still know how and even if they do not know they can learn. Are we safe as long as they would use a bomb if they had one?
Pthhhttt. Amateur.
Svensker
Sure, there is. If you bomb them, you are 100% accurate in predicting that lots of Iranians will die and lots more will be pissed off. And you can be 100% sure Dick Cheney, John Bolton, William Kristol, N-Pod, J-Pod and other neo-cons (how antisemitic!) will be really happy about all the dead people.
Crazy C
I love this part,
Because from everything I’ve seen, that is exactly what happened – the CIA got new info, and put together a read team to poke holes in it.
jenniebee
I disagree. You simply can’t completely hide a nuclear weapons program, even in Iran, not in this day and age. The equipment to make weapons-grade plutonium is too specific, the players are too well known, and the radiation signatures are too obvious for all of it to escape detection, even using a nuclear-power plant as a cover.
If the NIC and IAEA thought that there was even a small chance that Iran was going for a bomb they’d hedge their language about it. These guys know what they’re doing.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Yeah, what she said!
Love and Kisses,
Muammar Qaddafi
Jake
That’s right fRighties, the agencies we rely on to keep an eye on the bad guys Who Want 2 Kill Us are all either criminally inept or purposely hiding the truth about Iran’s nuke programs.
As a result, we’re all hosed. Please dig a deep hole, fill it with supplies and then seal yourself off from the big scary world before the CIA lets the Islamohordes into the country.
Off you go, the smelly hippies will stay out here to bear the brunt of their wrath. One day you’ll emerge into a world free of libruls and Islamohordes, but for now, better hurry and start digging that shelter or all the best spots will be taken!
Arseholes.
calipygian
Frank Gaffney doesn’t need to be stuffed in a box. He needs to be shot up with Haldol, wrapped in a straight jacket and kept away from typewriters, word processors, pencils and pens.
jrg
Yeah. If his job is releasing bomb-making material in Arabic on the internet, then citing the need to prevent the proliferation of bomb-making material as justification for entering yet another war.
Every day, it looks more and more like Bush is trying to get Americans citizens killed.
Zifnab
That’s not true. They hid Saddam’s nuclear program so well we can’t even find it to this day. The stealth capabilities of these goat herding towel heads continues to astound me.
crw
Shorter Bolten: I’m appalled we haven’t successfully purged intellectually honest people from the intelligence services. Quick, find me some party hacks to reach the correct conclusions.
Thom
Check out ,a href= “http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002565.php”>Steve Clemons. Bolton pissed him off: “MoveOn.org Shouldn’t Attack Petraeus BUT Bolton Can Smear Entire National Intelligence Establishment?”
capelza
Big storm here in the PNW, but for some reason my little burg never lost power, but until just an hour ago, I had no internet.
So for two plus days I’ve been laughing my ass off at the news of the NIE and the scrambling backtracking by the wingnuts on TV…and no where to respond.
So my only response to all of this is BWAHAHAHAHAAAAA……
Sober relfection to follow…
Bombadil
No need — you got it right the first time.
Bombadil
And welcome back, capelza — glad you survived intact.
jenniebee
Too true Zif! Although you have to remember, according to K-Lo, those Arabs have a marked tendency to lie, so the WH knows that they’re trying to make us think that they don’t have a weapons program, while the subtle truth is that they really don’t have a weapons program! All the more reason to bomb them now, don’t you think? After all, it would be the height of foolishness to wait to bomb them until they had actually started doing something worth bombing them over!
Pug
a substantive critique of anything Bolton said?
A substantive critique? Of John Bolton?
That’s like asking for a sober assessment of Daffy Duck.
Tsulagi
Whoa, now that’s a scary sight. But at least one always packed with comedy. You can see that in the Captain’s post on this issue.
Essentially, the Captain posts that between going with the barking Bolton’s viewpoint of the current NIE or Cheney’s “sanguine” acceptance of its conclusions, he’s going with Cheney. But in the comments, virtually to a man, the warriors of the Short Bus Brigades voice their disagreement. The big picture seers once again know the truth: This NIE was subverted by traitors in the covertly Democratic controlled State Department and CIA.
Seems that’s a consensus point among the Kristolites and Poddies. Guess if they also read about Admiral Fallon they’ll have to add him to their long list of enemies.
Of course Cheney can or would be sanguine about this NIE. He doesn’t give a flying fuck what it says anymore than the documents that have been around in this country for a couple hundred years. None of it matters when you’re the Deciderer’s Decider. And the Decider is empowered to decide everything. Known truth.
demimondian
Fixed
lysias
Speaking of war being good, I remember hearing Limbaugh say, back in 2004, in response to Gen. Odom’s criticism of the Iraq war, that, in his, Limbaugh’s opinion, a major war every 20 years or so is a good thing. Not a minor war, mind you, but one which really has an effect on the younger generation.
I assume he was repeating something his administration informants had said to him. I wonder if this was one of Cheney’s advisers, or even, possibly, Cheney himself.
Notorious P.A.T.
Wasn’t Team B completely, totally wrong? If so, why would we want another one?
Svensker
From a commenter at Captain Ed’s, discussing whether Cheney or Bolton is right on the NIE:
There are people in the world who consider Cheney a likable optimist?
Pb
Updated.
Interesting fact… Paul Wolfowitz was on both of those teams! And you know who led Team B… Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes…
Tsulagi
Let alone a “great man and fine executive.” LOL I caught that one over there too. Nobody consistently delivers the comedy like these tards.
pharniel
Svensker Says:
Yes. they’re teh kind of people that Cheney prolly refers to as ‘proles’ behind thier backs.
Seanly
Do you really disagree that war is good? Or are you just trying to see what sort of moonbat agreement you’ll get out of us? The Huckabee comment thread has me all confused…
Is that because he is just as psychotic as a terrorist & rogue nation leader?
Zifnab
What we really need is The A Team.
If Murdock, B. A. Baracus, Hannibal and Faceman can’t get to the bottom of this, no one can.
DR
It takes a HUGE pair of cojones for Gaffney to bring up Team B… Team B was, without a doubt, the biggest mistake in the entire history of the American intelligence community: give complete morons with not an iota of intelligence experience or understanding complete access to raw intelligence data; now where else have I heard such an idea?
Team B was, in the end, proven wrong on every single point. EVERY. SINGLE. POINT. Yet Gaffney and his pals to this day claim they were right… So this problem the neo-cons have with reality didn’t start yesterday.
Still, it takes a great big pair of cojones… Colbert must be proud!
grumpy realist
I’m starting to seriously think of running on a platform of “if any pundit bloviates on any issue and gets it wrong, he either has to shut up for 5 years or get his head chopped off.” I bet I’d win by a landslide.
The Other Steve
I’ve seen the Team B thing brough up several times, and it is amazing considering how history proved them so terribly wrong.
You see, the CIA was also wrong because they didn’t forsee the collapse of the USSR. Probably because the CIA was busy fending off idiots at Team B arguing that the USSR was a bigger threat then ever.
Delia
Well, jenniebee, as I think you well know, these goofs are really excellent at the “deconstruct the ME” part. The “rebuild it from rubble”? Not so much.
Still, it’s a real shame Colbert’s not here to do his truthiness routine on these jokers.
Z
Well, you know these guys are Joe Klein liberals. They feel like there must be a nuclear weapons program in Iran. Those pesky facts on the ground are just a destraction from their grand, bold struggle for freedom from Islamofascism. They are soooo misunderstood.
Z
I also can’t spell distraction.
Dreggas
oh boy and it’s coming here tonight YIPPEEE!!!
Svensker
Actually, that’s true. A friend was in gov’t at the time and he says the CIA guys were always complaining because a bunch of the “cowboys” — now known as our cuddly neocons — kept insisting that the USSR was about to overtake our economy and smash the U.S. These guys can’t feel macho unless they think they have a tough ass enemy opposing them. Too much High Noon as kids, ya think?
Dulcie
No, too much Hopalong Cassidy, or The Lone Ranger.
r€nato
oh for FSM’s sake. Here we go again with the Plan B bullshit: if the CIA doesn’t come up with the answers we want to hear, we’ll make up our own.
r€nato
Because from everything I’ve seen, that is exactly what happened – the CIA got new info, and put together a read team to poke holes in it.
Yes, but they were using a read team which was not hell-bent on reaching predetermined conclusions – in other words, not ‘fair and balanced’.
r€nato
Team B would have had us going to war with the USSR within 10 years of its recommendations (1978) because supposedly the USSR was going to irreversibly surpass the US in military power by then; therefore it was in the US’ interest to provoke Armageddon sooner rather than later.
(this was also, by the way, strikingly similar to the thinking of the German generals prior to WWI… which turned out so well for them, they repeated the whole thing on a larger scale 20 years after the war.)
I can’t imagine any group of people outside the Soviet inner party, who were more disappointed in the peaceful collapse of the USSR than the neo-con/Plan B crowd.
r€nato
Alan Doucheowitz had a pretty shrill blog post at HuffPo today too, regarding the NIE.
r€nato
I might be able to get on board with that one, except for the very remarkable and completely coincidental tendency of College Republicans and other prime-fighting-age warmongers, to avoid serving in those wars.
Or, maybe what Limbaugh meant to say is that every 20 years or so you need to enrich the military contractors and other major GOP donors as well as get rid of excess poor folks, and a nice little war kills two birds with one stone.
r€nato
not just wrong, but spectacularly, holy-shit-are-you-nuts wrong.
The-commies-have-frickin-sharks-with-frickin-laser-beams wrong.
The kind of wrong that comes from having your head firmly and irretrievably ensconced up your ass.
As bad as Iraq is, we should all be VERY thankful that they didn’t get their way in provoking war with the USSR 30 years ago.
jake
So another generation of Limbaughs can claim the pimples on their ass prevent them from going to war.
KevinD
Priceless…