Bush: `Nothing Has Changed' With Iran

[951-Riverside]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defending his credibility, President Bush said Tuesday that Iran is dangerous and must be squeezed by international pressure despite a blockbuster intelligence finding that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago.

Bush said the new conclusion — contradicting earlier U.S. assessments — would not prompt him to take off the table the possibility of pre-emptive military action against Iran. Nor will the United States change its policy of trying to isolate Iran diplomatically and punish it with sanctions, he said.

"Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," the president told a White House news conference a day after the release of a new national intelligence estimate representing the consensus of all U.S. spy agencies.

On Capitol Hill, congressional Democrats said they hoped the report would have a cooling effect on the administration's rhetoric, which they said was hyped and counterproductive. At a campaign debate in Iowa, seven Democratic presidential candidates stood in agreement that the United States should shift its focus with Iran to diplomatic engagement.

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j057jBReERcsF-FcZRSWe0h1gaXQD8TAS8JO0

[bunkerbuster1]

1. "Look, y'all know Ah'm stuck on stupid...

nothin's changed. Heh heh heh."

[NC_Nurse]

2. Except your credibility, which was in the toilet already, Dubya.

:puke:

[LSparkle]

3. We've heard that one before -- about the wiretaps

"Every time you hear 'wire tap' -- in order to wire tap, we need to get a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way" (or something close).

[Eagle_Eye]

4. Nothing has changed with Bush either, he is still a LIAR!

His lies get people killed.

His illegal war in Iraq is getting lots of people killed, not just Americans.

His illegal war in Iraq is funneling tons of money into the pockets of rich defense contactors while American soldiers are dieing.

Meanwhile the boys over at Sikorsky are high-fiving themselves every time a helicopter crashes because they know they just sold another one.

[flakey_foont]

5. NO! NO! NO! NO!

what an insult to the intelligence of the American people! The SOB is just lying through his teeth.....
who believes his blather any more??????

[ixion]

6. perhaps 20 percent of the people

which is, somehow, a majority. :crazy:

[rockybelt]

7. If he had any

credibility left to defend, that would be one thing. Having zero credability means he is just stupid.

The chimp will not change one iota. He will spout the same lies over and over again and hope that people start to believe that the mighty Iran is a terrible threat and must be bombed back into the stone age.

The only way to stop this bull shit is to impeach W and the Dick immediately.

[electprogdems]

8. jesbus peoples

of course nothing with Iran has changed. They still control a shitload of oil.

[madrchsod]

9. the first thing i heard this morning was this thing on my radio

"nothing has changed" for him because he`s like the people my wife works with-mentally handicapped. nothing ever changes for them because their minds can not accept change with out a reaction which maybe violent or passive. their world revolves around certain patterns that they have established through out their lives so they can cope with the world.

after listening to him this morning i realized his mental ability is just a few levels above the people my wife works with. it really is frighting that this person has such a low level of intellect is still capable of running this country.

[rAVES]

10. Of course nothing has changed.. they have been sitting on that report for months..

[fascisthunter]

11. Everything You Have Stated about Iran Has Been a Lie

so yes, nothing really has changed in regard to Iran.

[superconnected]

12. And his half-brain followers will believe him.

[liberal N proud]

13. You see, there is oil in that there sand dune and bu$h wants it

He wants it all and no little NIE report is going to stop him or Darth Cheney from getting their hands in it.

[superconnected]

14. Not to mention contracts for his favorite charities - Haliburton, Bechtel, United Defense.

[truthisfreedom]

15. Nothing has changed in Iran! THEY ARE STILL SITTING ON OUR OIL!!!

The Dems should shift to using his tactics. When the administration denies something, the Dems should unilaterally announce that it's proof they're lying.

[superconnected]

16. Shall we have a count down to the democrats posturing in congress over this

and then giving in.(where we at pelosi..under 24hrs now?).

Any minute bush is going to ask for money for the strike. Any minute our highest dems are going to bend over and take it, while we watch. Sorry for the imagery. I just have so little confidence in us stopping him at this point.

I should correct that, I have so little confidence in Pelosi and Co. even WANTING to stop him.

[rockybelt]

20. Yeah, really

where the hell is Pelosi and that ass-hole Hoyer? I haven't heard from them in what seems to be weeks now. Not that that is all bad.
But just like the shooter, I get real nervous when they disappear. That can only mean they are in the vasoline jar and getting ready.

[SKKY]

22. I so badly want to disagree with you, o ye of little faith...

...sadly, I cannot with the prevailing precedence they've already set.

[Bluestar]

17. Nothing's changed!! Except that you're BUSTED!! n/t

[NastyRiffraff]

18. That report has been around for a year in some form or other

Of course nothing's changed. Cheney has had his boot on it for over a year. Here's what Sy Hersh wrote about it in November of 2006:

The Administration’s planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House’s assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (The C.I.A. declined to comment on this story.)
The C.I.A.’s analysis, which has been circulated to other agencies for comment, was based on technical intelligence collected by overhead satellites, and on other empirical evidence, such as measurements of the radioactivity of water samples and smoke plumes from factories and power plants. Additional data have been gathered, intelligence sources told me, by high-tech (and highly classified) radioactivity-detection devices that clandestine American and Israeli agents placed near suspected nuclear-weapons facilities inside Iran in the past year or so. No significant amounts of radioactivity were found.

A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the C.I.A. analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it. The White House’s dismissal of the C.I.A. findings on Iran is widely known in the intelligence community. Cheney and his aides discounted the assessment, the former senior intelligence official said. “They’re not looking for a smoking gun,” the official added, referring to specific intelligence about Iranian nuclear planning. “They’re looking for the degree of comfort level they think they need to accomplish the mission.” The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency also challenged the C.I.A.’s analysis. “The D.I.A. is fighting the agency’s conclusions, and disputing its approach,” the former senior intelligence official said. Bush and Cheney, he added, can try to prevent the C.I.A. assessment from being incorporated into a forthcoming National Intelligence Estimate on Iranian nuclear capabilities, “but they can’t stop the agency from putting it out for comment inside the intelligence community.” The C.I.A. assessment warned the White House that it would be a mistake to conclude that the failure to find a secret nuclear-weapons program in Iran merely meant that the Iranians had done a good job of hiding it. The former senior intelligence official noted that at the height of the Cold War the Soviets were equally skilled at deception and misdirection, yet the American intelligence community was readily able to unravel the details of their long-range-missile and nuclear-weapons programs. But some in the White House, including in Cheney’s office, had made just such an assumption—that “the lack of evidence means they must have it,” the former official said.
(via Talking Points Memo
Link to the original New Yorker article: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/27/061127fa_fact?printable=true

[robinlynne]

19. Well, that convinces me....

[JCMach1]

21. Revenge is a 'bitch' isn't it!!! Shrubby: CIA finally got even

:hurts:

[rodeodance]

23. everything has changed. Repugs are deadly silent. Putin said--see, I was right, Who

you gonna trust on Intell?---the US???

[HuffleClaw]

24. he's really screwed himself with this one.

letting all the world know what a warmongering loon he is. and this bit about 'knowledge' is really over the top. and his bald-faced lie in claiming the whole thing is news to him when its long been public KNOWLEDGE (hehehe) that this report had been buried in 2006 by the white house.

[rooboy]

25. George walks the WH with a post-it stuck to his back saying 'IMPEACH ME' n/t

[Javaman]

26. moron* lost all his blocks but still refuses to believe it.

that is what you call insane.

[boricua79]

27. he's on the ropes

"he isn't hurting me...it ain't nothing"

said the bruised and bleeding boxer, barely stumbling around the canvas.

[SOS]

28. "Nothing Has Changed With Iran"

But here in Washington, the State Department and the CIA just used a baseball bat on the neocon kneecaps.
Sweet revenge on Unky Dick.

:spank:

[sakabatou]

29. "We will still bomb it to kingdom come..."

"Heh heh heh."

[Betty]

30. The facts have never mattered to this asshole

so of course, nothing EVER changes in his amoeba one celled brain.

[MilesColtrane]

31. Son of a bitch.

While I applaud the spooks and analysts who stood up to the White House, this NIE makes it more probable that Bush and Cheney will have to manufacture, in a dramatic fashion, a reason to bomb Iran.