Ray McGovern: Preempting Cheney

[lady lib]

August 03, 2005
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. During his 27-year career as a CIA analyst, he chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared/briefed the President's Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Whatever plans Dick Cheney and his neo-conservatives may have had to conjure up a nuclear threat from Iran as "justification" for military action have been sharply undercut by some timely leaks to the Washington Post. In a redux of President George W. Bush's spin on the "grave and growing" danger from Iraq, Cheney protégé and newly appointed U.N. Ambassador John Bolton is on record warning that Iranian "deception" must not be allowed to continue much longer: "It will be too late. Iran will have nuclear weapons."

Not for ten more years, report sources close to the U.S. intelligence community in yesterday's lead story in the Post . Several government officials with access to the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran have told journalist Dafna Linzer of its main judgments. By doing so, Linzer's sources seem determined not to sit idly by as our country is misled once again into a war favored only by "neo-conservatives" in Washington and their counterparts in the far-right Likud government in Israel who share a vision of remaking the map of the Middle East.

***

The NIE concludes that Iran will not be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon until "early to mid-next decade," with general consensus among intelligence analysts that 2015 would actually be the earliest.

The exposure of these intelligence judgments is extremely well timed. It comes amid rumors that Vice President Cheney's office has ordered up contingency plans for a large-scale air assault on Iran using not only conventional weapons but also tactical nuclear weapons to take out hardened underground nuclear facilities. The action would be framed as a response to a terrorist act—whether sponsored by Iran or not—on the United States. According to former CIA operative Philip Giraldi, senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are appalled that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked attack but, sadly, no one wants to jeopardize a career by posing objections.

MORE

LINK
http://www.tompaine.com/print/preempting_cheney.php

Let's hope this preemption of Cheney works 'cause he's scaring the heck out of me.

[wli]

1. I hope they've preempted the upcoming MIHOP, too

Those nuclear terrorism exercises in South Carolina are scaring the living crap out of me.

[lady lib]

5. I hadn't heard about those

so I just looked them up. Here are some links for anyone interested. You're right, it's crazy scary. http://www.unitech1.com/solutions_hs_maritime.htm
http://www.scemd.org/training/SC%20ExPlan%20Final.pdf
http://www.dukeemployees.com/nuclear13.shtml

Press Release
Exercise to focus on nuclear terror scenario
Posted Jun 29, 2005
FORT MONROE, Va. -- Here’s the scenario…A seafaring vessel transporting a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead makes its way into a port off the coast of Charleston, S.C. Terrorists aboard the ship attempt to smuggle the warhead off the ship to detonate it. Is this really a possibility?

Joint Task Force Civil Support (JTF-CS) here is planning its next exercise on the premise that this crisis is indeed plausible.

Sudden Response 05 will take place this August on Fort Monroe and will be carried out as an internal command post exercise. The exercise is intended to train the JTF-CS staff to plan and execute Consequence Management operations in support of Federal Emergency Management Agency Region IV’s response to a nuclear detonation.

Some of this year’s objectives for SR05 are to refine nuclear incident Concept of Operations, produce a CM Operation Order, refine command post set-up procedures and maintain situational awareness of multiple CM incidents.

The Sudden Response exercise has been held at Quantico, Va., in the past, but has been moved to Fort Monroe to maximize command post training time. The senior leadership felt that it was more important to accomplish training instead of losing up to a day and a half in travel time, said Paul Deflueri, J7 Lead Exercise Planner. “This will allow us to still meet our training objectives,” he said.

Some external participants may work with JTF-CS during the exercise.

“We’re trying to get representatives from FEMA Region IV as well as representatives from South Carolina Emergency Management Division and active duty soldiers from the (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive) Consequence Management Response Force to play the role of task force units,” Defluri said.

“Each time we do one of these internal exercises, we try to make it more robust and try to add in fidelity,” Defluri said. “That’s what we’re trying to do for SR05: create a good scenario and be able to replicate the effects as best we can. That way we can give the command a really good CM exercise.”
http://www.northcom.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.showstory&storyid=C9BFBBAC-F3CA-BD2E-008C7B34AFE33114&pf=1

[EST]

2. How the hell could one's career, assuming some sort of normal

brain function, be an excuse for destroying the whole f***ing world??
I just don't get it. These idiots have to be totally nuts!

[dbeach]

3. Oops! evil dickie sauron gets caught in the nukie cookie jar again..

LL
Nice score and the bushsters need a quick re-route to save face..

"Not for ten more years"


'nothing is done in this town withour our apporoval" lord saurons very own royal words..
WHY oh why did dickie with all that anger/rage not come fight with the men in VN instead of staying home..gettin 3 student deferrments and plottin to overthrow the US govt with his neo-con budies

Oh lord I did forget ..sill me

cheny is a chikenhawk .. not a real man at all.. a coward .. bully and TRAITOR ..

[lady lib]

12. I'll get Gandalf on the line and

you go make some WAVES.

Surfin dbeach :hi:

[wake.up.america]

4. Let us assume Iran is in fact building a nuclear bomb...

but we are not sure. As they progress with building a nuclear, would it become obvious that they were in fact developing a nuclear bomb, or can it never be clear that they in fact have a bomb until they deploy such bomb?

Please answer

[dbeach]

6. good logic but dickie don't think with logic

only with his wallet and plus its more fun to scare the lil kids..

WHADDAA chikenhawk!!

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. This is a dupe of this earlier thread. And there's more to the story too:

Here's the earlier thread on McGovern's article:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4251697#4252097
Thread title: Ray McGovern on foiling Cheney: "Timing makes all the difference."

I also recommend the opening post and extensive links in this combined thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4252778
Thread title Three extremely important threads on Iran nukes & the Bush agenda
(The third of the three threads is on the Ray McGovern article, but there is much more to this story.)

This is a vitally important issue. So far, the Washington Post is the only major media venue I know of that has openly discussed the leaked National Intelligence Estimate on iran, which says that the country is at least 10 years away from a nuclear bomb. If this rebuttal to the Bushies' mad rush to war with Iran (probably with Israel making the first strike) isn't picked up by other major media venues Thursday, I believe that DU should organize activism around getting this message out.

We can't let them lie this nation into an even bigger war. And that is what they will do unless they are stopped.

[lady lib]

8. Wow. You've done another amazing job,

Nothing Without Hope. Thank you! I agree that it's imperative that we get the message out on this one.

(And for God sakes, would someone please MEDICATE Cheney?!!)

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. YVW, LL - let's scour the media venues Thursday and if they don't start

talking loudly about how the country's own NIE on Iran contradicts the lies of the Bush Administration in their rush to another war, we need to organize a DU activism event around this. What's more important?

And it may happen soon, while Congress is out of session - boom - we wake up and read about Israel attacking iran and how it's all such a good idea and makes us safer. NO!!!!!
:grr:

[lady lib]

11. Sounds good.

They can only make the lie stick if no one shines a light on it.

[fooj]

9. "2006-7 WMD Exercises Wish List? Wish List for 2005."

These evil, maniacal madmen must be stopped. This is some scary stuff! The rat bastards are out of control.

:patriot: