Colin Powell: Should We Believe Him A Second Time?
Reported by Marie Therese - November 19, 2004 -
Here we go again. Remember the build-up to the war on Iraq? Remember those fuzzy aerial photos that Colin Powell assured the world were ironclad proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Remember the expatriate Chalabi and his coterie of highly paid disinformers? Remember the as yet unrevealed WMD intelligence from an unnamed "friendly country"? Well, the gang that brought you Iraq is at it again. Only now it's an unnamed "opposition group" that has given our side "information" that Secretary of State Colin Powell claims reveals that Iran is developing a missile that can carry a nuke.
On the Big Story with John Gibson that aired November 18, 2004 host Gibson interviewed Michael Ledeen, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, on the topic of Iran's alleged nuclear program.
Gibson started off by saying "an Iranian opposition group says Tehran is enriching uranium at a secret facility unknown to UN inspectors." After admitting that "everybody's worried" Michael Ledeen said that the United States needed to do two things. One was "address the nuclear problem in and of itself and try to find a deal or find a military solution, as the Israelis did in Iraq." The second was "to go after the regime itself and to deal with the Middle East as a regional war, which is what it has been all along."
Gibson noted that "an exile group says Iran has a nuclear bomb drawing." This elusive "exile group" was not identified. (Comment: It wasn't made clear if the "elite group" and the "opposition group" were one and the same. As for a "nuclear bomb drawing," I believe those are readily available on the internet, although I must admit, it's not something I've ever thought of downloading!)
LEDEEN: " .. Colin Powell said they were studying ways to put things together so they would have a nuclear-tipped missile they could deliver. Why is he saying it now? Where has he been all along, if he's had this information? Why hasn't he been more aggressive talking about Iran? And, I think the answer is that the Europeans desperately do not want to deal with this problem. They want to hide from it. They have huge financial interests in Iran and they don't want to tackle Iran."
Gibson cited an "unsubstantiated report" by the "opposition group" that claimed that Iran had "obtained a nuclear weapon design and enriched nuclear material from AQ Kahn, the Pakistani who supplied the same stuff to Libya." He went on to exclaim vociferously: "We should believe that, I mean - AQ Kahn was doing that and Iran is a logical customer!"
LEDEEN: "Well, my guess is that we know that because we've debriefed him [Kahn] extensively. I doubt that there's much that he did that we don't know by now." (Note how Ledeen accepts as a fact the unsubstantiated report of a unnamed opposition group. Having experienced a classic Jesuit education in college, I can tell you that Mr. Ledeen needs a refresher course in analytical thinking as well as a hefty dose of plain old common sense. The AEI is not well served by a such a "scholar," one who would lead us to war based on gossamer guesses and fungible facts.)
GIBSON: "The other thing that the opposition group said is it pointed at a specific secret facility where it says the Iranians are enriching uranium to make a bomb."
(PHOTOGRAPH of some kind of facility comes on the screen.)
GIBSON: "Do we have the kind of specific information that the picture we're seeing now could actually be on the nose of a smart bomb as it descended towards that building?"
LEDEEN: "I don't know the specifics. I don't have access to that kind of information."
Ledeen then hypothesized that the Iranians have a nuclear program because they've arrested a number of people in the nuclear program and are trying them for espionage, for selling the secrets of the nuclear program to foreign governments. He went to say that it "stands to reason that if the Iranians weren't involved in a nuclear program, there would be no need for such trials."
GIBSON: "Do you think the United States has the political will to run a raid like the Israelis did on Iraq and knock out their nuclear capability?"
Ledeen did not answer the question directly, preferring instead to sum up the situation as follows: "Is a military solution possible or is regime change the best way to go, as I've been arguing for many years?"
COMMENT
I expect FOX to slavishly adhere to the RNC Party Line. However, one would hope that at least some media outlets would begin to question whether or not we are being led down the garden path a second time. In the coming months are we going to be treated to a parade of Bushies who piously speak lies and half-truths based on rumor and innuendo, fanning the flames of war with Iran, while a fearful press acquiesces? I sincerely hope not.
