The CIA can find no proof . . . but, then, it’s not like the CIA has never made a mistake before.
Yes…they are. IMHO, based solely on what I’ve read and the actions taken by their government, I’d say that they are developing nukes and will probably have one before the next decade is out.
That the CIA has no proof means nothing…again IMHO…afaik we have little or no human intel sources IN Iran (or in the whole ME for that matter, at least from what I’ve read in the past), and its not something you could or would see via satelite (which the CIA relies on a lot in those areas). Besides, just because the CIA SAYS it has no evidence, doesn’t mean there IS no evidence. It might not be solid enough for the bureaucrats and pencil pushers…who have got to be feeling the burn after the whole Iraq fiasco. They might not want to go out on a limb again unless they have absolute proof. Or they might want the Iranians to THINK we have no such solid proof.
-XT
I think Iran is probably developing nuclear weapons, but I still feel compelled to say that this sounds a lot like “absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.”
Heh. Of course, you might have thought that the first time around- but then you would have thought wrong.
I have no evidence for this… but of course they are. By all accounts they are within range of having them, and they are the most powerful weapons ever. If they get them, they raise to a new, worldwide status. Look at Russia in '49. They were backward peasants, til the papers screamed that they had the bomb. Same with China, Israel, India, Pakistan, etc. They were all second class powers… til they got the bomb. No matter how each nation tries to hide it, the “group-think” mentality drives them toward Machiavellian goals. They are trying as hard as they possibly can, without raising suspicion above an unacceptable level. Eventually their efforts will come to fruition.
And to further my “evidence”… look at the U.S. drive toward getting the bomb. Why did we do it? Was it to end the war? The first efforts were before the war even started. We couldn’t see the beginning of the war, much less the end, so we didn’t see the bomb ending the war.
We saw (supposedly) that Germany was well on the way to developing nukes, so we had to develop nukes. It wasn’t to actually use them, it was a biggest dick contest (excuse the phrase…) And now Iran wants to show how big theirs is too.
From the same Seymour Hersh that promised that we’d be invading Iran right now?
I’m more inclined to believe that Mr. Hersh is now operating off of an intelligence-decoder-ring from the bottom of a box of corn flakes than not. I have this on good authority from secret unnamed high-level sources in the Bush administration.
The bottom line is that there is no proof. And we have before our eyes the cluster-fuck that resulted the last time we trusted what we ‘knew’ of WMD’s and trusted the word of a bunch of lying war mongers.
The Hersh article I read on Iran spoke of authoristing cover military action in Iran and given the nature of covert action we have no idea if it’s going on or not.
Certainly no one can deny Bush/Cheney have a hard-on for military action against Iran and they are proven liars regarding fomenting wars on specious grounds. If changed political circumstances makes an overt attack less likely then that’s all for the better.
Iran is perfectly entitled to pursue a nuclear power program and enrich uranium to the 3.5% (well below weapons grade) that it has. The IAEA has verification issues with Iran but there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.
All our defaults should now be set to ‘Disbelief’ regarding anything the White House and their co-conspirators say regarding WMD’s anywhere.
When the IAEA and independent analysts untainted by the Iraq debacle say I have need to worry, then I will worry.
If anyone has real evidence they are welcome to bring it forward. Until then I’m happy to let diplomacy rumble on. I’m not going to be lied/scared into another disastarous war and neither should anyone else with a lick of sense.
Add in to this that the alleged source of data supporting allegations are Iranian opposition groups and supposed ‘secret’ israeli assets close to the Iranian govt then my Deja Vu alert siren goes off. Changing the last letter of the alleged demon country from a Q to an N doesn’t fool me.
I think that they are probably working on getting a bomb.
I also think that they are very scared of the USA, which is a good incentive to keep the centrifuges spinning.
What the CIA says and what the CIA knows are not necessarily they same thing, which is eminently sensible as there is a strong case for defusing the USA-Iran ‘relationship’.
Don’t suppose the results of the recent Iranian election will change anything?
If you can’t trust the CIA, who can you trust?!
They’ve produced plutonium. With the excuse that they produced this weapons grade material out of simple curiousity over nuclear physics. Of course they’re working on a neuclear weapon.
Here’s Hersh’s article, BTW.
In other news:
Don’t you mean “What the Bush Administration says and what the CIA knows are not necessarily the same thing”? I mean, the CIA knew that Iraq didn’t have WMDs, but it was the bozos in the White House who claimed otherwise…
Update: 12/23/03, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1737 imposing sanctions on Iran.
Here’s what the Iranian ambassador to the UN has to say about it, FWIW.