# Rumsfeld: Iran aiding Iraq insurgents; another war before November? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 8, 2004, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656 "2004-09-08T12:53:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/101 "2004-09-23T04:30:01Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > (searches for that ignore button…) **Moderator’s Note:** **Loopydude** , please don’t [imply that another user is on your ignore list](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=1949385#post1949385). ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/102 "2004-09-23T05:23:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No mention of Cuba in either story – which does not mean Clinton never said anything about “regime change” in Cuba during his administration . . . does anybody have a copy of his autobiography? If so, look up Cuba in the index (if it has an index) and let us know if you find anything. This is going by memory , but Clinton was the first president in a really long time, that was in the process of normailizing relations with cuba, right up until the cuban airforce blew some light plane out of the air for making propaganda speeches or something back in 94. But I can’t remember em making any comments about regime change. Declan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/103 "2004-09-23T21:21:01Z")
More updates. From [http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Israel-Iran.html:](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Israel-Iran.html:) > [@](#): > > UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Iran warned that it will react ``most severely’’ to any Israeli action against its nuclear facilities, after Israel said the United States was selling it 500 bunker buster bombs. > > Israeli military officials said Tuesday that the Jewish state will receive nearly 5,000 smart bombs, including the 500 one-ton bombs that can destroy six-foot concrete walls. In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor before it could begin operating. > > ``But be sure, any action by Israel certainly will be reacted (to) by us, most severely,’’ [Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal] Kharrazi said after he met British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s ministerial meeting. > > Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Wednesday that Iran will never abandon plans to develop nuclear weapons and called for quick action by the U.N. Security Council ``to put an end to this nightmare.’’ > > Shalom sidestepped the question of whether Israel would take military action against Iran if it continued to pursue its nuclear ambitions. > > ``They are trying to buy time, and the time has come to move the Iranian case to the Security Council in order to put an end to this nightmare,’’ he told reporters after meeting Secretary-General Kofi Annan. > > Secretary of State Colin Powell, responding to a question about an Israeli attack on Iranian facilities similar to the Iraqi strike, said: ``We’re talking about diplomacy and political efforts to stop this movement on the part of the Iranians toward a nuclear weapon. > > ``We’re not talking about strikes. But every option always, of course, remains on the table.’’ And from [http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-un-israel.html:](http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-un-israel.html:) > [@](#): > > UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Israel charged on Thursday that Iran had replaced Saddam Hussein as the world’s primary exporter of ``terror, hate and instability.’’ > > Stepping up a war of words between the Middle East’s two most implacable enemies, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom challenged the U.N. General Assembly to `end its obsession'' with the Jewish state and focus instead on `the active involvement of Iran and Syria in terrorism.’’ > > ``Indeed, Iran has replaced Saddam Hussein as the world’s number one exporter of terror, hate and instability,’’ Shalom asserted at the world forum. > > Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Wednesday that Israel, not Iran, was the greatest threat to all countries in the Middle East because of its ``nuclear bombs as well as other weapons of mass destruction.’’ > > Israel is widely believed to have the only atomic arsenal in the Middle East, although it maintains a policy of refusing to confirm or deny its nuclear capability . Who can place this quote for me? “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/104 "2004-09-23T21:25:35Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > **Moderator’s Note:** **Loopydude** , please don’t [imply that another user is on your ignore list](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=1949385#post1949385). Sorry! Didn’t know that. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/105 "2004-09-24T00:13:07Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > Just to make it reasonably challenging on us, I decided to assume you meant “Did Clinton ever give any speeches down in Florida during his 1996 reelection campaign?” > > Oh, just a visit [here](http://cgi.usatoday.com/elect/ep/epd/epdc104.htm) and [there](http://cgi.usatoday.com/elect/ep/epd/epdc092.htm). You really do want to make me work, don’t you? Ok, I found [this](http://www.cnn.com/US/9602/cuba_shootdown/28/sanctions/) which referenced [this](http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/16/cuba/). Aperently it was additional sanction Clinton enacted to allow people to sue companies doing business in Cuba. Not a direct mention, I admit. [I did find this from the Miami Herald](http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/officialspeaksupcuba.html) "\*The top State Department official for Cuba policy, Michael Ranneberger, told the participants after Remirez left that ``the deplorable human rights situation’’ in Cuba was one more reason not to reconsider lifting the longstanding embargo on trade with the island. `There is some wishful thinking that the administration wants to get out from under the embargo, and that's not true,'' Ranneberger said. `We’re interested in more people-to-people contact, not with the Cuban government.’’\*" Although he also allowed: "\*Several participants at the conference, including representatives of telecommunications and energy companies, pressed Ranneberger on why U.S. policy allowed extensive trade with China and Vietnam, despite their poor human rights records, and blocked doing business with Cuba. Ranneberger said there was an important difference: China was much further along in economic reforms, allowing outside companies to provide salaries and benefits directly to workers – something Cuba refuses to do. And he said ``the simple reality’’ is that Congress supports the embargo.\*" [Just for completness, this is a summary of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (Libertad) of 1996](http://congress.nw.dc.us/cubanclaims/legislation_5cuban_liberty.htm) I believe this is the act mentioned in my first cite. [By the end of his administration, Clinton had taken a soft tone towards Cuba.](http://globalization.about.com/library/weekly/aa010201a.htm) \*As President Clinton prepares to leave office he is taking a more philosophical view of Cuba. He told CBS, “I’ve often wondered whether he [Castro] and the people in America that don’t want any change in relations are in some sort of unconscious dance with each other, because as long as that embargo is there, he’s got an excuse for the failures of his regime.” \* [This chronology suggests that Clinton suspended the rights to sue under teh 1996 act several times.](http://usembassy.state.gov/havana/wwwh0017.html) [In 98 Clinton told NewsHour this:](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june98/clinton_1-21.html) \*JIM LEHRER: All right. Has the time come maybe for the United States to also bury some economic and political hatchets with Cuba? PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I think that our previous policy, the one that we have now and the one we have had through the Republican and Democratic administrations of keeping economic pressure on and denying the legitimacy of the Cuban government has been a good policy. I have made it clear from the day I got here that we would be prepared to respond to a substantial effort at a political or economic opening by Cuba, and we have, as you know, a system for communicating with each other. Nothing would please me greater than to see a new openness there that would justify a response on our part, and I would like to work on it. And I think Mr. Castro knows that. I’ve tried to proceed in good faith here. \* The Pope’s visit to Cuba was what sparked the questions, but in Jim Lehrer’s usual fasion, he managed to get some good comments from Clinton on the subject. These statments are not as strong as Bush’s. And the fact that he suspended litigation rights so often certainly might mean that he in fact was less hard line toward Cuba. But I think they also show that he was in agreement with the previous administrations that the embargo and refusal to recognize the Cuban government was the right policy. I ran accross [this](http://www.cubasource.org/html/spotlight_us_electoral_year.htm) odd little site purporting to be a clearinghouse for Cuban information as it pertains to US elections. It doesn’t seem to have much Clinton stuff, so just FYI. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/106 "2004-09-24T00:24:31Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > Um, the 9-11 Commission report states quite succinctly that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and does in no way provide support for the notion that Iraq posed an imminent threat to US security, which was the assertion of Bush when he lied to the American people. Yes, it states quite succintly that no evidence is available to prove a link between Iraq and 9-11. It also states pretty clearly that Iraq was involved in international terrorism in one form or another for a long time. If you would really like me to quote passage and verse, I’d be happy to. I took your short responses to indicate that you did not want to belabor the point. It is, after all something of a hijack. As it turns out, I disagree with **Squink** and agree with you in regards to Iran’s nuclear capabilities. > [@](#): > > What, do you link to giant tomes like this just to distract people? Have you anything better to throw at us, by way of a smokescreen […] [Post #76 this thread.](What, do you link to giant tomes like this just to distract people? Have you anything better to throw at us, by way of a smokescreen, or are you as weak as squink in a debate?) ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/107 "2004-09-24T00:45:52Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > You really do want to make me work, don’t you? > > Ok, I found [this](http://www.cnn.com/US/9602/cuba_shootdown/28/sanctions/) which referenced [this](http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/16/cuba/). Aperently it was additional sanction Clinton enacted to allow people to sue companies doing business in Cuba. Not a direct mention, I admit. Well, I am not happy with what Clinton did here…I.e., he capitulated some to the pressure of the wacko anti-Castro people, and probably at least in part for political reasons with an eye toward Florida. However, you have to recognize the climate that existed after the incident of those planes getting shot down. Note this: > [@](#): > > Cuba’s shooting down of two small American planes off the Cuban coast Saturday spurred Congress to complete the Cuba sanctions bill. Last fall, different versions of the bill were passed by the House and Senate but never became law, partly because the Clinton administration had objected to several controversial provisions. It was only after the bill’s backers agreed to several compromise provisions that Clinton signed it. One of those provisions was this one: > [@](#): > > The bill allows Clinton to delay implementing the right-to-sue provision every six months if he determines that doing so is in the national interest or would help Cuba’s transition to democracy. And, as one of those articles notes, Clinton subsequently used this provision at least once…I don’t know what he did after that. Personally, I’d be much happier if Clinton refused to compromise at all. But, I think this is a very different role, of at least trying to moderate the will of Congress somewhat, than what Bush is playing. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/108 "2004-09-24T00:48:09Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > Yes, it states quite succintly that no evidence is available to prove a link between Iraq and 9-11. It also states pretty clearly that Iraq was involved in international terrorism in one form or another for a long time. “In one form of another” is the key phrase. Do you think the American people would want to spend a few hundred billion dollars and at least 1000 lives to topple Hussein because he grandstands in the Arab world by giving money to the families of suicide bombers in Israel after-the-fact? ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/109 "2004-09-24T04:44:41Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > “In one form of another” is the key phrase. Do you think the American people would want to spend a few hundred billion dollars and at least 1000 lives to topple Hussein because he grandstands in the Arab world by giving money to the families of suicide bombers in Israel after-the-fact? That wasn’t the only charge. But as a matter of fact, Yes, I do. I realize that the choice was not spelled out so clearly. But probably many Americans favored war with Iraq simply because they favored war with Iraq. They don’t particularly care the he was not implicated in 9-11. They don’t particularly care that he never carried out a significant terrorist attack on America. They did consider his regime a threat. To be clear, I am not saying they are right. Just answering the question about the American people. Re: Clinton and Cuba. I think what he did was pretty statesmanlike. He supported a policy vocally and through enforcement efforts because it was politically necessary. However, where he could exert influence he was able to alter the course significantly. He didn’t normalize relations. In fact he said that wouldn’t be a good idea. I did not find one, but I would be surprised if he ever gave a speech in Miami in which he did not repeat the past policy of witholding normalized relations until significant progress is made in Cuban reform. But that is just good politics. Can’t allow the Republicans to think they own Florida. I imagine you could get Bush to make positive statements about normalizing relations if you included provisions about political reform there. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656/110 "2004-09-24T17:17:03Z")
Let’s try to get this thread back on Iran. There are three problems: 1. According to Rumsfeld, Iran is supporting the insurgency in Iraq. I haven’t seen any solid proof yet, nor has anyone outside the Bush Admin asserted or acknowledged the same. 2. Iran is developing uranium-enrichment technology which it might use to make nuclear weapons. 3. New one: According to the Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, “Iran has replaced Saddam Hussein as the world’s number one exporter of terror, hate and instability.” No specifics given, and maybe it’s flat wrong; but that Sharon would say this is a sign of things heating up, even by MENA standards. Will any of these factors lead to a war between the U.S. and Iran? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-iran-aiding-iraq-insurgents-another-war-before-november/263656.md?page=5)