Bush Tells Israelis He Doesn't Believe Iran NIE Report

Newsweek:

In public, President Bush has been careful to reassure Israel and other allies that he still sees Iran as a threat, while not disavowing his administration's recent National Intelligence Estimate. That NIE, made public Dec. 3, embarrassed the administration by concluding that Tehran had halted its weapons program in 2003, which seemed to undermine years of bellicose rhetoric from Bush and other senior officials about Iran's nuclear ambitions. But in private conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week, the president all but disowned the document, said a senior administration official who accompanied Bush on his six-nation trip to the Mideast. "He told the Israelis that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don't reflect his own views" about Iran's nuclear-weapons program, said the official, who would discuss intelligence matters only on the condition of anonymity.

Bush's behind-the-scenes assurances may help to quiet a rising chorus of voices inside Israel's defense community that are calling for unilateral military action against Iran. Olmert, asked by NEWSWEEK after Bush's departure on Friday whether he felt reassured, replied: "I am very happy." A source close to the Israeli leader said Bush first briefed Olmert about the intelligence estimate a week before it was published, during talks in Washington that preceded the Annapolis peace conference in November. According to the source, who also refused to be named discussing the issue, Bush told Olmert he was uncomfortable with the findings and seemed almost apologetic.

Read the whole story: Newsweek

Comments

[bumpersticker]

When your life has been lived in a bubble, you develop a lot of ideas about what's out there and how people are. Belief soon trumps reality. Such people are dangerous when given power.

[bitabingbitabangbitaboom]

Hitler had the same problem as did Stalin and Pinnochet as does Magaubi and King Fisal.

[JoJoKewl]

VogonsCryptolect (See profile | I'm a fan of VogonsCryptolect)
The fact is Israel will not let it get that far.
Forget the terror scenario for a moment, think about it purely as a regional threat. If Israel goes for Iran alone the ME goes up in flames. The US will be almost forced to take the action alone and preemptively to prevent a major conflict almost certain to end very very badly...

This is another crock from Huffpos' wannabee think tank lizard. Why will the ME go up in flames over Shiite Iran? Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan what do they give a damn about the Persians. They fear the Shiite Crescent. Hezbollah and the Shia in Iraq might be a bit angry at America for striking at their brothers in faith. Absolutely nothing is gained by having America do Israels' dirty work.

[OkieMon]

The only view bush has had his entire life is black like in oil. He will do anything to keep fomenting fear in the middle east to overturn control of the oil fields to bushcheneyCorp interests.

[intuition]

Further proof the man is working with a severe mental deficit!

[Mike169]

Would someone please tell our benighted president before hemakes a fool of himself again.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

Did Georgie have a 'Regan' moment where his heart tells him the facts are wrong?

[kevenseven]

I am going to post this several times per day for several days without apology. The senate will be back in session this week and this will be first up.

Dodd managed to postpone consideration in the senate of the pending FISA reform acts which would have included provisions granting retroactive immunity to the telecoms for their illegal cooperation with Bush in HIS illegal spying on Americans.

The current bill expires soon and there will be serious pressure to ramrod the bill thru the senate and conference committee. Without a considerable groundswell BEFORE the senate resumes, the bill will be presented and passed so fast it will make your head spin. Then it will go to the briefest of conference committees and the perfectly acceptable house RESTORE ACT will be destroyed with the immunity provisions.

For all the Puritans out there thumping their chests, this is a perfect test of your impeachment fervor. The purpose of immunity is to forestall the inevitable discovery in the 40+ lawsuits pending. It is that discovery that would lay the grounds for CRIMINAL prosecution of Bush and his minions.

For Californians: Diane Feinstein has an amendment to the bill that on the surface seems reasonable, instead of immunity, the lawsuits must first be brought to the FISA courts to judge if the wiretapping was legal in the first place. No. Sorry, I don't trust them that far.

While Dodd was fighting to stall the bill in December, neither Clinton nor Obama could be bothered to return to Washington to fight for yours or my fourth amendment rights. As a point of parliamentary procedure, no senator needs to vote no to cloture (ending a filibuster), it requires 60 votes to bring cloture, regardless of how many senators vote, but we can still insist that our future nominee expend some capital on this issue.

Write, call, e-mail, fax everybody you can think of. And tell HILLARY and OBAMA that your vote will depend on them getting back to Washington and sustaining Dodd's filibuster.

Act now, or don't bitch about congress rolling over for Bush.

[niikeb]

I hate to break it to you guys, But George W Bush is Elmer Gantry in disguise. This Bull Shit about a holy war is a total lie. If Curious George was as Bible thumping as you call him, why then with majorities in the House and Senate and 5/9 Supreme Court justices, could he not get Abortion over turned. Why didn't he do what Douglas MacArthur did after WW2 when he called for 10,000 missionaries to go to Japan.

Dick Cheney is less religious then Hillery and Obama. The mans social platforms are right up there with the most liberal Democrats.

Their Oil Barons, Their Rockefeller Republicans. They are globalist warmonger Neo-Conservatives. But whatever you call them, they are not Christians.

This has nothing to do with a Christan Crusade. This is Victorian Colonialism. This is the English in India.

If Bush orders an attack on Iran, the Generals should refuse under Article 1 of the US Constitution, and George W Bush should be Impeached, and Imprisoned!

[speakingtruth2power]

Bush tells the Israelis what the neocon/Likudist plans are for Iran and them goes and kisses King Faisal and tells him, "mission accomplished".

Collateral damage from our three day bombing will be over 250,000 Iranian civilians - - - real human beings!!! The Iranians response will include sinking half of our Navy's Fifth Fleet with the missiles they bought with $90.00 a barrel oil.

The MIC will be very busy replacing all the Army and Navy's losses and oil will go to $150-200 a barrel and since Iran's oil delivery systems will be damaged, most of that will go to the Sunni Royals. Mission very much accomplished and we all said the smirking chimp was dumb.

[gappytoofcondi]

Pathlogical liars never believe anything, let alone the truth. When has Bushco ever told the truth?
Truth to this WH is a relative term. Their propaganda has to be the "truth", regardless of what evidence or outright facts get in the way. They are extremely disappointed that they could not bomb Iran and there will be hell to pay for such insubordination. The delay in the new war is costing Halliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, KBR, et al billions of dollars that they can't additionally steal from our treasury.
If we were to look in Bush'e eyes and look into his "soul", post what we would see.

[KOisGod]

"Bush will be remembered as the President who emboldened and empowered the Islamic Republic of Iran. He took out the Ayatollahs’ two biggest strategic enemies - Saddam and the Taliban - and helped them become gold-lined by sending oil prices soaring to more than $100 a barrel.

Today, after Bush’s “re-engineering” of the region, a Shia crescent sympathetic to Iran is now rising on top of the world’s oil supplies, from Saudi Arabia through Iraq. Bush may believe, in his flat and faded mind, that bombing the country is his only way to put this right: his former press secretary Ari Fleischer has been focus-grouping to find the best language to sell an attack on Iran.

If Bush can’t publicly justify the attack on the basis of counter-pr­oliferatio­n, he may try to do it on the basis of counter-terrorism. If it’s not bombs he’s after, it’s baddies. The President has already had the Iranian Revolutionary Guard officially declared “a terrorist organisation” - and last week, it appears the White House deliberately concocted a story that Iranian ships were attacking the US navy in international waters."

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/14/6357/

That's YOUR president neo's -

Mission Accomplished!

[baghdadjoe]

Don't forget: Impeachment is ON THE TABLE.

Congressman Robert Wexler:

"The charges against Vice President Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens."

http://wexlerwantshearings.com

Please join me and over 180,000 Americans who are working to bring Cheney, then Bush, to justice.

[VogonsCryptolect]

OK leave Bush and his comments out of the discussion fo the moment...

The NIE findings in a nutshell (no pun intended).

.Iran had an ongoing nuke weapons program and was trying to produce nuclear weapons through most of 2003.

. Iran stopped this program at least to the degree that they halted trying to produce highly enriched uranium spheres for use in warheads in late 2003.

.The reason they halted the program is because they were 'afraid' of the IAEA inspections and threatened sanctions.......

. The program as it continues is "civilian".

. The folks behind the NIE are "moderately certain" that Iran has not restarted its nuke weapons program..

----------­----------­----------­-------

In order to swallow this you must assume that the Khomeini/A­hmadinejad regime is a rational regime that is only seeking to produce enriched nuclear material for power production. And that they stopped their weapons program because of the IAEA "threat".

Further facts that seem to confuse...

They don't have a working nuclear reactor for power production built yet.

They have an agreement to buy the fuel for the one reactor they are building, from Russia.

It is cheaper , safer and more reliable for them to purchase the fuel for their single reactor from Russia.

They have no plans for the construction of another reactor in the near future, they take years to build and bring on line.

Nuclear fuel for reactors has a limited shelf life of a few years.

They are currently operating over 3000 centrifuges to produce enriched uranium supposedly destined for their one as yet unfinished reactor.

They will soon be operating upwards of 8000 centrifuges. (That's a lotta fuel!!!!)

At that rate of production (8000 operating)with the centrifuges that they have spinning up to 'highly enriched uranium' for use in weapons is an easy task and could produce enough for two or more warheads a year...

Bush or no Bush one has to look at this political document and say HMMMMMM?

One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day....

[srobert]

It's not surprising that intelligence is not reflected in George's views.