Iraq Casts a Pall Over U.S. Effort to Fathom Iran

At the nation’s top spy agency, the ghosts of Iraq are never far away.

Read the whole story at New York Times

Comments

[the81kid]

04:36 PM on 04/02/2012

And Tony Bliar is suntanning his way around the Middle East. 100,000 civilians killed in Iraq. Conservative estimate.

[JeanValjean]

12:39 PM on 04/02/2012

Agencies do their best. Mistakes happen. How a small group (of powerful individuals) was able to use US intelligence agencies is a story that we should all remember. All safeguards against Presidential diktat failed, including the fourth power: the media. Until media became owned by right wingers, it was part of a checks and balances system. It no longer exists. Congress used to be part of the checks and balances systems: it no longer uses its power for the Nation. It uses its power for its financial backers. SCOTUS used to be a judicial body, it has become a political power since 2000. In this environment, it is hard for intelligence employees to do their job, and perhaps a special set of new check and balances should be enacted.
As far as Iran concern, the current approach is partially right: greater efforts for talks between all parties in interest should be made. Unfortunately, that is politicized too by war mongers (who, most of the time never saw real combat or were AWOL when called) and supporters of a foreign country (Israel) to the detriment of the US, and the World at large.

[doctor pangloss]

04:08 PM on 04/01/2012

With the exception of Ron Paul ,most of the republican candidates for president of the U.S. are chicken hawks who would readily consider a war with Iran over very little evidence that would justify another unnecessary war.

[fapescia]

01:42 PM on 04/01/2012

If Iran wants to enrich uranium in hidden underground facilities it is impossible to stop that without a declaration of war and an invasion of ground troops.

It is an impossible mission for the CIA or Mossad or the MEK to know with certainty that there are no secret underground facilities with thousands of centrifuges spinning.

Google underground data storage facilities in the US. There are hundreds of them in the US. They are in old limestone mines. TV shows like Underground on History Channel show massive unknown labrynths under every major city in the world. There is a place called the Iron Mountain in Pa., and the The Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs West Virginia had a huge underground cold war bunker. Iran has those places too.
My point is that it is impossible to know every hidden facility producing enriched uranium if that is what Iran chooses to do.

Iran also has a right to launch into space a spy satellite. Most certainly the US has coerced all the commercial satellite owners like Google to restrict data about Israel from their provided services. If Iran wants to send a monkey into space and recover it they have that right.

[kellynyc99]

01:34 PM on 04/02/2012

I lived and worked in Iran for three years during the late 70's but got out just before the revolution. I was a computer consultant to the IIAF (Imperial Iranian Air Force) and as such I visited every major Air Base and Radar installation existing in those days. Iran is a very large piece of real estate with a quite varied topography. The idea of sending in American or NATO troops to do a ground search is laughable and counter- productive. The Elzborg mountains just north of Tehran would be a quite formidable hiding place for underground bunkers (think of our western Rockies as an equivalent)) Iran is no happless third world country. Diplomacy coupled with econmic pressure rather than force is the way to go. As for their nascent space program I'm hoping they send Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and spare the monkey.

[uk progressive]

01:26 PM on 04/01/2012

Unable to post the link but Iraqi defector "curveball" confesses all to lies that lead to 100,000 deaths in Iraq in interview with the independent on Sunday.

[gdeer]

12:42 AM on 04/02/2012

And he said that he was glad of his lies.

[ThatsTheTheWayItIs]

01:06 PM on 04/01/2012

Iraq sponsors anti-US terrorism. Iran is Assad's best friend and only hope.

Iran's current regime invaded US territory (our embassy), took and held hostages for a year AFTER the Shah was already gone. They paraded US citizens in front of mobs, a clear violation of international law. Those were war crimes, committed by the President himself and his thugs.

Iran's regime consists of international criminals, and must fall. Nukes are irrelevant.

[uk progressive]

01:34 PM on 04/01/2012

The us embassy hostages were taken when jimmy carter allowed the brutal tyrant the shah into the US after he was overthrown in the Iranian revolution, fearing another coup and operation AJAX like in 1953 which was planned in the US embassy the Iranians reacted by taking the US hostages.

[blutopie]

01:48 PM on 04/01/2012

Do you mean 'our US embassy' from which we overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran in a CIA/British sponsored coup?

What is it? - some kind of just born yesterday problem without any grasp of history other than that which is convenient and also out of context?

Come on...

[lifepanels]

12:54 PM on 04/01/2012

The intelligence community and the country face the ghosts of Bush and Cheney.

[omobob]

12:26 PM on 04/01/2012

Robert Grenier, Director of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Centre from 2004 to 2006 tells us that he "didn't see it coming." The Shi'a would never surrender the power they had finally won from the Sunnis. The CIA remains a clueless lot. They were dead wrong about Iraq and now they want to be believed about Iran. The CIA missed 9/11, the fall of the Soviet Union, The invasion of Kuwait, the Russian invasion of Georgia, the fall of the Shah of Iran and blew the call on WMDs in Iraq. They lied and good people died. And they know it. “For a lot of people in the intelligence community, there is a feeling that they don’t want to repeat the same mistake,” said Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence analyst. The way it seems the CIA can’t help but to make more mistakes. Mistakes that cost lives.

[antiwarmonger]

11:57 AM on 04/01/2012

There may be less opposition to intelligence assessments of Iran because the takeover of the CIA by neocons may now be more complete than it was during the time of the Iraq war, when holdouts against the neocon agenda were still a substantial force. These holdouts may now be mostly retired. Given this, it's surprising to me that the official intelligence assessment still seems to be that there is no evidence that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

With the movement of the scrapheap Enterprise aircraft carrier, scheduled to be decommissioned in 2013, to the Persian Gulf, I still suspect that something like a Gulf of Tonkin fabricated attack incident is in the planning stages, where the ship would be attacked by parties unknown, and the attack blamed on the Iranians.

[fapescia]

01:19 PM on 04/01/2012

How is it that the same Neocons who drummed up all the war frenzy in 2003 are still at it and appearing on Fox calling for war with Iran? John Bolton and Bill Kristol, Ken Adelman and Charles Krauthammer seemingly haven't missed a beat in the transition from war in Iraq to a new war with Iran. All of them should be rejected and made to tell us to buy gold, not invade Iran. At some point you lose credibility in the real world, but never in the Republican world.

[blutopie]

01:50 PM on 04/01/2012

The only ones who believe Krauthammer and the Neocons are those paid to do so or the Sarah Palins of the world

[jdenham]

11:26 AM on 04/01/2012

This is the exact reason why the Iraq war was bad for this country. Although Iran maybe a threat I find it hard to trust our government not to rush into another ill fated war. As to the CIA I do not trust them at all, because they allowed the Administration to push us into a war we did not need to fight on false evidence. And if the same guy who was in charge of gathering information last time is in charge again that is information I do not trust. Unfortunately our politician do what they want and ignore the advice of military and intelligence leader, who's advice does not suit their agenda. Pakistan and North Korea appear to be far more of a nuclear threat than Iran. But who do we trust the bozos that allowed themselves to be bullied into the last fiasco or the lying politicians in Washington?

[fapescia]

12:06 PM on 04/01/2012

Pakistan and North Korea don't have leaders who have threatened to remove the Zionist Regime from the pages of time. If and when they threaten Israel or join in an alliance with Iran then they have minimal interest to the US.

North Korea is held in check by China, Pakistan is held in check by India, and Israel is held in check by the US. Obama has made it clear to Netanyahu that he will not attack Iran this year.

[uk progressive]

01:04 PM on 04/01/2012

Israel is held in check by the US is it, then explain the record growth in the illegal settlements in the west bank and east Jerusalem. And again you still managed to misquote Ahmadinejad he didn't even threaten to remove the Zionist regime from the pages of time, he actually said the Zionist regime should vanish from the pages of time. Just like apartheid south Africa.

[pittelli]

11:24 AM on 04/01/2012

I like how they're trying to paint Iraq as an "intelligence failure," as if they really believed their own propaganda. They made up a pack of lies to go to war and they are going to do the same in Iran and, judging by the comments already, by next Spring, when they ramp it up for the war in Iran (no matter who wins the election), people will be back yelling "Support the Troops" and demonizing peace marchers just like they did for the Iraq War. Americans just do not learn...

[OkieMon]

10:49 AM on 04/01/2012

bush/chainy/repubs made iran a super power by getting rid of their natural enemy saddam/sunis and also by rigging the price of oil from 18 to 150 bucks a barrel thus giving iran another 75 billion dollars in oil money each year to spend on their nuclear/terrorist ways.....

[ilucot]

10:37 AM on 04/01/2012

misguided by GREED!

[ilucot]

10:35 AM on 04/01/2012

Sad to think of what the President of US did to the integrity of its Country. There should be accountability for the mass slaughter of our servicemen and the people of Iraq. President Bush and your cronies how do you sleep at night?

[gatornation]

10:31 AM on 04/01/2012

would not it be cheaper and safer to quartine the musllims..? why is Western Society
so anxious to bring them into the fold?..they do not assemilate into our culture...nor will they ever...they do not want to have our values ...it is a Religious War.....bring back
the melting pot or leave. When in Rome, act and dress like the Romans..simple.

[Martin06]

11:10 AM on 04/01/2012

They own our oil