Iran's safe! Nothing to look at here.....

They're coming unhinged

Iran Says US Waging "Psychological War" on Tehran

Iran's Information Minister Ali Younessi said in Tehran Sunday that threats issued by US officials were part of a psychological war waged on Iran.


"The Americans issued those statements to influence ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the Europe," Younessi told reporters, according to the official IRNA news agency.



Meanwhile, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said in the capital Sunday that threats recently hurled by US officials against his country are part of a psychological war aimed at exerting pressure on Europe to tow the US line.


Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Asefi said that the United States actually wants Europe to fail in its talks with Iran.


"American accusations (against Iran) are not new. Washington wages psychological wars against Iran every now and then. Militarism is the main reason behind those remarks.


"No country listens and even European states and President Bush`s comrades have rejected those remarks and consider them to be declarations of all-out war against the whole world," Asefi said, according to IRNA news agency.


He further said that remarks of this kind are clear examples of a desire to wage religious and cultural wars against supporters of other religions and cultures, adding that they will bear no fruit except hatred at US policies at the regional and international levels as well as isolation for the United States.


Asked to comment on remarks by officials of the Zionist regime that the US was preparing for attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, he said, "Remarks by US and Zionist officials are two sides of a coin and reinforce the Islamic Republic`s view that US policies are actually dictated by Tel Aviv because the Zionist lobby in the United States is very powerful."


"If the United States wants to strengthen its position in global affairs, it has no choice but to get rid of Zionist lobbyists."


"Iran has enough power and defense capability to resist threats," he stressed, adding "The Islamic Republic of Iran will not be threatened or coerced by such threats."


Shifting to the reports of a possible US military attack on Iran, Asefi said, "In politics it does not make sense to make predictions, but actually we see no real possibility of an attack on Iran."


"These remarks and accusations are but attempts to wage a psychological war. A military attack on Iran is improbable unless the one who contemplates such attack desires to commit a strategic mistake."


Referring to the ongoing dialogue with the Europeans on Iran`s nuclear program, the spokesman said that expert committees to work at various levels were set up last week and negotiations are proceeding favorably.


"We achieved our primary goals in the political committee. The economic committee placed Iran`s demands on the European agenda and the nuclear committee held comprehensive discussions toward extracting tangible guarantees from both sides.


"Iran`s proposals for continuing with its nuclear energy programs and for completing a fuel cycle were explained in the meeting."

Just wonders
Who is it that is becoming unhinged?

You're right. The truth doesn't need that much denial. The boy cried wolf and Ali Younessi spilled his coffee springing to attention! That, is what George Bush brought to the table.

And here's Condi, ever the diplomat....


source


Hello CONDI!!! Have you heard of a place called Pakistan?? They want to do all those things, and they HAVE THE BOMB!! And they sell the technology to ANYONE!! Lob a coupla live rounds into Islamabad while you're setting the world to rights!

Cat And Mouse Game Over Iran

by Richard Sale, UPI Intelligence Correspondent
New York (UPI) Jan 26, 2005


The U.S. Air Force is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Iran's ayatollahs, flying American combat aircraft into Iranian airspace in an attempt to lure Tehran into turning on air defense radars, thus allowing U.S. pilots to grid the system for use in future targeting data, administration officials said.

"We have to know which targets to attack and how to attack them," said one, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The flights, which have been going on for weeks, are being launched from sites in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are part of Bush administration attempts to collect badly needed intelligence on Iran's possible nuclear weapons development sites, these sources said, speaking on condition of strict anonymity.

"These Iranian air defense positions are not just being observed, they're being 'templated,'" an ad ministration official said, explaining that the flights are part of a U.S. effort to develop "an electronic order of battle for Iran" in case of actual conflict.

However, a Pentagon spokesman told UPI he was unaware of any such actions.

"We are not aware of any incursions into Iranian air space," said Cdr. Nick Balice, chief of media at the U.S. Central Command.

In the event of an actual clash, Iran's air defense radars would be targeted for destruction by air-fired U.S. anti-radiation or ARM missiles, he said.

A serving U.S. intelligence official added: "You need to know what proportion of your initial air strikes are going to have to be devoted to air defense suppression."A CentCom official told United Press International that in the event of a real military strikes, U.S. military forces would be using jamming, deception, and physical attack of Iran's sensors and its Command, Control and Intelligence (C3 systems).

He also made clear that that this entails "advance, detailed knowledge of the enemy's electronic order of battle and careful preplanning."


http://www.spacedaily.com/news/iran-05c.html

IRANIAN SOURCE REPORTS PLOT TO ATTACK U.S. NUKE


WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Congress has been pressing the U.S. intelligence community to investigate claims by an Iranian defector that Teheran planned to crash an airliner into a nuclear reactor in the United States.

Several members of Congress were said to have been alarmed by the information and one has met with CIA senior officials to press for an investigation. So far, the CIA has refused to question the Iranian defector, a former senior official in the 1970s.

Rep. Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has met the unidentified defector several times in Paris over the last 22 months. Weldon said the defector has been accurate in predicting several important developments in the Iranian regime since February 2003. The developments were said to have included those in Iran's nuclear weapons programs and support for Al Qaida.

The informant, dubbed Ali, was said to have been in contact with two dissidents in the inner circle of the Islamic republic. They were said to have reported a secret government directive by Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei who presided over the nation's strategic weapons programs and financed and controlled groups deemed terrorists.

http://www.menewsline.com/about_us.html

JustWonders

Some people never learn. Didn't we get enough misinformation from the Iraqi expatriates and defectors? "We will be greeted with flowers." They forgot to mention that the flowers would be loaded with explosives.

I agree.

Just ask Joe Biden.

SEN. BIDEN, IRAN MINISTER CLASH OVER NUKES

PARIS: Iran is shaping up as the most serious diplomatic challenge for President George W. Bush's second term, and conflicting pronouncements by Bush and his national security team have left Iran's leadership frustrated and angry about the direction of American policy and the Europeans more determined than ever to push Washington to embrace their engagement strategy..
To the outside world, the administration seems divided over whether to promote the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran, perhaps by force, or to tacitly support the negotiating approach embraced by the Europeans. .
That approach implicitly recognizes Iran's legitimacy because it would give concrete benefits to Iran if the country permanently stopped key nuclear activities..
"You need to get everybody to read from the same page, the Europeans and the Americans," said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday..
"This is not a process that is going to be solved by the Europeans alone," ElBaradei said. "The United States needs to be engaged. If you continue to say they are going to fail, before you give them a chance, it will be a self-fulfilling policy.".
Michel Barnier, the foreign minister of France, echoed those remarks during an interview in Paris on Friday..
"I cannot explain American policy to you," he said. "That would be French arrogance and I am not someone who is arrogant. But I think that the Americans must get used to the fact that Europe is going to act. And in this case, without the United States, we run the risk of failure.".
France, Germany and Britain - with European Union support - opened negotiations last month that could give Iran generous rewards in the areas of nuclear energy, trade and economic concessions and political and security cooperation if Iran guarantees that it is not developing a nuclear weapon..
The negotiations flow from Iran's voluntary decision last November to temporarily freeze its programs to make enriched uranium, which is useful for producing energy or for making bombs..
But instead of embracing the initiative, Bush began his second term with a sweeping pledge to defend the United States and protect its friends "by force of arms, if necessary" and a statement that he did not rule out military action against Iran..
In the Senate hearings on her nomination as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice did not say no when asked whether the United States' goal was to replace the Islamic Republic..
Vice President Dick Cheney has put Iran at the "top of the list" of the world's trouble spots and suggested that Israel might attack Iran militarily because of its nuclear program. Those words, combined with a report in The New Yorker magazine that secret Pentagon operations were under way in Iran to prepare lists of targets for possible military action, have left the impression - particularly in Tehran - that Iran might be the next Iraq..
"Madness" is how President Mohammad Khatami of Iran described that approach, while his foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, dismissed the talk of a military strike as "psychological warfare." .
Unlike the American-led Iraq war, which Britain joined and France and Germany opposed, the Iran crisis has drawn the three countries together against possible military plans by the United States or by Israel against Iran..
"This is a hotbed region, the last thing we need is a military conflict in that region," Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany said in Davos on Friday. "I'm very explicit and outspoken about this because I want everybody to know where Germany stands.".
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain also has strongly criticized a possible military attack on Iran as "inconceivable." But, in a sign that the Bush administration may be trying to moderate its warlike rhetoric, "the issue of a military option wasn't raised" during his talks with Rice and other officials this week, Straw told the BBC..
Still, there are other confusing signals emanating from Washington. At one point in her confirmation hearings, Rice suggested that the United States implicitly supported the European negotiating approach, saying that the Bush administration is "trying to see" if it will produce concrete results..
But Rice also repeated a threat to haul Iran before the Security Council for censure or possible sanctions, and specified that even a complete stop to Iran's nuclear and missile programs would not translate into American support for a policy of engagement and incentives..
There were "other problems" that precluded such an approach: "Terrorism, our past, their human rights record," she said..
Further complicating the picture is that in a news conference in late December, Bush uncharacteristically admitted the limits of American power. "We're relying upon others, because we've sanctioned ourselves out of influence with Iran," he said..
The Europeans have made the determination that any negotiation - however flawed - that slows and perhaps eventually even halts Iran's nuclear program is better than the alternatives put forward by the United States..
"Is this approach free of risks? No," Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said in a telephone interview. "Does it have a guarantee of success? No. But at this point in time it is the only game in town, no doubt about that. The other options are worse." .
Some senior Iranian officials make the same point. "The West has suspicions about our nuclear program; we have suspicions of the Europeans," said Mohammad Javad Zarid, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and a key negotiator with the Europeans..
Speaking in a telephone interview, Zarid said, "We are eager to use any possible avenue to resolve those suspicions. That's why we have had the pragmatism to understand that the European game is a very serious game. Washington has yet to understand that the European game is the only game in town."

Hersh:

(It's long)



It strikes noone else as scary that the administration is working to quiet those voices in the intelligence service that 'don't support the president's agenda?'

I mean, WTF! Aren't the intelligence services supposed to provide unbiased information for us to make judgements off of? How can we trust a one-sided service which comes to us and says, 'yeah, Iran needs to go based on such-and-such, or so-and-so'..... terrible stuff! We sound more and more like a dictatorship every day...

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo - are you under the mistaken impression that the Iranian nuclear program is for peaceful purposes? Have you missed the numerous statements from the mullahs in that oil-rich country that they don't need nuclear energy?

Have you somehow missed that catchy phrase the mullahs like to spout, "Death to America"?

Are you honestly willing to take the chance that nuclear weapons would be safe in the hands of such irresponsible, aggressive and ignorantly superstitious sociopaths with their constant threats against not only Israel, but the U.S. and the West in general?

Get realistic. Iran is a terrorist state. As long as they remain so, they cannot and will not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.


U.S. WARNS EU FIRMS TO STAY AWAY FROM IRAN-DIPLOMATS

Israel calls Iran the 'threat'

Jerusalem - Iran is the greatest threat to the world, according to an Israeli poll published on Friday in response to an EU survey which was released earlier this week and awarded the title of most dangerous country to the Jewish state.

The opinion poll carried by the top-selling Yediot Aharonot said 83% of Israelis considered the Islamic Republic of Iran to be a threat to world peace.

Israel's northern neighbour Syria came second in the ranking, with 73% of those polled giving a positive answer to the same question.

North Korea was third with 60% and Israel was 12th, with 21% of Israelis judging that their own country as a threat to world peace.

The poll came four days after a survey carried out by the European Union and asking the same question revealed that 59% of Europeans see Israel as a threat to world peace - ahead of Iran, North Korea and the United States.

The poll caused a stir in Israel and sparked accusations of rising anti-Semitism in Europe.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1442141,00.html

Iran isn't really a major threat to America. Even with nuclear bombs, they would still have a hard time doing serious damage to the US if we would just close our borders up, the way should have been done long ago.

I have a hard time judging countries for wanting nuclear bombs when we have so many ourselves, and so do other countries. While you might be perfectly comfortable in your Divinely-inspired role of judging other countries, I am not. Neither is the rest of the world. Arguably, the US is the most dangerous nuclear force in the world; after all, we are the only country to ever use nukes against another. It would be the height of hypocrisy to chastise others for things we do ourselves.

And it's not even just our pre-existing arsenal; the pentagon has been researching and funding 'mini-nukes,' built to see actual wartime use, and uses Depleted Uranium, which is highly toxic to the environment. We've shot so much DU in Iraq that we might as well have popped a few small nukes there. So, once again, it's arguable that the US should not be allowed to keep the arsenal we have.

When will you learn that we simply don't have the right to do whatever we want, whenever we want? Do you seriously believe we are power supreme? You get real, JW!

Cycloptichorn

O'Bill, if you think the mullahs in Iran are mad (and they are LOL)THISguy has really gone 'round the bend!

Poor fella's probably been reading A2K's foil hat brigade's posts and select "news" pieces from salon.com and other such sources. :wink:

Let's run through this again for the members of the class that were asleep. Iran has legally purchased a light-metal nuclear reactor from Russia who is currently installing it. Amazingly this exactly the same nuclear technology that South Korea and Japan have purchased from the US and are currently installing in Nth Korea for FREE!!

These types of reactors are apparently not able to produce large amounts of plutonium and don't measurably add to the 'threat' of rogue nukes. Nations that DO export 'unsafe' technology are places like France and Pakistan*- President Bush can safely bomb them both, who'd notice?

The invasion of Iraq has just shown these 'evil' nations that a real WMD program is the safest defense from a invader nation such as the US. Which leaves us with the dilemma that the 'victory' over the Iraqi people was so easy because they didn't have real forces or material to resist - the more the Pres and Condi and Unka Dick talk of reshaping the world as democratic the more likely the invasion of places like Iran and Nth Korea, with a real shooting match this time. Tens of billions of dollars and thousands of lives to keep Iraq in line at present, how much are you all willing to do the same elsewhere?



*and they do it illegally, they are also an ally of the US and safe from checks and recriminations - makes a lot of fuc*ing sense, no?!

What makes no sense is your yammering. Iraqis are declaring their independence as we type. Turn on your television for Dog's sake.

A vote in Iraq will stop other nations from building bombs? Yep, sure.

In case you haven't heard - the USA is now committed to increasing its troop presence in the nation for the next two years and spending another $US80 billion in the process. The country is the PREMIER breeding ground for terrorists on the planet, and Afghanistan is the NEW world's supplier of heroin, but they'll be democratic terrorists and opium growers

How fu*ked up do you think things will be before the US has to exit?!

Those crazy, paranoid mullahs, making stuff up again!

The Guardian (London) January 29, 2005

US jets flying over Iran to spot targets, says source
By Julian Borger in Washington

The US is increasing the pressure on Iran by sending military planes into its airspace to test the country's defences and spot potential targets, according to an intelligence source in Washington.

The overflights have been reported in the Iranian press and the head of Iran's air force, Brigadier General Karim Qavami, declared recently that he had ordered his anti-aircraft batteries to shoot down any intruders, but there have been no reports of any Iranian missiles being launched.

"The idea is to get the Iranians to turn on their radar, to get an assessment of their air defences," an intelligence source in Washington said. He said the flights were part of the Pentagon's contingency planning for a possible attack on sites linked to Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme.

"It make sense to get a look at their air defences, and it makes the mullahs nervous during the EU negotiations (over the suspension of Iranian uranium enrichment)," said John Pike, the head of GlobalSecurity.org, an independent military research group.

The flights come after reports of American special forces incursions into Iran. However, former US intelligence officials have said they believe the incursions are being carried out by Iranian rebels drawn from the anti-Tehran rebel group, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, under US supervision.

The US military denied the reports. "We're not flying over frigging Iran," an official said, suggesting Tehran was making up the incidents to attract international sympathy.

_____________________________________________________________
"We're not flying over frigging Iran,"

OK. Must be those pesky Martians again