Scott Ritter on C-SPAN 9:25 am EDT. on Iran.

[chimpymustgo]

[chimpymustgo]

1. Sounds like the NYT is up to its old tricks. "Politically motivated hype" re Iran.

Ritter says this report is based on something on someone's laptop computer. IAEA position misrepresented.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04nuke.html?hp
Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb

By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 3, 2009

Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.

The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations.

But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States.

Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed.

A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions.

The atomic agency’s report also presents evidence that beyond improving upon bomb-making information gathered from rogue nuclear experts around the world, Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to fashion the components of a weapon. It does not say how far that work has progressed.
-edit-

[malaise]

2. Watching

Dallek was also very good

[chimpymustgo]

3. "We should be upfront about Israel" re nuclear capabilities. Iran voluntarily disclosed

its second plant - contrary to what you hear our politicians and press carping about.

[malaise]

4. I was amused about the way the second plant disclosure was spun

It was all BS - diversion from the G20 discussions.

[chimpymustgo]

5. Ritter eplaining the Ahmadinejad "quote" about eliminating Israel. OMG-killing all the sacred cows.

Wow.

[malaise]

7. The last caller sounded just like

Ray McGovern. I'm lovin' this. He's tearing the propagandists a new one - this is way better than the Sunday talk shows.

Truth will out!

[malaise]

6. Ritter is a fugging genius

I agree with him 100%
---
This is a great discussion.

[chimpymustgo]

8. Laptop from CIA?? "This has disinfomation written all over it."

Supposedly went from some Iranians, then to Germans - no evidence to support anything. Just more smoke, and looks like disinformation. Last time we had a "magic source" Powell went to UN with bs from "Curveball."

Oh, this is rich.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. He was here on a speaking tour a year ago

He claims to be a conservative republican. He told about being invited to join the American Legion in his hometown and the arguments he has with wingnut neocons while drinking beer. LOL

[Zywiec]

9. Is this the same Scott Ritter that said we were going to bomb Iran

in June 2005 since he saw the signed off plans from Bush?

:shrug:

[chimpymustgo]

11. It's the same Scott Ritter who said Iraq did NOT has WMD's - based on inspections.

[Zywiec]

13. Right, so everything he says must be taken as gospel. n/t

[malaise]

17. Compared with the rest of them

YES. Ritter has credibility on all matters of national security.
You want credibility holes - check the neo-cons.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. He's the most honest 'expert' we have on this issue

So yes, I will believe him. As are most of the callers into this show today.

[malaise]

15. Cheney was planning to bomb Iran n/t

[KharmaTrain]

10. "Has Anyone Appologized"...

Hell No...they're afraid to bring Ritter on for that very reason. He's a reminder of not only how wrong the corporate media was about Iraq but also their complicity. They tried to smear and stifle him and their arrogance prevents many from admitting he was right yet alone offer an appology.

It's been a while since I've seen Scott...great to hear him this morning...

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. One of my heroes

"Pick your city!"

I love this man. He deserves a medal.

[malaise]

14. +1

Love him

[chimpymustgo]

18. He knows his stuff. Is giving Obama props for walking this back with Iran and

having negotiations. Points to pressure on Obama to "bomb bomb bomb" - applauds Obama's "courage" in stepping away from the old, aggressive, militaristic policy.

[gratuitous]

20. Pffft! Facts and explanations! As if!

Fortunately, this is airing at a time calculated to draw the smallest possible audience. When everybody's watching again, they'll trot out John Sidney McCain III for a rousing chorus of "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." Affix your most ghoulish smiles, everyone. It's time for an old-time gospel hymn in the High Church of Redemptive Violence. After which we'll pass the collection plate. Please make sure your offering is 18 years old, or has a signed parental waiver.

[JohnyCanuck]

21. The same lying, spinning and bullshitting bastards

that warned us Saddam had a nuclear bomb building program and stockpiles of WMDs, radio controlled drones that could be launched from ships to fly over the Eastern seaboard of the US dispensing biological and chemical agents, was in league with Al-Quaida, and prior to Gulf War 1 told us that Saddam's soldiers were throwing babies out of incubators leaving them to die on the hospital floor are now telling us the scary details about Iran's nuclear bomb program - not that they might have an ulterior motive in ginning up another war in the Middle East.

In 2001, the Observer published a series of reports that claimed an "Iraqi connection" to al-Qaeda, even describing the base in Iraq where the training of terrorists took place and a facility where anthrax was being manufactured as a weapon of mass destruction. It was all false. Supplied by US intelligence and Iraqi exiles, planted stories in the British and US media helped George Bush and Tony Blair to launch an illegal invasion which caused, according to the most recent study, 1.3 million deaths.

Something similar is happening over Iran: the same syncopation of government and media "revelations", the same manufacture of a sense of crisis. "Showdown looms with Iran over secret nuclear plant", declared the Guardian on 26 September. "Showdown" is the theme. High noon. The clock ticking. Good versus evil. Add a smooth new US president who has "put paid to the Bush years". An immediate echo is the notorious Guardian front page of 22 May 2007: "Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq". Based on unsubstantiated claims by the Pentagon, the writer Simon Tisdall presented as fact an Iranian "plan" to wage war on, and defeat, US forces in Iraq by September of that year - a demonstrable falsehood for which there has been no retraction.

The official jargon for this kind of propaganda is "psy-ops", the military term for psychological operations. In the Pentagon and Whitehall, it has become a critical component of a diplomatic and military campaign to blockade, isolate and weaken Iran by hyping its “nuclear threat": a phrase now used incessantly by Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, and parroted by the BBC and other broadcasters as ­objective news. And it is fake.

http://www.newstatesman.com/print/200910010018