How anyone can trust anything the CIA says about Iran or anything else is completely beyond me; they’re both incompetent and politicized. The place is crawling with Civil Service timeservers, liberal careerists like Valerie Plame and wackjobs like Michael Scheuer. It’s an ineffective, corrupt, dysfunctional organization that’s never been held to account; the CIA is our own American version of the ISI.

I agree completely. Obama picked LEON PANETTA to run this inept group of bureaucratic fools. Then the whole episode with Nancy Pelosi calling them liars. They are totally marginalized.

If it’s the latter, I hope the administration cracks down hard: It’s tough enough to make foreign-policy decisions when your generals are giving speeches about what troop levels are needed, but this nonsense with intel people trying to force the president’s hand by applying public pressure has to stop. Who’s working for whom here?

Wow AP. Are you gunning for a job at DailyKos? As another poster pointed out, they did this with Bush for years and I don’t recall you making hay over it. More importantly, if the Commander-in-Chief is putting our military on a suicidal course isn’t the job of the military or intelligence community to say something? We don’t live in a tyranny where the Dictator’s decisions exist in an unchallenged vacuum. We live in a free nation where an evil leftist whackadoo can and should be challenged each and every time he threatens the security of this nation. Even if that whackadoo is the President. I don’t see military generals or the intelligence community disobeying orders at all. They still serve with honor at the President’s direction. Yet their first duty is to the nation and it’s citizens. Good men and women are dying on the battlefield because of Obama’s decisions. Very soon good men and women will be dying on our own soil because of Obama’s decision. The generals and intelligence community must speak out.

AnotherOpinion on October 16, 2009 at 3:05 PM

I often thought that…a building gets bombed, and he sends over a few bombers and attacks some outpost, and the crowd goes wild.
He calls a national day of mourning and a joint session of congress to “put our differences aside”…however, this could have been prevented years ago…
“We have a lot to do as a nation, a lot of bridge building, and re-building our national pride. This horrible moment will not define America, but our reaction will. We will react with caution, but authority, we will destroy those that seek to destroy us, and hold close those who support us in this time of national disaster.”
My God, it comes to life in a terrifying reality…them bombing us would be the best thing, and maybe the only thing to save Obama.

The uranium contamination is not some new bombshell, but has been known for years and was even mentioned in several of the IAEA’s reports. The debate was really about Iran’s ability to overcome the purity problems and how much time it would take. This was further complicated by the fact that much of the uranium Iran’s been enriching was imported from China and contains no impurities.

Because nukes going off in five years is less worrisome than nukes going off in two.

Akzed on October 16, 2009 at 2:47 PM

Actually, that may be a true statement. In 4 years we have the opportunity to elect an adult and put adults back in charge. In 2 years, we still have a marxist demagogue who is more interested in destroying the US and remaking it in his own image. More time would give us a chance to fix our horrendous 2006 and 2008 mistakes.

thats change we can believe in!!

…but this nonsense with intel people trying to force the president’s hand by applying public pressure has to stop. Who’s working for whom here?

Gee, didn’t appear to bother anyone when Bush was president. What’s CHANGED?

Do we have any guarantee this report will be any less political than the last one?

Yeah, I know, it’s a silly question.

Are you suggesting that we err on the side of caution, even to the point of outright deception to save some face after what happened with the WMD’s?

No, I’m saying that they should tell the truth about Iran shooting for nukes, but if they want to pretend like the program only restarted in 2007, there’s not much harm done at this point. The damage is done.

WTF does this mean?!

After the Iraq WMD debacle, a well meaning lie to convince the public that our intel on Iran wasn’t also completely FUBARed and politicized would go a long way.

Are you suggesting that we err on the side of caution, even to the point of outright deception to save some face after what happened with the WMD’s?

Because nukes going off in five years is less worrisome than nukes going off in two.
Akzed on October 16, 2009 at 2:47 PM

Well, less worrisome for 0bama anyway. The actual effects of a nuclear bomb going off in Tel Aviv or New York City in 2014 won’t hurt his re election chances. one going off in 2012 would.

Just like the socialized health care plan going into effect in 2013… Timed so as to not harm his reelection chances.

+++

*Note to self, find survivalist book…

“Here’s the bottom line: There may be more time on the Iranian nuclear clock than some analysts had feared.”

Because nukes going off in five years is less worrisome than nukes going off in two.