But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.Thus spake Condi Rice, selling the (illegal) war to the American people, on CNN in September, 2002. Following her fear tactics was the Bully Boy in October, 2002:
If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy or steal an amount of highly-enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.
And where there is fear there is Cheney. August, 2002 on NBC's Meet the Press:
We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.
And if you grew up with Cheney's face, you'd be used to using fear, so you know he had to return to the fear well over and over. Here's another example from August, 2002:
Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.
Ten percent of the world's oil? Wow, he must have really wanted that. Cheney, not Saddam.
Because the simple truth is the administration is most honest when they're attributing motive to others. The medical term is "projection" and the reality diagnosis is that the administration is pretty f**ked up.
So now, like the media, bored with Iraq, Bully Boy's itching for Target: Iran. And we've heard the usual claims presented as fact. We're also dealing with another Bully Boy family dysfunction. From Robert Parry's "The Bushes & the Truth About Iran" (Consortium News):
First, the American people should know the real history of U.S.-Iran relations before the Bush administration launches another preemptive war in the Middle East. Second, the degree to which Iranian officials are willing to negotiate with their U.S. counterparts -- and fulfill their side of the bargain -- bears on the feasibility of talks now.
Indeed, the only rationale for hiding the historical record is that it would embarrass the Bush Family and possibly complicate George W. Bush’s decision to attack Iran regardless of what the American people might want.
The Time magazine cover story, released on Sept. 17, and a new report by retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner -- entitled "The End of the 'Summer Diplomacy'" -- make clear that the military option against Iran is moving rapidly toward implementation.
Gardiner, who taught at the National War College and has war-gamed U.S. attacks on Iran for American policymakers over the past five years, noted that one of the "seven key truths" guiding Bush to war is that "you cannot negotiate with these people."
That "truth," combined with suspicions about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Tehran's relationship with Hezbelloh and other militant Islamic groups, has led the Bush administration into the box-canyon logic that war is the only answer, despite the fact that Gardiner's war games have found that war would have disastrous consequences.
In his report, Gardiner also noted that Bush's personality and his sense of his presidential destiny are adding to the pressures for war.
And why not war Iran? Bully Boy's thundred (and has been threatening war with Iran publicly for years now). A "report" on Iran's nuclear capabilities turned out not be supported by the IAEA. Elections are approaching and it would make sense if the same government Poppy Bush used for the 1980 October Surprise against Jimmy Carter became the October Suprise for Baby Bush.
Attacking Iran means attacking nuclear sites (or trying to, a lot of innocent people will probably die and someone will say "Collatoral damage" before quickly changing the subject) and it probably means violating laws and treaties by using nuclear weapons on them.
The smoking gun, the mushroom cloud, has always been the Bully Boy. Take them at their words, yes, their words they apply to others.