NYT Exposé: Bush said "hell no" to Israeli strike against Natanz
 

No, this is Bush. According to the majority here, Bush can do nothing right.

Che talks just to have noise present.

I like this one:

Wow, even the Bush administration could forsee the diplomatic nightmare the US would have undergone if it allowed an Israeli overflight of US controlled Iraqi airspace.....

Nah, my estimation of them doesn't go up. You don't gain point for seeing the obvious.

On the other hand:

"In September, the U.S. Congress approved the sale of 1,000 bunker-buster missiles to Israel. The GPS-guided GBU-39 is said to be one of the most accurate bombs in the world. "

The source of that quote is an interesting read in itself:

Pentagon denies arms shipment to Israel linked to Gaza fighting: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054236.html

Oh, hell.

He didn't know he'd be Obama's man, or even that Obama would win the election, or even that Obama would win the primary, at the time. It's silly to suppose this was a career move moreso than calling a potential blunder what it is.

Who's gloating? DinoDoc?

The amount of secret intelligence and information leak in this article is staggering.


It's not staggering at all to anyone who follows the New York Times.

Yes, I'm sure that piece was required reading today for every nook and cranny of Iran's counterintelligence community. Get ready to see more articles like this (from just six weeks ago) in the coming months:

Passdaran Guards Arrest Mossad "Nuclear Spy Ring"
November 11, 2008
Azadeh Mirrazi

Two days after a senior official from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence announced that an ‎Iranian businessman charged with spying had been executed, and spoke of the ‎heightening intelligence war between Iran and Israel, the supreme commander of the ‎Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced the discovery and arrest of a ‎‎“nuclear spy ring” and a “heavy blow against Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency at the ‎hands of the Passdaran.” This is despite the repeated assurances of Iranian authorities that ‎the country’s nuclear activities have no links to military institutions of the country, and ‎the law establishing the ministry of intelligence confines the mission of this ministry to ‎confronting security threats, particularly espionage.‎

Speaking to Sepah News (the official news agency of the Passdaran Corps) General Aziz ‎Jaafari announced the discovery and destruction of an Israeli spy network in Iran by ‎Passdaran’s intelligence and security forces, it declared that this network had “ties to the ‎military institutions of the country,” adding that the spy ring was engaged in gathering ‎intelligence on Iranian military commanders and centers. In the past, the ministry had ‎made similar claims about Ali Ashtari who was accused of spying for Israel and was ‎executed last week in Iran. In Ashtari’s case too, it was announced that he was connected ‎to the Iranian defense industries who intended to steal intelligence data by selling ‎polluted equipment to Iran Defense Industries and other sensitive institutions.‎

Iran and Israel have in the past repeatedly accused each other of espionage for the other ‎country and individuals have been arrested and tried on such charges in both countries. ‎The Islamic Republic has on a number of occasions officially accused Israel of satellite ‎espionage against Iran and even attributed some of he social unrest and anti-security ‎incidents and ethnic disturbances in Iran to Israel. Earlier this year, Israel too arrested and ‎charged and tried an Israeli military officer for spying for Iran.‎

The newly established Sepah News news agency launched by the Passdaran’s office of ‎public relations quoted the supreme Passdaran commander as saying, “With the ‎destruction of this espionage network, the sophisticated and advanced communications ‎systems, and modern infrastructure and camouflaging related to Mossad had been ‎discovered and confiscated.”‎

Training of Nuclear Spies in Israel
Soon after Iran’s official state news agency IRNA quoted the Passdaran news site in this ‎regard, it corrected its news coverage and added the term “Nuclear” to the title ‎‎“Destruction of an Espionage Network” in its news, in an effort to emphasize Israel’s ‎determination to engage in nuclear espionage against Iran and the role of the Passdaran in ‎uncovering and destroying it.‎

The commander is quoted to have said, “This network had received special bombing and ‎terror training in Israel and had purchased a lot of equipment and vehicles through ‎financial support of Mossad,” while also promising to announce shortly greater details of ‎the case through the media.‎

The announcement of the arrest of a new spy ring comes just a few days after the first ‎open trial of the suspects in connection with the bomb explosions at a mosque in Shiraz. ‎In that case too, the ministry of intelligence had announced that the accused belonged to a ‎terrorist group and had taken measures to bomb a number of places in Iran. Another ‎charge added to that list was the planning of the group to assassinate the leader of the ‎Islamic regime.‎

The Military and Intelligence Work
The announcement by the supreme Passdaran commander of the discovery by the ‎Passdaran contrasts with the mission of the force as defined in the law that created it. The ‎law defines the force as a military force which lacks the authority to engage in ‎intelligence activities, and particularly “counter-intelligence.”‎

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, counter-intelligence activities are the sphere of the ‎Ministry of Intelligence and this has been stressed in the laws that created the Passdaran. ‎To accomplish this, the Ministry of Intelligence established a deputy for intelligence ‎activities and all political and security agencies and offices in the country have been ‎tasked to provide their intelligence regarding espionage to this office.‎


While the Passdaran has a long history of competition with the Ministry of Intelligence ‎over intelligence and security activities, its two divisions named Intelligence Protection ‎and Deputy for Intelligence, this work is a duplication of what the Ministry does in the ‎sphere of intelligence gathering in the context of its security activities.‎

It was precisely because of this parallelism that during the reform years in Iran - i.e. the ‎period when Mohammad Khatami was the president from 1997 to 2005 - many reports ‎were published indicating Passdaran’s confrontations with political, civil and media ‎activists in the country. These reports even included details about secret detention centers ‎run by Passdaran’s intelligence unit which kept non-military individuals.‎

Passdaran’s Activities in the Nuclear Field
But this recent news announcement may be the first time that the role of Passdaran is ‎expressly mentioned in relation to “counter intelligence” activities, which is supposed to ‎include only its own personnel and which must report any counter security activities ‎outside the force to the Ministry of Intelligence. The issue becomes even more prominent ‎when the discovery of a nuclear espionage ring is attributed to the Passdaran and its ‎Intelligence Protection wing. It should be noted that during the recent years Iranian ‎diplomats have been making an all-out effort to deny any connection between the ‎country’s military institutions and nuclear research activities, while stressing that Iran’s ‎nuclear activities and programs are purely for research and scientific, and not military or ‎operational. In his latest interview general Jaafari did not explain what the relationship ‎between Passdaran’s Intelligence Protection bureau and the country’s nuclear programs was ‎which led to this military force’s discovery of spies in connection with nuclear programs.‎

http://www.roozonline.com/english/ar...st_of_a_n.html

I think its amusing in a way that US control over Iraqi airspace complicates any israeli plans to attack Iran. After all, they wouldn't care about overflying Jordan or Syria, nor Saddam's Iraq, with its backwards and depleted air defenses. But they can't overlfy Iraq now without US permission (unless they were willing to militarily confront the US, and that would not happen), and even the mot pro-Israel administration ever would not be willing to sink its pet Iraq project over that.

Kill all juice. http://www.discussworldissues.com/im...ons/icon14.gif

I think the point is that any Israeli strike on Iran would have to pass over air space controlled by the US or its allies, so if Israel did bomb Iran the blame would inevitably fall on us.

I'm happy to say I never fed into or believed in that talk about "bomb, bomb, Iran". http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif

Oh, and DinoDoc is still a sad little *****.

I didn't see any team from Nebraska (I believe that's where you're from) in the play offs.

Still weren't any teams from Mississippi.

Still weren't any teams from Mississippi.


Ole Miss ended their season on a high note, unlike the shitty San Diego Chargers. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif

Ole Miss was the only team in the country to beat this year's national champion, you ****ing retard. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif

It isn't nice to pick on the retarded kid.

You must really hate yourself then being retarded and all.