Final disgrace for Bush & Co.

New intelligence report a devastating, humiliating blow to U.S. president and his neocons

By Eric Margolis
Toronto Sun

""Merry Christmas, Mr. President," hissed the men in cloaks as they plunged a dagger into George Bush's back. America's spooks finally had their revenge. After being forced by the White House in 2002-03 to concoct a farrago of lies about Iraq, and then take the blame for the ensuing fiasco there, the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies struck back this week.....

Bush was given the new NIE on Iran last August. But for the past four months, Bush, Cheney and Condoleezza Rice have been beating the war drums over Iran when their own massed intelligence agencies have been telling them there was no danger from that country. The White House hid its own intelligence community's findings from the public until the spooks threatened to leak the report.....

Ironically, Iran's leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was telling the truth all along when he said Iran was not working on nuclear arms, while Bush & Company were lying through their teeth, just as they have over Iraq and Afghanistan.

This column has been reporting for two years the growing opposition at the CIA, the Pentagon, and the State Department to Bush/Cheney's plans to launch a war against Iran. I repeatedly heard the term "fifth column" used to describe the fanatical neocon ideologues pressing America into a second Mideast war.

Now, America's national security community is telling the White House to cease and desist before it drags the nation into another foreign catastrophe. While not a coup as in "Seven Days in May," it was the next closest thing.....

When the White House didn't get the answers it wanted on Iran, it turned to Israel, whose renowned intelligence agency, Mossad, became a primary source. Mossad still insists Iran will have a nuclear bomb by 2008. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak declared the NIE report a "blow to the groin......

This is the final disgrace for Bush & Cheney. Their war propaganda and efforts to suppress the new NIE should constitute grounds for immediate impeachment.

If Bill Clinton could be impeached for lying about oral sex, shouldn't Bush and Cheney face trial for attempting to lie and deceive Americans into yet another war of aggression? Alas, Congress, many of whose members also have been howling for war against Iran, lacks the guts for such action......."