Is Israel fixing the intelligence to justify an attack on Iran?

Is Israel fixing the intelligence to justify an attack on Iran?

Netanyahu's rhetoric has eerie echoes of the run-up to the Iraq war

By Ray McGovern

July 30, 2012

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-israel-iran-20120730,0,5791324.story

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's strong
pro-Israel statements over the weekend, including his
endorsement of Jerusalem as Israel's capital (a reversal
of long-standing U.S. policy), increases the pressure on
President Barack Obama to prove that he is an equally
strong backer of Israel.

The key question is whether Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will
interpret the presidential campaign rhetoric as an open
invitation to provoke hostilities with Iran, in the
expectation that President Obama will feel forced to jump
in with both feet in support of our "ally" Israel. (Since
there is no mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and
Israel, "ally" actually is a misnomer -- at least in a
juridical sense.)







As we saw 10 years ago with respect to Iraq, if one



intends to whip up support for war, one needs to find a



casus belli -- however thin a pretext it might be. How



about juxtaposing "weapons of mass destruction" with



terrorism. That worked to prepare for war on Iraq, and



similar rhetorical groundwork for an attack on Iran is now



being laid in Israel.







Mr. Netanyahu broke all records for speed in blaming Iran



and Hezbollah for the recent terrorist attack that killed



five Israelis in Burgas, Bulgaria, and in vowing that



"Israel will react powerfully against Iranian terror."







But what is the evidence on Iranian or Hezbollah



involvement? Bulgarian officials keep saying they have no



such evidence. More surprising still, government officials



in Washington and elsewhere keep warning against jumping



to conclusions.







So far the "evidence" against Iran consists primarily of



trust-me assertions by Mr. Netanyahu. On Fox News Sunday



on July 22, Mr. Netanyahu claimed Israel has "rock-solid



evidence" tying Iran to the attack in Bulgaria. The same



day onCBS's Face the Nation, Mr. Netanyahu said, "We have



unquestionable, fully substantiated intelligence that this



[terrorist attack] was done by Hezbollah backed by Iran,"



adding that Israel gives "specific details to ...



responsible governments and agencies."







Did the Israelis somehow forget to give "specific details"



to Bulgarian and U.S. officials?







At a joint news conference with White House



counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan in Sofia early last



week, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov admitted that



he was aware of no information concerning the terrorist or



those who dispatched him.







Mr. Brennan's July 25 talks with top Israeli officials, it



appears, were similarly unproductive. According to the



Israeli newspaper Haaretz on July 26: "A week after the



Burgas attacks, Israeli, Bulgarian, and U.S. [officials]



still have no leads regarding the identity of the suicide bomber."







These events took place against an historical backdrop



pregnant with relevance. July 23 was the 10th anniversary



of a meeting at 10 Downing Street, at which the head



British intelligence casually revealed the fraudulent



origins of the coming attack on Iraq.







The official minutes of that meeting were leaked to



London's Sunday Times, which ran them on its front page



May 1, 2005. No one has disputed their authenticity.







This is how the minutes record the core of the briefing by



Sir Richard Dearlove, the British intelligence chief, who



had just conferred with his U.S. counterpart, George



Tenet, at CIA headquarters on July 20, 2002, on what was



in store for Iraq:







"... Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush



wanted to remove Saddam, through military action,



justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons



of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were



being fixed around the policy. ..."







The "fixing" of intelligence is bad enough. But note Mr.



Dearlove's explanation that war with Iraq was to be



"justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD."



Translation: We will claim Saddam has weapons of mass



destruction and that he might well give them to terrorists



-- unless he is stopped forthwith.







Mr. Netanyahu is now taking the same line on Iran. On Face



the Nation on July 22, he pointedly asked:







"Just imagine what the consequences would be if these



people [terrorists] and this regime [Iran] got a hold of



nuclear weapons. ... [We need to] make sure that the



world's most dangerous regime doesn't get the world's most



dangerous weapons."







Never mind the elusive evidence on the perpetrators of the



attack in Bulgaria. Never mind that Defense Secretary Leon



Panetta posed the direct question to himself on Face the



Nation on January 8 and then answered it: "Are they [the



Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No." Never



mind that 10 days later Israeli Defense Minister Ehud



Barack said essentially the same thing during an interview



on Israeli Army Radio.







The likelihood of hostilities with Iran before the
presidential election in November is increasing. Beware of
"fixed" intelligence.

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Ray McGovern is a retired 27-year veteran of CIA's analysis division whose responsibilities included
preparing and delivering the president's daily brief. His email is rrmcgovern@gmail.com.