GEORGE W. BUSH VERSUS IRAN

CONTENTS

9. IRAN-AMERICAN INCIDENTS IN 2007 AND 2008

1. IRAN’S COMPLEX GOVERNMENT

In 1997, Ali Khamenei watched helplessly as the reformer Mohammad Khatami crushed the supreme leader’s candidate for president. Khatami subsequently had to deal with the power of the military and clerical elite. After his government signed a contract with Turkey to run Teheran’s new airport, the Revolutionary Guard shut down the airport and nullified the deal in a blow to Khatami’s attempts to open the country to foreign investment. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

After the Shah fled Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in 1979, Ahmadinejad’s role in the new Islamic state was virtually non-existent. When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980 to try to bring down the mullahs’ regime, Ahmadinejad moved to the Kurdish areas of western Iran, not far from the Iraq border. Saddam’s troops were a constant threat. Ahmadinejad joined the Special Forces of the Revolutionary Guards in 1986. He took part in cross-border commando raids near the city of Kirkuk in mostly Kurdish northern Iraq. (Newsweek, February 13, 2006)

In the early 1990s, Ahmadinejad served four years as governor of Ardabil province in northwest Iran. But by the mid-1990s, a reform movement was gaining momentum across Iran. Ahmadinejad was out of touch with Iranians who wanted more freedoms, better jobs, and a more open civic society. In 1997, in a surprise landslide, Iranians elected reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami to the presidency. (Newsweek, February 13, 2006)

Ahmadinejad soon lost his government post. He returned to university life, but he was unable to fit in with the young reformists. By 2003, Khamenei and his loyalists had largely succeeded in their efforts to undermine and discredit the reformists, and Ahmadinejad was brought back to public life as the mayor of Teheran. (Newsweek, February 13, 2006)

Two years later in 2005, Ahmadinejad used the prestigious position of mayor as a springboard to run for the presidency. Even though he represented a minority, he was a committed activist in a largely passive Iranian society. When conservative mullahs under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned most reformist candidates in 2005, the silenced majority stayed home. Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militias from 20 years earlier dominated the balloting and put Ahmadinejad in office. Many voters believed they were casting their ballots for a righteous fighter against corruption. (Newsweek, February 13, 2006)

Ahmadinejad won in a runoff against former president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani. After taking office, he immediately began provoking outrage. He called for the destruction of Israel, denied the Holocaust, and berated “false superpowers.” He repeatedly maintained that Iran’s nuclear research was peaceful. (Newsweek, February 13, 2006)

Hashemi Rafsanjani, a senior cleric who headed the Expediency Council, was favored to replace Khatami in 2005. But he was outmaneuvered by Ahmadinejad and lost the election. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Ahmadinejad immediately was confronted by opposition to his appointees, including the key post of chief negotiator with the international community over Iran’s nuclear program. Parliament rejected many of his choices. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

When Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005, the cleric Hassan Rowhani was fired as nuclear negotiator and disappeared from the spotlight. But after getting rid of Rowhani, Ahmadinejad was forced to give the job to his rival, Ali Larijani. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Ahmadinejad continued to be pressured by his rivals. In 2006, he even had to rescind some orders on relatively minor issues. He extended Eid al-Fitr holidays and eliminated daylight saving time. But people complained loudly of missed international flights and too many days off. Ahmadinejad ultimately bowed to public pressure. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Iran’s government was tightly controlled by the Shi’ite Muslim clergy. But over the years, the power of the clerics steadily eroded. Increasingly, power was distributed among combative elites who included various competing groups within a unique religious, civil, social, and bureaucratic framework. This delicate system of checks and balances included religious as well as civil law, personal relations, and bureaucracy. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Iran’s elitists wore referred to as khodi, Persian for “one of us.” Khodi accepted that Khamenei had a God-given right to rule. At least outwardly, they adopted the values of the senior clerics. They even adhered to a dress code. The men wore white shirts buttoned up to the collar; gray, brown or black suits; and neatly trimmed beards -- the garb of the traditional merchant class. The women wore the single-piece black chadors covering all but their hands and faces. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Khamenei and his closest advisors were at the center of that power structure. Each day, the Supreme National Security Council, Khamenei’s main think tank, faxed his orders to newspapers, television stations, and government officials. Clergy spread the word at homes and Friday prayer sessions. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Surrounding Khameini were several powerful committees consisting of dozens of clerics, each established to maintain the central role of religion in Iranian politics. The Council of Experts chose the supreme leader. The Guardian Council determined laws and candidates for public office. The Expediency Council mediated legal disputes. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Khameini oversaw the most important matters of Iran, including the country’s nuclear program and domestic policy. In early 2006, Ali Khamenei ordered his deputies to start privatizing state-owned businesses: the telephone company, three banks, and dozens of small oil and petrochemical enterprises. After several months, Khamenei gathered Iran’s elite for an extraordinary meeting. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Ahmadinejad and his Cabinet ministers were there, as were important clerics, the leader of parliament and provincial governors, and the heads of state broadcasting and the Iranian chamber of commerce. Khamenei told them to pass some laws, sell off some businesses -- and be quick about it. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

By November 2007, Khamenei almost nothing had happened. Only two out of 240 state-owned businesses Khamenei targeted had been sold off. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Under Khameini were the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard and armed forces, who were appointed by Khamenei; the elected president; the Cabinet; parliament; senior military commanders selected by the supreme leader; and the senior clerics in the holy city Qom. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

The next tier consisted of governors and other provincial officials, all approved by the president. At the outer rim of khodi were well-connected merchants, militia members, and millions of volunteers who made up the government’s shock troops. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Iran’s political system consisted of people with different ideologies and agendas, including the offspring of Western universities and onetime operatives in the shah's intelligence service whom Ayatollah Khomeini needed to help bring down the Shah in the 1979 revolution. They helped defend his revolution and withstood attack from Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Even those on the outer fringes of power were able to buck authority, especially if they retained a rank within the religious hierarchy. Despite a moratorium on stoning those convicted of morality crimes, a judge in 2007 in the village of Takistan ordered the stoning of a man for adultery. Instead of firing the official, judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi decided the judge had a point: Stoning was, after all, part of Islamic law. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

Although ordinary people were limited freedom to criticize the power structure, the heads of government agencies carefully watched the results of polls about their leaders’ performance and Iranians’ attitudes toward everything from women’s dress to making peace with the United States. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007) Economically, Iran needed to funnel billions of dollars to invest in its faltering oil industry which brought in 50 percent of the country’s revenue. However, hundreds of money-losing state-owned enterprises drained the budget. (Los Angeles Times, December

IRAN’S ECONOMY. Privatization helped raise funds, but meant taking power from religious foundations, military institutions, and well-connected bazaar khodi. Since the 1979 revolution, state-owned factories used recruiting and fundraising centers for Basiji militiamen, who answered to the Revolutionary Guard. They provided jobs for the relatives of government loyalists. One aluminum factory in central Iran provided jobs for relatives of local officials of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007) Managers found other ways to thwart the privatization plan. After shares of a state-owned aluminum company failed to sell, executives removed the offering rather than lower the price. Sometimes, senior officials intervene to halt a sale. In 2007, Ahmadinejad stopped an effort by an Iranian industrialist to buy a state-owned carmaker’s share in a private bank. (Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2007)

2. BUSH’S RELATIONS WITH IRAN DETERIOATE

At least eight of the hijackers, who lived in the United States for months before the 9/11 attacks, passed through Iran between October 2000 and February 2001, apparently with help from the Iranian authorities. Known al Qaeda members seemed to have been allowed to cross in and out of Iran freely across the Afghan border, with Iranian border guards being told not to stamp the passports of al Qaeda operatives, harass them, or hinder their ability to travel freely. (Time, July 26, 2004)

Iran’s reformists viewed 9/11 was a blessing in disguise. Previous attempts to reach out to America were stymied by conservative mullahs. But the fear that an enraged superpower -- and particularly the warrior bush -- would attempt to diminish the role of Iran’s mullahs. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Mohammad Hossein Adeli was one of only two deputies on duty at the Foreign Ministry when the attacks took place. He immediately began contacting top officials, insisting that Iran respond quickly. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

However, the fear among Iran’s leaders diminished after September 20, 2001, when the FBI announced that al Qaeda was behind the attacks. Yet Iran continued to back Afghan guerrillas fighting the Taliban. Furthermore, Iran had the United States in the wings to offer support. Consequently, American and Iranian officials met repeatedly in Geneva in the days before the October 7 United States invasion. The Iranians were more than supportive. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

In late November 2001, the leaders of Afghanistan’s triumphant anti-Taliban factions flew to Bonn, Germany, to map out an interim Afghan government with the help of representatives from 18 coalition countries. The various parties decided that the American-backed Hamid Karzai would lead the new Afghan government. But he was a Pashtun tribal leader from the south, and rivals from the north had actually won the capital. This was a recipe for conflict. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Subsequently, the Northern Alliance delegate Yunus Qanooni demanded 18 out of 24 new ministries. Opposition leaders reluctantly agreed. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

In December 2001, Iran pledged $500 million which was more than double the Americans contribution. (New York Times, January 19, 2007

After 9/11, Bush proceeded to include Iran in the exclusive club of “the axis of evil.” Its Shia Muslim majority had close ties to militant fundamentalists involved in global terrorism. Even since the 1970s, Iran overtly supported the Hezbollah which had operated extensively in strife-torn Lebanon which had been in a state of civil war.

For two decades, Teheran funded radical Islamic movements, scholars, and centers around the world. But superficially, Iran has held elections and has had a reformist president. In addition, Iranian women have had more political rights than in many Arab countries.

The illusion that Iran was democratic was misleading. The president, Mohammed Khatami, a figurehead, permitted high-minded speeches and did little else. Almost three-quarters of the way through his reign, he has accomplished virtually nothing by way of political reform. In some ways, Iran was more closed than it was when he was elected in 1997. For example, more than 80 reformist newspapers have been shut down since the 1990s.

The first president of the Islamic republic was Abolhassan Bani Sadr, a Paris-educated liberal. But he lasted just one year. Iran has been a theocracy with the reformers and moderates possessing no power.

Iran’s real power has rested with a tiny clerical establishment run by mullahs who benefited from the 1979 Islamic revolution. The clerics have used their oil revenue to placate their religious leaders and to corrupt bureaucrats, student revolutionaries, and Army officers.

Iranians were also threatened by terrorists known as the Basij. They operated above and beyond the law, breaking up demonstrations -- even those approved by local authorities. The only remnants of the pre-1979 Shah regime were Iran’s secret police known as Savak which since were called the Savama. (Fareed Zakaria , Wealth to Power; Newsweek, December 23, 2002)

On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Powell, in addressing the Security Council, attempted to link Iranian Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi to Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Zargawi stayed in a Baghdad hsopital for two months in mid-2002, after eh sustained injuries in the Afghan war. But Powell failed to explain Zarqawi’s connection to Iran.

Newsweek (March 3, 2003) reported that a government witness by the name of Shadi Abdallah, identified as a former Bin Laden bodyguard, told of attending a terrorist training camp in western Afghanistan. It was operated by Zarqawi’s group, Al Tawhid, an al Qaeda affiliate dedicated to the overthrow of Jordan’s government. When United States forces attacked Afghanistan in October 2001, Zarqawi relocated to Iran.

According to Newsweek, the court documents said the group’s deputy leader, Abu Harun, was an Iranian resident.) Abdallah told police that Al Tawhid had a cell in Germany that sent as much as $40,000 a month to Zarqawi in Iran. Half of the money was supposed to go to al Qaeda, but Zarqawi reportedly vetoed the split.

In May 2002, Zarqawi left Iran and traveled to Baghdad. Some American officials believed the he was among about 50 suspected al Qaeda members and sympathizers who had been expelled in late 2002.

Also in late in 2001, Iran expelled Islamist Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who reportedly settled in the Afghan province of Kunar. Another deportee from Iran was Iraqi Kurdish leader Mullah Krekar, whose troops were openly at war with anti-Saddam Kurds in northern Iraq. In late 2002, Iran deported him to Amsterdam, from where he was later sent to Oslo. These expulsions underscored the schism between Iran’s reformers and its hard-liners, typified by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hoseini Khamenei.

Newsweek reported that according to a source close to Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, the Iranian National Security Council, issued a secret communique after September 11. It warned that “any member of the intelligence or security forces providing assistance of any kind to Al Qaeda members will receive swift punishment as a traitor” -- that is, summary execution. And yet the same source told Newsweek that al Qaeda might have ties to some groups within Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

In Afghanistan, British forces intercepted at least two arms shipments from Iran to Afghanistan’s Helmand province since April 2007. Such shipments reflected an unlikely liaison between two historic rivals, the Shi’ite theocrats in Iran and the Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2007, Iran continued to increase arms shipments to both Iraq’s Shi’ites and Afghanistan’s Taliban in an apparent attempt to pressure American and other Western troops operating in its two strategic neighbors. (Washington Post, June 3, 2007)

The intercepted shipments to Afghanistan included 107mm mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, C-4 explosives, and small arms. They were identical to shipments to Iraqi militias around Basra in March 2007. The C-4 explosives in both shipments had fake United States markings, a common deceptive tactic. (Washington Post, June 3, 2007)

These arms supplies reflected an increasing boldness by Iran. The secretive Quds Force, the branch of the elite Revolutionary Guard in charge of Iran’s special operations abroad, allegedly was behind the arms flow to militants in both Iran and Afghanistan. (Washington Post, June 3, 2007

In late 2001, Iran expelled Islamist Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who reportedly settled in the Afghan province of Kunar. Another deportee from Iran was Iraqi Kurdish leader Mullah Krekar, whose troops were openly at war with anti-Saddam Kurds in northern Iraq. In late 2002, Iran deported him to Amsterdam, from where he was later sent to Oslo. These expulsions underscored the schism between Iran’s reformers and its hard-liners, typified by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hoseini Khamenei.

The Iranian National Security Council issued a secret communique after 9/11. It warned that “any member of the intelligence or security forces providing assistance of any kind to al Qaeda members will receive swift punishment as a traitor” -- that is, summary execution. And yet the same source told Newsweek that al Qaeda might have ties to some groups within Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

In 2006, the CIA developed a clandestine “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government. Intelligence community officials said Bush signed a “nonlethal presidential finding” that put into motion a CIA plan. This reportedly included a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation, and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions. (ABC News, May 23, 2007)

These arms supplies reflected an increasing boldness by Iran. The secretive Quds Force, the branch of the elite Revolutionary Guard in charge of Iran’s special operations abroad, allegedly was behind the arms flow to militants in both Iran and Afghanistan. (Washington Post, June 3, 2007)

In the spring of 2007, British forces intercepted at least two arms shipments from Iran to Afghanistan’s Helmand province since April 2007. Such shipments reflected an unlikely liaison between two historic rivals, the Shi’ite theocrats in Iran and the Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2007, Iran continued to increase arms shipments to both Iraq’s Shi’ites and Afghanistan’s Taliban in an apparent attempt to pressure American and other Western troops operating in its two strategic neighbors. (Washington Post, June 3, 2007)

The intercepted shipments to Afghanistan included 107mm mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, C-4 explosives, and small arms. They were identical to shipments to Iraqi militias around Basra in March 2007. The C-4 explosives in both shipments had fake United States markings, a common deceptive tactic. (Washington Post, June 3, 2007)

These arms supplies reflected an increasing boldness by Iran. The secretive Quds Force, the branch of the elite Revolutionary Guard in charge of Iran’s special operations abroad, allegedly was behind the arms flow to militants in both Iran and Afghanistan. (Washington Post, June 3, 2007)

In the spring of 2007 -- after more than six years of refusing to commence talks with Teheran -- Bush changed his mind and decided to talk with Iranian officials. United States diplomats met with their Iranian counterparts and other Middle Eaastern delegates in May. The United States was represented by the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. Other than Iranian officials, other diplomats included conservative Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia. (Washington Post, May 3, 2007; New York Times, May 28, 2007)

In late July, United States and Iranian diplomats met for a second round of talks on Iraq. This time, it appeared as if Iran’s strategic interests in Iraq were far more compatible with those of the United States than those of the Sunni regimes in the region with which the Bush administration had aligned itself. (Inter Press Service, July 26, 2007)

Iran continued to demand a withdrawal of American troops. United States officials said Iran, Syria, and other Iraqi neighbors must avoid fostering discord. In addition, a meeting between Rice and the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was scheduled. (Washington Post, May 3, 2007

Meanwhile, the Bush administration ignored the fact that Iran’s primary ties in Iraq had always been with those groups who have supported the al-Maliki government, including the SCIRI and Dawa parties and their paramilitary arm, the Badr Corps, rather than with anti-government militias. That indicated that Iran’s fundamental interest was to support a stable Iraq. (Inter Press Service, July 26, 2007)

Iranian-Saudi relations appeared tenuous. The Iran regime was upset with the efforts by the Saudis to undermine the Shi’ite-dominated government. (Inter Press Service, July 26, 2007)

While the joint Iran-United States meetings continued, Cheney proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Weeks later, Bush continued the administration’s diatribe against the Iranian regime, claiming it continued to arm and train insurgents in Iraq. He also continued to threaten action if that continued but refused to specify particular consequences. (McCathchy Newspapers, August 10, 2007)

However, the Bush administration failed to demonstrate any evidence that Iran had long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shi;ite groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric al Sadr and the Badr Organization which was allied to Prime Minister al Maliki. (McCathchy Newspapers, August 10, 2007)

In August, Bush designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps of 125,000 military personnel, as “specially designated global terrorist.” This allowed American intelligence groups to target the group’s business operations and finances. The order specifically allowed the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that “provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists.” (New York Times, August 15, 2007)

Under Executive Order 13224 signed two weeks after 9/11, the United States was authorized to identify individuals, businesses, charities, and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard was the first national military branch included on the list. (New York times, August 15, 2007)

RUSSIA DELIVERS NUCLEAR FUEL. The United States lost a years-long battle when Russia delivered nuclear fuel in December 2007 for the Iranian power plant at Bushehr. That had been at the center of an international dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran, for its part, rejected the idea that the delivery might mean it no longer needed to do its own uranium enrichment to make fuel, citing work on a second power plant. (New York Times, December 17, 2007)

Russian officials said that the fuel would be under the control of the IAEA while it was in Iran, and that the Iranian government had given guarantees that the fuel would be only be used for the power plant. (New York Times, December 17, 2007)

In an attempt to improve relations with Moscow, the Bush administration did not publicly criticize the Russian move, and said that the fuel delivery means Iran should suspend its nuclear enrichment program. (New York Times, December 17, 2007)

3. DETERIORATING RELATIONS

A BACKGROUND TO THE NUCLEAR PROGRAM. Under the Bush administration, the CIA increased its efforts to destabilize Iran’s nuclear program. Operation Merlin involved a former Russian nuclear scientist on the CIA payroll. He was to take Russian nuke blueprints -- acquired by the CIA -- and leak them to Iran. They contained faulty information that the CIA hoped Iran would incorporate in a bomb design. However, the initiative failed when the scientist noticed the flaws and told the Iranians to look closely at the blueprints. (James Risen, State of War)

Iran agreed not to produce nuclear weapons when it signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1970, which opened the door for it to acquire civilian reactors. The treaty did not prohibit Iran from producing or possessing enriched uranium but required it to submit its nuclear facilities to international monitoring to ensure that materials were not diverted to weapons use.

Several pieces of evidence indicated that Iran was poised to build nuclear weapons. Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program started in 1974 and was interrupted by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It resumed in 1995 when Russia signed an $800-million contract to complete a commercial reactor at Bushehr, which was scheduled to come online in 2004. Russia also promised to sell Iran the uranium fuel to power the reactor. However, Iran maintained that it wanted to develop its own nuclear fuel-making capability. (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003)

As early as 1989, Pakistani generals offered to sell Iran nuclear weapons technology. Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani nuclear scientist, had helped Iran for years. According to a Middle Eastern intelligence officer, Pakistan’s role was bigger from the beginning than we thought.” (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003)

In 1991, Tehran secretly imported 1.8 tons of nuclear material from China and processed some of it to manufacture uranium metal. The material would be of no use in its commercial program but would be an integral part to weapons production. (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003)

Iran permitted inspections of its declared commercial nuclear facilities. However, in 2002, an Iranian exile group pinpointed a secret underground enrichment plant outside Natanz.

While the CIA was infiltrating Iran between the late 1980s to the 1990s, dozens of its informants were executed or imprisoned. This occurred after the CIA’s clandestine communications program was uncovered by the government. As many as 50 Iranian citizens on the CIA’s payroll were ‘rolled up” in the failed operation. (Los Angeles Times, January 12, 2005)

OPERATION MERLIN. The Bush administration increased its efforts to destabilize Iran’s nuclear program. Originally launched under the Clinton administration, Operation MERLIN involved a former Russian nuclear scientist on the CIA payroll. He was to take Russian nuke blueprints -- acquired by the CIA -- and leak them to Iran. They contained faulty information that the CIA hoped Iran would incorporate in a bomb design. However, the initiative failed when the scientist noticed the flaws and told the Iranians to look closely at the blueprints. (James Risen, State of War)

A CIA officer approached a Russian nuclear scientist who had defected to the United States. The agency helped him acquire American citizenship and paid him $5,000 per month to deliver false plans to the Teheran government. (James Risen, State of War)

The Russian was to pose as an unemployed and poor scientist who was willing to sell secret blueprints for the atomic bomb to the highest bidder. While meeting secretly in San Francisco, a CIA official told him that would be Iran. The agent brought in experts from a national laboratory to go over the blueprints that he would sell to the Iranians. (James Risen, State of War)

The nervous Russian reluctantly agreed to go to Vienna where, the CIA learned, a high-ranking Iranian would be meeting with the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. The Russian was given a sealed envelope with the blueprints inside, and he was told that under no circumstances should he open it. But when the Russian arrived at the Iranian mission in Vienna, he warned that the nuclear plans looked flawed but that he could help them. Days later, he dropped off the envelope at the mission’s mailbox, relieved that he never came into contact with an Iranian official. (James Risen, State of War)

Days later, the NSA reported that an Iranian official in Vienna had abruptly changed his schedule to fly home to Iran.

IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM. Bush was dead wrong when he claimed Iran was on the verge of turning out nuclear weapons. Teheran’s uranium enrichment program operated well below capacity and was far from producing nuclear fuel in significant amounts. A senior Iranian nuclear official said the IAEA report showed United States suspicions about Teheran’s nuclear intentions were baseless. (United Nations nuclear watchdog report, August 2007; Reuters, August 30, 2007)

Teheran announced it was proceeding with an ambitious nuclear power program in September 2002. Iran stated that its goal was to provide self-sufficiency in manufacturing and reprocessing its own fuel.

Bush would have jumped at an opportunity to attack Iran, but it would be a global nightmare. The price of gasoline in the United States would likely double to triple. The United States would fall into a recession. Neither were economic sanctions an option. Particularly America’s allies in Europe were highly dependent upon Iran as a trading partner. (Time, March 17, 2003)

The threat of Iranian terrorism was not the only concern of the Bush administration. For decades, Washington’s abiding fear had been that Iran might pick up where the Shah’s nuclear program -- which was backed by the United States -- left off. The Iranians, who were signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, insisted they had nothing to hide. They lied. In August 2002, a group affiliated with the MEK revealed the extent of nuclear activities at a facility in Isfahan, where the Iranians had been converting yellowcake to uranium gas, and in Natanz, where the infrastructure needed to enrich that material to weapons-grade uranium was being built. A year later, Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan’s covert nuclear-technology network unraveled, bringing further embarrassments and investigations. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

In the summer of 2002, Bush gave up any hope of working with President Mohammad Khatami whose regime he had labeled part of the “axis of evil.” Instead, the Bush administration planned on appealing directly to “democracy” supporters among the Iranian people.

A senior administration official said Bush concluded with his senior foreign policy advisers that Khatami and his supporters in the government “are too weak, ineffective and not serious about delivering on their promises” to transform Iranian society. Instead, the official said, “we have made a conscious decision to associate with the aspirations of Iranian people. We will not play, if you like, the factional politics of reform versus hard-line.” (Washington Post, July 22, 2002)

Bush signaled the change publicly, saying he praised large pro-democracy street demonstrations in Iran. The conservative shift cheered foreign policy experts who had urged a tougher approach toward Tehran and was a setback for the State Department, which had spearheaded efforts to engage the Khatami leadership. (Washington Post, July 22, 2002)

In the statement, Bush said, “Uncompromising, destructive policies have persisted” in Iran. He accused Iranian leaders and their families of continuing “to obstruct reform while reaping unfair benefits” and demanded that the government listen to the Iranian people, who he said had “no better friend than the United States.” (Washington Post, July 22, 2002)

Bush approved the statement after pro-democracy protesters and Iranian security forces clashed at the demonstrations, and a top Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri, resigned his post to denounce what he called the “incompetence of the authorities and the failure of the political structure.” (Washington Post, July 22, 2002)

In December 2002, the American intelligence community detected through satellite photographs that Iran was “actively working on a nuclear-weapons program.” It appeared highly unlikely that Teheran would invest in nuclear power, since it had vast oil and natural gas reserves. Fareed Zakaria, Wealth to Power; Newsweek, December 23, 2002)

Also in December, the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank, published satellite photos of Natanz from the archives of a commercial firm, Digital Globe. The photos showed large-scale construction inside the perimeter of a security fence. Among the buildings were a pilot centrifuge plant and two underground halls big enough for tens of thousands of centrifuges.

IAEA officials visited the plant in February 2003 and found 160 assembled centrifuges and components for 1,000 more. Moreover, the equipment was to be housed in bunkers 75 feet deep, with walls eight feet thick. The level of centrifuge development at Natanz already reflected thousands of hours of testing and advanced technological work. By comparison, Iraq had tested a single centrifuge for about 100 hours when IAEA inspectors began dismantling its nuclear weapons program after the first Gulf War. (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003)

Iran insisted that its aim was to make fuel for a civilian nuclear power program, and it maintained that it was opening its plant in Natanz to the atomic energy agency to demonstrate its peaceful intentions. The Teheran regime claimed the Natanz site would be used to produce low-enriched uranium for civilian power plants that it had yet to build. The plant that Russians were building at Bushehr would not need low-enriched uranium from Natanz because Russia was supplying the fuel. Iran also said the Natanz facility would be under international safeguards with monitoring equipment and regular inspections to make sure that no enriched uranium was diverted for nuclear weapons.

However, American intelligence agencies concluded that Iran was building a large gas centrifuge plant at Natanz to enrich uranium. The National Council of Resistance of Iran disclosed construction of the site. American officials believed the Natanz plant had been built with Pakistani assistance and that was far more advanced than the effort by Iraq. The officials said Iran’s goal was to mine or purchase uranium, process the ore, and enrich it to for making weapons. This process would give Iran the capability to make nuclear weapons. (New York Times, February 23, 2003)

United States intelligence also theorized that Iran would mine natural uranium at domestic sites or buy it abroad. The uranium would then be taken to a facility at Isfahan, where it would be converted into uranium hexafluoride, a gas. Subsequently, the fuel would then be taken either to the centrifuge facility at Natanz or, perhaps, to some covert centrifuge plant. The IAEA concluded that Iran introduced uranium hexafluoride gas into some centrifuges at an undisclosed location to test them. That would be a blatant violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to which Iran was a signatory. (Time, March 17, 2003)

The United States intelligence community concluded that work on the Natanz site was “extremely advanced” and that it involved “hundreds” of gas centrifuges ready to produce enriched uranium and “the parts for a thousand others ready to be assembled.” (Time, March 17, 2003)

American intelligence sources estimated that Iran was four to 10 years away from a workable Iranian weapon. But that report could be dismissed, since American intelligence was usually wrong in its estimates. After all, the CIA was dead wrong two years earlier in its analysis of Saddam’s nuclear program. (Newsweek, February 13, 2006)

The Bush White House was concerned that Iran might somehow divert material from Natanz and take it to a secret centrifuge plant for enrichment to weapons-grade material. Still another concern was that Iran would complete the Natanz plant under international inspection but then withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it was legally allowed to do with three months’ notice. It could then reconfigure the installation to make weapons-grade uranium. It would take about 1,000 centrifuges of the type Iran was using to make a bomb’s worth of fissile material per year. (New York Times, February 23, 2003)

Israel was particularly alarmed by Iran’s developments. One Israeli official said, “It’s a huge concern. Iran is a regime that denies Israel’s right to exist in any borders and is a principal sponsor of Hezbollah. If that regime were able to achieve a nuclear potential, it would be extremely dangerous.” (Time, March 17, 2003)

While in Natanz, chief IAEA inspector Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei found that the site included a small network of centrifuges for enriching uranium. The inspectors also learned that Iran had components to make a significant number of additional centrifuges. (New York Times, February 23, 2003)

In early March 2003, Iran announced that it intended to activate the Isfahan facility, under IAEA safeguards, to produce the uranium hexafluoride gas. The IAEA declined to comment. A senior State Department official said he believed that ElBaradei was trying to resolve the issue behind the scenes before going public. (New York Times, February 23, 2003)

A confidential report prepared by the French government in May 2003 concluded that Iran was surprisingly close to having enriched uranium or plutonium for a bomb. The French warned other governments to exercise “the most serious vigilance on their exports to Iran and Iranian front companies.” (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003)

Just before Bush marched off to war against Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration wanted Iran’s help in case a flood of refugees headed for the border, or if U.S. pilots were downed inside Iran. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

After United States forces reached Baghdad, tensions with Iran began to ease. Yet, Teheran became eager to negotiate with the Bush administration. Low-level meetings between the two sides continued even after the Axis of Evil speech. In the spring of 2003, Teheran became concerned of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an anti-Iranian militant group based in Iraq. Iran detained a number of senior al Qaeda operatives after 9/11. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

In May, the Bush administration considered a plan of “reciprocity” between the United States and Iran – Iran’s terrorists for America’s. Bush agreed with the proposal. However, others argued that designating the militants as terrorists had been a mistake. Still others said the idea might prove useful against Iran in the future. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Powell opposed the swap of terrorists for a different reason. He worried that the captives might be tortured. Cheney suggested “preserving all our options.” (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Around this time, Iran proposed comprehensive bilateral talks that would include curtailing the Hezbullah and Hamas as well as discussing “full transparency” on Iran’s nuclear program. In return, Iran called for a “halt in United States hostile behavior and rectification of the status of Iran in the United States and abolishing sanctions,” as well as pursuit of the MEK. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

The letter received a mixed reception. Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage were suspicious. Armitage says he thought the letter represented creative diplomacy by the Swiss ambassador, Tim Guldimann, who was serving as a go-between. Four years later, in January 2007, Rice testified before Congress, denying ever seeing the proposal. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

A few days later in May, bombs tore through three housing complexes in Saudi Arabia and killed 29 people, including seven Americans. Bush administration hard-liners blamed Iran. Citing telephone intercepts, they claimed the bombings had been ordered by Saif al-Adel, a senior al Qaeda leader supposedly imprisoned in Iran. Rumsfeld complained that there was no question but that there had been and were senior al Qaeda leaders in Iran. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Although there was no evidence the Iranian government knew of Adel’s activities, his presence in the country was enough to undermine those who wanted to reach out. Powell thought Bush simply was not prepared to deal with a regime he thought should not be in power. This was at a time when the United States was meeting fierce resistance to any diplomatic overtures to Iran and its ally Syria. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Powell hoped to restart talks with Iran. But Bush was reluctant to do so. Powell angrily rejected the administration’s characterization of efforts by him and his top aides to deal with Iran’ and Syria as failures. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

In May 2003, in the early months of the Iraq war, Iran’s most senior leaders were sent to the United States. They proposed several issues that could have led to the road to détente between the United States and Iran. This included an end to Iran’s support for anti-Israel militants and acceptance of Israel’s right to exist. However, the Bush administration lost an opportunity for rapprochement.

The following month, United Nations inspectors were refused access to two large rooms and barred from testing samples at the factory, called Kalaye Electric Company. The same month, a foreign intelligence officer and an American diplomat reported that samples of uranium taken by United Nations inspectors in Iran tested positive for enrichment levels high enough to be consistent with an attempt to build a nuclear weapon. In July, Reuters news service reported the possibility that the material was weapons-grade. (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003)

In mid-2003, North Korean military scientists were monitored entering Iranian nuclear facilities. They assisted in the design of a nuclear warhead, according to people inside Iran and foreign intelligence officials. Many North Koreans worked on nuclear and missile projects in Iran that a resort on the Caspian coast was set aside for their exclusive use. (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003)

Russian scientists, sometimes traveling to Iran under false identities and working without their government’s approval, helped to complete a special reactor that could produce weapons-grade plutonium. Moscow insisted that it was providing only commercial technology for the civilian reactor under construction near the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr. (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003)

Also in 2003, Iran approached European companies to buy devices that could manipulate large volumes of radioactive material, technology to forge uranium metal and plutonium and switches that could trigger a nuclear weapon. European intelligence sources said it was a strong indication that Iran has moved to the late stages of weapons development. (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003)

A former high-level intelligence official said that an American commando task force was set up in South Asia. Officials worked closely with a group of Pakistani scientists and technicians who had secretly sold Iran nuclear technology components. The task force penetrated eastern Iran from Afghanistan in search of underground installations. It recruited local agents and set up secret remote detection devices -- known as sniffers -- that were capable of sampling the atmosphere for radioactive emissions and other evidence of nuclear-enrichment programs. (Seymour Hersch, The New Yorker, January 17, 2005)

On August 25, IAEA inspectors found traces of highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium at an Iranian nuclear facility, heightening concerns that Teheran might be running a secret nuclear weapons program. (New York Times, September 25, 2003; Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2003) Five weeks later, Iran softened its position and began allowing spot checks by the IAEA of its nuclear program. (Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2003)

The Bush administration further complicated its tenuous relationship with the European community in November. France, Germany, and Britain initiated a plan, based on economic incentives, to try to persuade Iran to abandon its suspected weapons program and to submit to extensive international inspections.

Immediately, Secretary of State Powell widened the rift between the United States and its trans-Atlantic allies. He declared the proposal “deficient,” because it specified no consequences for Iran if it failed to cooperate fully with the IAEA. (Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2003)

Finally, the Bush administration reached agreement with France, Germany, and Britain on a resolution that “strongly deplores Iran’s past failures and breaches.” (New York Times, November 25, 2003)

In mid-November, Britain, France, and Germany brokered a resolution that demanded Iran suspend all uranium enrichment-related activities and avoid referral to the United Nations Security Council, where it could face sanctions. Two weeks later, Iran pledged to suspend all uranium enrichment activities.

Britain, France, and Germany began negotiations with Teheran on the nuclear issue in October 2003. The three European nations concluded very early on that Iran’s security concerns would have to be central to any agreement. They tried in vain to get the Bush administration to support their diplomatic efforts with Teheran by authorizing the inclusion of security guarantees in a proposal they were working on in 2005. (New York Times, May 19, 2006)

In the fall of 2003, United States-Pakistan relations took a turn for the worse. Pakistan acknowledged that its leading physicist, A. Q. Khan, had sold nuclear technology to Teheran. Furthermore, Russian President Putin announced that it would sell nuclear fuel to Teheran. (New York Times, November 30, 2004)

The seizure by the United States and Britain of a separate shipment of nuclear-related components from a freighter headed for Libya in October crippled the network and led to Khan’s admission that he had been selling know-how and technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. (Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2004)

The components allegedly were sold to an unidentified customer by members of the international smuggling ring that had been supplying nuclear technology and weapons designs to Libya. Two senior international investigators said that the illicit technology had been shipped to Turkey, Malaysia, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2004)

In Bush’s second term, he chose to support European efforts to resolve the nuclear impasse diplomatically. This was highly unusual, since Bush had always acted unilaterally during is first four years. Rice offered to meet her Iranian counterpart “any time, anywhere.” (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

For months, European negotiators worked to get Iran to formalize a temporary deal to freeze its nuclear fuel-development program. In May 2005, they met with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, at the Iranian ambassador’s Geneva residence. There was some reason to be optimistic. In Washington, Rice announced that the United States would not block Iran’s bid to join the World Trade Organization. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Meanwhile, European negotiators told Rowhani they had not solidified exactly what they could offer in return for a freeze, and the Americans still were not fully in agreement. Iran would have to wait for the details for a few more months. But in the meantime, the program had to remain suspended. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Part of the problem was that elections in Iran were only a few days away. After his election, Ahmadinejad publicly renounced the freeze on Iran's nuclear fuel-development program, broke the seals the International Atomic Energy Agency had placed on Iran’s conversion facilities at Isfahan and pushed ahead with work at Natanz. In the span of no more than a month or two, nuclear enrichment had become a symbol of national pride for a much wider spectrum of Iranian society than the voters who elected Ahmadinejad. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

This left with the Bush administration with the dilemma with whom it should negotiate in Teheran. Bush was also faced with another problem since the Iranians had almost no incentive to talk. With the United States bogged down in Iraq, Iran now had the leverage. The roles had reversed. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

In March 2005 -- after four years of refusing to support his trans-Atlantic allies in many areas -- Bush was pressured into providing economic concessions to Iran. In a major concession to European allies and a blow to the administration’s most conservative supporters, Bush agreed to abandon his objections to prevent Iran from entering the World Trade Organization. In return, Iran would have to provide guarantees that it would not use a civilian nuclear energy program to mask the development of nuclear armaments. (New York Times, March 11, 2005)

Teheran immediately rejected Bush’s proposal, stating that it was ridiculous. Neither threats nor incentives by the Bush administration altered Iran’s pursuit of its nuclear program. (New York Times, March 12, 2005)

In July, Secretary of State Rice and French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy referred to the need to “make sure ... that we discuss with (the Iranians) the security of their country. And for this, we shall need the United States.” (New York Times, May 19, 2006)

Britain, France, and Germany and the Bush administration agreed that the P5+1 proposal would demand that Iran make three concessions to avoid Security Council sanctions and to begin negotiations on an agreement with positive incentives. They called for the indefinite suspension of Iran’s enrichment program, agreement to resolve all the outstanding concerns of the IAEA, and resumption of full implementation of the Additional Protocol that called for very tight monitoring of all suspected nuclear sites by the IAEA. (New York Times, May 19, 2006)

That meant Teheran would have to give up its major bargaining chips before the negotiations even began. The Europeans wanted security guarantees from Washington to be part of the deal. Douste-Blazy said on May 8 if Iran cooperated, it could be rewarded with what he called an “ambitious package” in several economic domains as well as in “the security domain.” (New York Times, May 19, 2006)

The European 3 draft proposal included a formula that fell short of an explicit guarantee. However, it did offer “support for an inter-governmental forum, including countries of the region and other interested countries, to promote dialogue and cooperation on security issues in the Persian Gulf, with the aim of establishing regional security arrangements and a cooperative relationship on regional security arrangements including guarantees for territorial integrity and political sovereignty.” (New York Times, May 19, 2006)

That language suggested there was a way for Iran’s security to be guaranteed by the United States. But the problem was that it was still subject to a United States veto. In any case, the Bush administration rejected any reference to a regional security framework in which Iran could participate. (New York Times, May 19, 2006)

Rice denied that the United States was being “asked about security guarantees.” She was deliberately misleading. (Fox News, May 21, 2006) But as a European diplomat explained, the only reason the Europeans had not used the term “security guarantees” in their draft was that “Washington is against giving Iran assurances that it will not be attacked.” (Reuters, May 20, 2006)

In August 2005, the National Intelligence Estimate predicted that Iran was about 10 years away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon. This doubled the previous estimate of five years. (Washington Post, August 2, 2005)

Iran stepped up its confrontation with the Bush administration over its nuclear program, restarting work at a uranium conversion facility. In August, Teheran claimed its goal was only to produce electricity. The 35-board IAEA commission adopted a resolution for Iran to stop uranium conversion. Iran immediately rejected the resolution. (Washington Post, August 9, 2005)

IAEA scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain, and Russia -- who had met in secrecy four nine months since November 2004 -- concluded that traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years earlier had come from contaminated Pakistani equipment. They said unequivocally that matched samples of the highly enriched uranium had been turned over by Khan several years before. Washington Post, August 20, 2005)

In January 2006, Iran resumed work on its nuclear program at its Nantaz facility. This ended a voluntary suspension by breaking United Nations inspection seals at an atomic facility south of the capital. The Iranian government removed seals that had been put in place more than two years earlier by the IAEA. (Washington Post, January 10, 2006)

One month later, Bush asked for a 700 percent increase in funding to mount the largest propaganda campaign against Iran. The $75 million was earmarked for broadcasting United States radio and television programs into Iran, for paying Iranians to study in America, and for supporting pro-democracy groups inside the country. (Britain’s The Guardian, February 16, 2006)

In late 2005, tensions increased between Bush and Putin. The Russian president offered to establish a joint venture on Russian soil that would enrich uranium for use in Iranian reactors. But by the spring of 2006, discussions remained at a standstill. (Washington Post, March 7, 2006)

Moscow warned that it was too early to discuss United Nations sanctions against Iran. Yet the Bush administration stepped up its rhetoric against Teheran despite calls by the international community to tone down its barbs. The White House drew a hard line by warning of “meaningful consequences” if Iran did not back away from an international confrontation over its nuclear program. (Washington Post, March 7, 2006)In early 2006, Cheney issued a blunt threat to Ahmadinejad, saying the United States and other nations “will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. … The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences.” Then Rice warned, “The United States has been very clear that enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian soil is not acceptable because of the proliferation risk.” (Washington Post, March 7, 2006)

As the war of words intensified, Iran responded by warning that the United States could suffer “harm and pain” if the Security Council imposed sanctions over its nuclear program. A high-ranking Iranian official said his country would not use oil as a weapon “but if the situation changes, we will have to review our oil policies.” (Washington Post, March 7, 2006)

Iran responded to the Bush administration’s hard-line approach with harsh words. Ahmadinejad threatened to attack Israel in response to any “evil” act by the Bush administration. He also considered passing legislation to abrogate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. (Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2006; May 8, 2006)

Reversing his policy on Iran, Bush ordered Ambassador Khalilzad in March 2006 to postpone indefinitely the talks with the Iranian government on Iraq. Secretary of State Rice told Khalilzad. “It wasn’t the right time to meet.” (Inter Press Service, May 20, 2006)

The shift in policy resulted in a widening chasm between the United States and the other major powers on how to reach a diplomatic solution with Iran on the nuclear issue. (Inter Press Service, May 20, 2006)

Iran continued to ask for talks with the West. Bush refused. Meanwhile, Teheran continued to defy the United Nations and refused to allow inspectors into their nuclear sites. While Iran offered to enter “serious negotiations” over its nuclear program, in August it rejected the key Security Council demand that it suspend its uranium enrichment program. (New York Times, August 24, 2006)

In April, Ahmadinejad announced a breakthrough – that Iran had enriched uranium. He said, “I’m announcing officially that Iran has now joined the countries that have nuclear technology. This is a very historic moment, and this is because of the Iranian people and their belief. And this is the start of the progress of this country.” Ahmadinejad reiterated that Iran was pursuing a process in developing nuclear power for peaceful reasons. (New York Times, April 11, 2006)

The DIA estimated Iran was five to ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon. This sounded the same as false estimates made by the United States intelligence community.

Defying the United Nations, Iran inaugurated a heavy-water production plant on August 26. It presumably had the capability to develop a nuclear bomb. The move came days before a United Nations deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment. (New York Times, August 27, 2006)

Ahmadinejad declared that his nation’s nuclear program posed no threat to other nations, even Israel, “which is a definite enemy.” Once again, he said that Iran would never abandon what he once again called its purely peaceful nuclear program. (New York Times, August 27, 2006)

It was not until the spring of 2006 that the Bush administration took its case to the United Nations. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Bush to open direct talks with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Bush refused. (Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2006)

In June, the United States and five other major world powers agreed to offer Iran rewards if it ended its nuclear technology program. But they threatened further steps in the Security Council if Iran refused. (Washington Post, June 2, 2006)

The diplomats said that measures included an embargo on export of goods and technologies relevant to nuclear programs, the freezing of assets of organizations and people involved in the programs, and a suspension of technical cooperation with the IAEA. They also discussed a freeze on bilateral contacts, a visa and travel ban for senior Iranian officials, an arms embargo, an embargo on certain exports and an end to support for Iran’s bid to join the World Trade Organization. (Washington Post, June 2, 2006)

Ahmadinejad was defiant by the proposal to suspend its nuclear program in exchange for a package of incentives. But he stopped short of saying Iran’s Parliament would reject the deal. (Washington Post, June 3, 2006)

By the summer of 2006, Iran seemed more of a threat. The Hezbullah intervened in the Lebanon war as a result of the support of Ahmadinejad. A series of meetings began in September in New York, all of which ended in a deadlock. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Similarly, conditions in Iraq continued to deteriorate. United States troops seemed powerless to stop the rise of sectarian violence that allegedly was partially fueled by Iran. In Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Arab leaders warned darkly of a rising “Shia crescent.” (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

American military officials and politicians accused the Iranian government of providing Iraqis with an new arsenal of advanced rocket-propelled-grenade launchers, heavy-duty mortars and the newest armor-piercing technology for roadside bombs -- explosively formed projectiles (EFPs). The EFBs were presumably supplied by the Hezbullah. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

The Pentagon was especially worried by “passive infrared sensors,” readily available devices that we re often used for burglar alarms or automatic light switches but increasingly seen as triggers for improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Unlike cell phones, remote-control systems and garage-door openers, the sensors emitted no signal, making them that much tougher to spot before they detonated. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

With all the tough talk about Iran’s potential for nuclear weapons, Congress released a study in August 2006. The report said that the United States faced “significant gaps” in its intelligence on Iran that could be as serious as the shortcomings in its prewar knowledge about Iraq. The report said that the United States was ill-prepared to assess Teheran’s military capabilities. (London’s The Guardian, August 24, 2006)

While Bush kept up his harsh cowboy rhetoric, Ahmadinejad toned down his barbs against the United States when each spoke before the United Nations Security Council in September 2006. Proving to the world that he was obstinate, Bush refused to meet with his Iranian counterpart.

When Bush spoke in the morning, he accused the Teheran regime of supporting terrorism. He told the Iranian people that the greatest obstacle to a free future came from their own rulers, who had “chosen to deny you liberty and to use your nation’s resources to fund terrorism, and fuel extremism, and pursue nuclear weapons.” (New York Times, September 20, 2006)

Hours later, Ahmadinejad accused the United States of being a “hegemonic power” and of violating international law. He reminded delegates that America had itself used the bomb. He accused the United States of using terrorism as a “pretext for the continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq.” (New York Times, September 20, 2006)

Ahmadinejad also criticized the Bush administration’s support for Israel and accused the Security Council of sitting “idly by for many days” while atrocities were committed in Lebanon months earlier. (New York Times, September 20, 2006)

Another threat to the Bush administration was a multi-pronged political attack. Banking restrictions levied by the United States Treasury began to damage the Iranian economy. Voters angry about rising prices dealt Ahmadinejad an embarrassing blow in municipal elections in December 2006, when his supporters were trounced. That would not have been an issue had Ahmadinejad retained Khameini’s support. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Also in December, Iran’s refusal to give up its nuclear program led the United Nations to impose economic sanctions. The Bush administration sought to reduce exports to Iran and cut off its financial transactions in an attempt to isolate Iran commercially. But the president met heavy resistance from several European countries that increasingly opposed Bush’s policies. (New York Times, January 29, 2007)

A new reason for striking Iran followed a meeting between Bush and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on December 13, in which the uniformed military leaders rejected a strike against Iran’s nuclear program. (Inter Press Service, October 18, 2007)

Europeans opposed Bush’s threat of punishing Teheran by blocking transactions and freezing assets of some Iranian companies. As Bush escalated the largest naval build-up in the Gulf since the start of the Iraq, a transatlantic rift increased. (The Guardian, February 7, 2007)

Senior European policy-makers became worried that the Bush administration would resort to air strikes against Iran to try to destroy its alleged nuclear program and create a nuclear crisis. (The Guardian, February 7, 2007)

“The clock is ticking," said one European official. “Military action has come back on to the table more seriously than before. The language in the United States has changed.” (The Guardian, February 7, 2007)

Bush called critics of his role and policy towards Iran “preposterous.” For the first time, in January 2007, he presented the case from military and intelligence officials. They claimed an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the Quds Force, provided Shi’ite militias in Iraq with the sophisticated weapons that were responsible for killing at least 170 American soldiers and wounding more than 600. (New York Times, February 14, 2007)

Bush said, “I can say with certainty that the Quds Force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops. And I’d like to repeat, I do not know whether or not the Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of the government. But my point is, what’s worse, them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and its happening?” (New York Times, February 14, 2007)

American intelligence officials claimed that top leaders in Iran must have approved of the attacks on the American forces, in part because the Quds Force which reported to the country’s top religious leaders. General William Caldwe said the Quds Force reported to Iran’s top leaders. He said American assertions about a link between the weapons and the force was based on information obtained from people, including Iranians, who have been detained in Iraq in December 2006 and January 2007. (New York Times, February 14, 2007)

Also in January, United States troops stormed an Iranian diplomatic office in Irbil, arresting five more Iranians. The Americans inferred the attacks in retaliation for an Iranian raid in Karbala on January 20, in which four American soldiers were kidnapped and later found shot, execution style, in the head. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

Pentagon officials also claimed Iranian weapons were used to kill 170 of their soldiers and implicated high-level Iranian involvement in training Iranian militants. Bush responded by declaring the Pentagon was authorized to kill or capture or kill Iranian operatives inside Iraq. (Washington Post, January 27, 2007; Yahoo News, February 11, 2007)

In May 2007, Bolton warned that Iran should be attacked before it developed nuclear weapons. He said the European Union had to “get more serious” about Iran and recognize that its diplomatic attempts to halt Iran’s enrichment program had failed. (London’s The Telegraph, May 16, 2007)

Instead of engaging Ahmadenejad in a dialogue, Bush continued not only to ignore the Iranian president but also continued to castigate him. In January 2007, Bush ordered an additional aircraft carrier to the region and continued to taunt Iran with some of his harshest words of warning. (New York Times, January 10, 2007)

Cheney said the naval build-up near Iran sent a strong signal to everyone in the region that the United States was there to stay and that the American war machine clearly had significant capabilities. Cheney also said the administration was working with allies as well as the international organizations to deal with the Iranian threat. (Washington Post, January 28, 2007)

Bush administration officials continued their diatribe against Teheran. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns warned Iran it risked further United Nations and other sanctions if it did not halt uranium enrichment as the Security Council demanded. (Reuters, February 26, 2007)

In February 2007 when Flynt Leverett, who worked on the NSC when it was headed by Rice, accused the secretary of state of misleading Congress on the issue. Leverett said he was confident that détente with Iran was seen by Rice and then-Secretary of State Powell but “the administration rejected the overture.” But Rice’s spokesman denied she misled Congress, and he claimed that she never saw the proposal. (Reuters, February 26, 2007)

BUSH CHANGES POLICY – OPENS DIALOGUE WITH IRAN. After more than six years, Bush changed his mind and decided to talk with Iranian officials. Officials from several countries met in Teheran in May. The United States was represented by the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. Other than Iranian officials, other diplomats included conservative Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia. (Washington Post, May 3, 2007)

Iran continued to demand a withdrawal of American troops. United States officials said Iran, Syria, and other Iraqi neighbors must avoid fostering discord. In addition, a meeting between Rice and the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was scheduled. (Washington Post, May 3, 2007)

4. THE 2006-07 NIE REPORT EXONERATES IRAN

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) originally completed in fall 2006. Cheney wanted the NIE report to reflect a consensus on key conclusions -- particularly on Iran’s nuclear program. The NIE used opinions from 16 intelligence agencies to make its recommendation that there were differing views as to Iran’s nuclear capability. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Consequently, the draft was rewritten three times as a result of pressure from Cheney. The report contained dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear program Teheran’s support of insurgents in Iraq. Consequently, the report was delayed for over one year as a result of Cheney’s persistence, according to a CIA official. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Bush originally sidestepped questions when asked whether he knew that the NIE report had been stonewalled. Finally in December 2007, the White House admitted that he was told one year earlier that the NIE’s assessment on Iran’s nuclear program might change. Bush knew as early as February or March of 2007. Yet he avoided answering the question of when he was first informed about the new intelligence that led to that revised assessment. (Inter Service Press, December 18, 2007)

former CIA officer, Philip Giraldi, provided a similar account, stating that intelligence analysts had to review and rewrite their findings three times because of pressure from the White House. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 20070

In the fall of 2006, Giraldi wrote in The American Conservative that the NIE on Iran had already been completed, but that Cheney’s office had objected to its findings on both the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s role in Iraq. The draft NIE did not conclude that there was confirming evidence that Iran was arming the Shi’ite insurgents in Iraq, according to Giraldi. (The American Conservative, October 2006) Giraldi said the Bush administration decided to postpone any decision on the internal release of the NIE until after the November 2006 elections. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Cheney’s opposition to the 2006 NIE report might have been a major factor in the replacement of John Negroponte as director of national intelligence in early 2007. Other high-level officials opposing Cheney’s position included Secretary of State Rice, Secretary of Defense Gates, and John Negroponte. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Negroponte angered the neoconservatives in the administration by telling the press in April 2006 that the intelligence community believed that it would still be “a number of years off” before Iran would be “likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into or to put into a nuclear weapon, perhaps into the next decade.” (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Neoconservatives immediately attacked Negroponte for the statement, which merely reflected the existing NIE on Iran issued in spring 2005. Robert Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and an ally of Cheney, contradicted Negroponte the following day. He suggested that Iran’s nuclear program was nearing the “point of no return” -- an Israeli concept referring to the mastery of industrial-scale uranium enrichment. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Frank Gaffney, another neoconservative and ally of Richard Perle, complained that Negroponte was “absurdly declaring the Iranian regime to be years away from having nuclear weapons.” (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

On January 5, 2007, Bush announced the nomination of retired Vice Admiral John Michael McConnell to be director of national intelligence. McConnell was approached by Cheney himself about accepting the position. After being confirmed by the Senate, McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee he was “comfortable saying it’s probable” that the alleged export of explosively formed penetrators to Shi’ite insurgents in Iraq was linked to the highest leadership in Iran. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Two weeks after Ahmadinejad announced in mid-April 2007 that Iran would begin producing nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, the chairman of the NIE, Thomas Fingar, said the completion of the NIE on Iran had been delayed while the intelligence community determined whether its judgment on the time frame within which Iran might produce a nuclear weapon needed to be amended. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Fingar said the estimate “might change”, citing “new reporting” from the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as “some other new information we have. …We are serious about reexamining old evidence.” (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

That extraordinary revelation about the NIE process, which was obviously ordered by McConnell, was a signal to the intelligence community that the Bush administration was determined to obtain a more alarmist conclusion on the Iranian nuclear program. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

By October, Cheney still had not received a consensus charging that Iran was moving forward with a nuclear program and that Iran was involved in aiding insurgents in Iraq. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

On October 27, David Shedd, a deputy to McConnell, told a congressional briefing that McConnell had issued a directive making it more difficult to declassify the key judgments of national intelligence estimates. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

That reversed a Bush administration practice of releasing summaries of “key judgments” in NIEs that began when the White House made public the key judgments from the controversial 2002 NIE on Iraq’s alleged a WMD program in July 2003. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Even though the administration had hoped that the NIE report would have indicated a nuclear arms program in Iran, Bush continued his diatribe against the Ahmadinejad regime. (New York Times, December 3, 2007)

On November 4, Bush said, “The world needed to view the report as ‘a warning signal.’ I have said Iran is dangerous.” He denied that the United States’ credibility had suffered in light of the NIE report, arguing instead that it reflected a more rigorous approach to intelligence. Bush added, “I want to compliment the intelligence community for their good work. Right after the failure of intelligence in Iraq, we reformed the intelligence community.” (New York Times, December 3, 2007)

Bush’s comments left some United States allies feeling uncertain about the way ahead. Key partners like France and Britain said the report underscored that past concerns about Iran were well-founded. But Russia and China took the lead in refusing to impose sanctions against Iran. (New York Times, December 3, 2007)

The Iranian government struck back, claiming the Security Council resolutions punishing them for not suspending their alleged enriched uranium activities were illegal. (New York Times, December 1, 2007)

Despite the White House spin that the NIE supported its policy of increasing pressure on Iran, the estimate not only directly contradicted Bush’s line on Iranian intentions regarding nuclear weapons, but pointed to a link between Teheran’s 2003 decision to halt research on weaponization and its decision to negotiate with European foreign ministers on both nuclear and Iranian security concerns. (Inter Press Service, December 5, 2007)

THE REPORT CONCLUDES IRAN DOES NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR PROGRAM. The NIE report confirmed what International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohammed El Baradei and other close observers of the Iranian nuclear program said since 2004: Iran was not interested in nuclear weapons but in the deterrent value inherent in the knowledge of mastering the nuclear fuel cycle. (Inter Press Service, December 5, 2007)

The Bush administration was briefed on the new evidence of the Iranian abandonment of nuclear weapons in 2003 as early as last July 2007. But several of Bush’s top advisers” had argued that electronic intercepts of Iranian military officers, which were reportedly a key element of the new evidence, were part of a “clever Iranian deception campaign.” (Washington Post, December 4, 2007)

The estimate concluded that the halt in the weapons program was ordered “in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.” That was a reference to the situation facing the Iranian leadership in 2003, when its acquisition of nuclear technology from the A.Q. Khan network had already been exposed but there was no threat of either military action or economic sanctions against Iran over the nuclear issue. (Inter Press Service, December 5, 2007)

A major feature of the diplomatic situation in the fall of 2003 was the willingness of Britain, France and Germany to negotiate an agreement with Iran on a wider range of security issues, based on voluntary Iranian suspension of uranium enrichment. The signal event of that period was the agreement in Teheran on October 21, 2003 between the foreign ministers of Iran and the three European states. (Inter Press Service, December 5, 2007)

In the agreement, Iran renounced nuclear weapons, pledged to sign and begin ratification of the Additional Protocol, and “voluntarily to suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities as defined by the IAEA.” (Inter Press Service, December 5, 2007)

The three European foreign ministers pledged, in turn, to “co-operate with Iran to promote security and stability in the region, including the establishment of a zone free from weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East in accordance with the objectives of the United Nations.” (Inter Press Service, December 5, 2007)

The Bush administration opposed the initiative of the European three in offering a political agreement with Iran that would offer security and other concessions as part of a broader deal. The Bush administration wanted to bring Iran quickly before the United Nations Security Council so that it would be subject to international sanctions. (Inter Press Service, December 5, 2007)

Britain, France, and Germany reached an agreement with Iran in mid-November 2004 under which Iran pledged to “provide objective guarantees that Iran’s nuclear program was exclusively for peaceful purposes” and the EU three promised “firm guarantees on nuclear, technological and economic cooperation and firm commitments on security issues.” (Inter Press Service, December 5, 2007)

The European three then began to backtrack from that agreement under pressure from Washington. But the evidence in 2007 showed that Iran made the decision to drop all weapons-related research at that time appeared to confirm the correctness of the original European negotiating approach. (Inter Press Service, December 5, 2007)

5. PLANNING TO ATTACK IRAN

Bush would have jumped at any opportunity to attack Iran. But it would be a global nightmare. The price of gasoline in the United States would likely double to triple. The United States would fall into a recession. Neither were economic sanctions an option. Particularly America’s allies in Europe were highly dependent upon Iran as a trading partner.

In Bush’s hard-line response, he said he consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear program. “All options are on the table,” he said. Asked if that included the use of force, Bush replied: “As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we’ve used force in the recent past to secure our country.” (Reuters, August 15, 2005)

In 2006, the CIA developed a clandestine “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government. Intelligence community officials said Bush signed a “nonlethal presidential finding” that put into motion a CIA plan. This reportedly included a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation, and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions. (ABC News, May 23, 2007)

Pentagon and CIA planners prepared for air attacks on areas such as the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. The Pentagon basically ruled out a land invasion because of the enormous size of the country and presumably because of the anti-American sentiments of its people.

An attack would be extremely complex, since Iran spread its facilities across the country, guarded some of them with sophisticated antiaircraft batteries, and shielded them underground. Moreover, American weapons would have to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets. As a result, Pentagon planners considered tactical nuclear devices. (Washington Post, April 9, 2006)

Since American weapons would have to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets, analysts considered the use of tactical nuclear devices. The Natanz facility consisted of more than two dozen buildings, including two huge underground halls built with six-foot walls and supposedly protected by two concrete roofs with sand and rocks in between. (Washington Post, April 9, 2006)

Two main options were considered. The first was a quick and limited strike against nuclear-related facilities accompanied by a threat to resume bombing if Iran responded with terrorist attacks in Iraq or elsewhere. The second called for a more intense campaign of bombing and cruise missiles leveling targets well beyond nuclear facilities, such as Iranian intelligence headquarters, the Revolutionary Guard, and some in the government. (Washington Post, April 9, 2006)

Any extended attack would require United States forces to cripple Iran’s air defense system and air force, prepare defenses for American ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and move Navy ships to the Persian Gulf to protect shipping. United States forces could launch warplanes from aircraft carriers, from the Diego Garcia island base in the Indian Ocean and, in the case of stealth bombers, from the United States. (Washington Post, April 9, 2006)

If the Pentagon wanted to place land-based aircraft in the region, they needed to convince Turkey to allow use of the United States air base at Incirlik. That would be a difficult task, since the Turkish government denied Bush access to its country as a northern launching point into Iraq. (Washington Post, April 9, 2006)

Pentagon planners also debated whether launching attacks from Iraq or using Iraqi airspace would further alienate the Muslim world. If Iraq were used as a staging area from which to attack Iran, then Bush would have proved to the region that the invasion of Iraq was to conquer neighboring countries. (Washington Post, April 9, 2006)

The intelligence wing of the Marines launched a probe into Iran’s ethnic minorities. The study involved Iranians grievances against the Islamic government and whether they would be prone to a violent fragmentation along the same kind of fault lines that split Iraq. (Financial Times, February 23, 2006)

The most likely strategy involved aerial bombardment by long-distance B-2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000-pound of precision weapons, including bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refueling. (London’s Sunday Telegraph, February 12, 2006)

The most likely strategy involved aerial bombardment by long-distance B-2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000-pound of precision weapons, including bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refueling. (London’s Sunday Telegraph, February 12, 2006)

The Bush administration’s contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extended beyond nuclear sites and included most of the country’s military infrastructure. If Bush were to order an attack, the targets would be Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities, and command-and-control centers. Long range B-2 stealth bombers would drop “bunker-busting” bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which was buried 27 yards underground. (BBC, February 20, 2007)

The bombing attack could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from Bush. The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in late 2006. The panel initially focused on destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities and on regime change. Then it emphasized the necessity to identify targets in Iran that might be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq, according to an Air Force adviser and a Pentagon consultant. (The New Yorker, March 4, 2007)

The consultant and a former senior intelligence official both said that United States military and special-operations teams had crossed the border from Iraq into Iran in pursuit of Iranian operatives. (The New Yorker, March 4, 2007)

Time magazine political columnist Joe Klein, reported in May 2007 that military and intelligence sources told him that Bush had asked the Joint Chiefs at the meeting about a possible strike against the Iranian nuclear program, and that they had unanimously opposed such an attack. (Inter Press Service, October 18, 2007)

Also in May, Hillary Mann, director for Persian Gulf and Afghanistan Affairs on the National Security Council staff in 2003, provided a legal basis for a possible attack on Iran. Mann said, “I believe the president chose his words very carefully and laid down a legal predicate that could be used to justify later military action against Iran.” (Inter Press Service, October 18, 2007)

Mann said her interpretation of the language was based on the claim by the White House of a right to attack another country in “anticipatory self-defense” based on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. That had been the legal basis cited by then National Security Adviser Rice had in September 2002 in making the case for the invasion of Iraq. (Inter Press Service, October 18, 2007)

Mann said that she was also told by her own contacts in the Pentagon that the Joint Chiefs had expressed opposition to a strike against Iran. The Joint Chiefs were soon joined in opposition to a strike on Iran by Admiral William Fallon. In May, Fallon indicated privately that he was determined to prevent an attack on Iran and even prepared to resign to do so. A source who met with Fallon at the time of his confirmation hearing quoted him as vowing that there would be “no war with Iran” while he was CENTCOM commander and as hinting very strongly that he would quit rather than go along with an attack. (Inter Press Service, October 18, 2007)

Even though Bush consented to talks with Teheran, tensions between the two countries continued. On June 12, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns publicly accused Iran for the first time of arming the Taliban forces. (Inter Press Service, June 21, 2007)

General Dan McNeill the United States commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, rejected that charge for the second time in less than two weeks. He pointed to other possible explanations, particularly the link between drug smuggling and weapons smuggling between Iran and Afghanistan. (Inter Press Service, June 21, 2007)

Burns declared that Iran was “transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan,” putting it in the context of a larger alleged Iranian role of funding “extremists” in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Iraq. The following day he asserted that there was “irrefutable evidence” of such Iranian arms supply to the Taliban. (Inter Press Service, June 21, 2007),/P>

In July, the United States and Iran held a second round of direct talks to discuss Teheran’s security situation. (New York Times, July 22, 2007) Bush’s shift from the military option of a massive strategic attack against Iran to a surgical strike against selected targets associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) might have been prompted -- not by new alarm at Iran’s role in Iraq -- but by the explicit opposition of the nation’s top military leaders to an unprovoked attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. (Inter Press Service, October 18, 2007)

United States action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and even its armed forces. (Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, September 16, 2007)

Bush’s tirade continued. In August, he accused Teheran of threatening to place the Middle East under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust and revealing that he had authorized United States military commanders in Iraq to “confront Tehran’s murderous activities.” (The Guardian, August 29, 2007)

In his strongest words for Ahmadinejad, Bush accused him of openly supporting violent forces within Iraq. Iran, he said, was responsible for training extremist Shia factions in Iraq. Bush said Teheran was supplying them with weapons, including sophisticated roadside bombs. Bush referred specifically to 240mm rockets which he said were made in Iran earlier in 2007and smuggled into Iraq. (The Guardian, August 29, 2007)

In September, an intelligence source said: “No one outside that tight circle knows what is going to happen.” But he said that within the CIA “many if not most officials believe that diplomacy is failing” and that “top Pentagon brass believes the same. … A strike will probably follow a gradual escalation. Over the next few weeks and months the United States will build tensions and evidence around Iranian activities in Iraq.” (Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, September 16, 2007)

Also in September, high-ranking American intelligence and defense officials concluded that Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran. Pentagon planners developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran at a time of growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran’s nuclear weapons program were doomed to fail. Pentagon and CIA officers said they believed that the White House began a carefully calibrated program of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran. (Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, September 16, 2007)

A senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq -- arming and training militants -- would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories. A prime target would be the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran, where Western intelligence agencies say armor-piercing projectiles used against British and United States troops were manufactured. (Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, September 16, 2007)

Rice and Cheney held different positions regarding the treatment of Iran. Cheney advocated the use of bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons against Iran’s nuclear sites. His allies dispute this, but Cheney lobbied for air strikes if sites could be identified where Revolutionary Guard units were training Shia militias. (Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, September 16, 2007)

Rice’s bottom line was that if the administration was to go to war again, it must build the case over a period of months and win sufficient support on Capitol Hill. (Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, September 16, 2007)

CLANDESTINE AMERICAN FORCES IN IRAN. In 2005, Bush signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia. Bush’s decision enabled Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books- free from legal restrictions imposed on the CIA. (The New Yorker, January 24, 2005)

A former high-level intelligence official said that an American commando task force was set up in South Asia. Officials worked closely with a group of Pakistani scientists and technicians who had secretly sold Iran nuclear technology components. The task force penetrated eastern Iran from Afghanistan in search of underground installations. It recruited local agents and set up secret remote detection devices -- known as sniffers -- that were capable of sampling the atmosphere for radioactive emissions and other evidence of nuclear-enrichment programs. (Seymour Hersch, The New Yorker, January 17, 2005)

Beginning in the summer of 2004, the secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran sought to identify potential nuclear, chemical, and missile targets. The Bush administration sent in Special Forces to determine how air strikes could be carried out on strategic sites. (The New Yorker, January 16, 2005; The Guardian, January 17, 2005)

Pentagon officials suggested that the intelligence community initiate covert operations in Iran in an internal effort to destabilize and topple its Islamic government. As a last resort to block Iran’s efforts to develop an atomic bomb, Pentagon strategists developed plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against nuclear sites. The Central Command and Strategic Command identified targets, assessed weapon-loads, and planned logistics for an operation. They reported to the office of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. (Washington Post, May 18, 2003; London’s Sunday Telegraph, February 12, 2006)

In early 2006, Bush authorized United States forces in Iraq to take whatever actions were necessary to counter Iranian agents deemed a threat to American troops or the public at large. The new policy came in response to intelligence that Iran was supporting terrorists inside Iraq and was providing bombs -- known as improvised explosive devices -- and other equipment to anti-United States insurgents. (Associated Press, January 26, 2007)

Five Iranians were detained by United States forces in early January 2007 after a raid on an Iranian government liaison office in northern Iraq. The move further frayed relations between the two countries over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. (Associated Press, January 26, 2007)

6. QUDS – ACCUSING IRAN OF AIDING IRAQ

In January 2007, then the United States military command accused the Iranian Quds Force of providing the armor-piercing EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) that were killing American troops. The Pentagon knew that Iraqi machine shops had been producing their own EFPs for years. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

The record also shows that the United States command had considerable evidence that the Mahdi army had gotten the technology and the training on how to use it from Hezbollah rather than Iran. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

The command, operating under close White House supervision, chose to deny these facts in making the dramatic accusation that became the main rationale for its aggressive stance toward Iran. Although the Bush administration initially limited the accusation to the Quds Force, it then began to assert that top officials of the Iranian regime were responsible for arms that are killing United States troops. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

British and United States officials observed from the beginning that the EFPs being used in Iraq closely resembled the ones used by Hezbollah against Israeli forces in Southern Lebanon, both in their design and the techniques for using them. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

Hezbollah was known as the world’s most knowledgeable specialists in EFP manufacture and use, having perfected them during the 1990s in the military struggle against Israeli forces in Lebanon. It was widely recognized that it was Hezbollah that had passed on the expertise to Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups after the second Intifada began in 2000. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

United States intelligence also knew that Hezbollah was conducting the training of Mahdi army militants on EFPs. In August 2005, Shi’ite fighters began to copy Hezbollah techniques for building the bombs, as well as for carrying out roadside ambushes. In late November 2006, a senior intelligence official said that Hezbollah troops had trained as many as 2,000 Mahdi army fighters in Lebanon. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

The fact that the Mahdi army’s major military connection has always been with Hezbollah rather than Iran explained the presence in Iraq of the PRG-29, a shoulder-fired anti-armor weapon. Although United States military briefers identified it in February 2007 as being Iranian-made, the RPG-29 was not manufactured by Iran but by the Russian Federation. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

RPG-29s were imported from Russia by Syria, then passed on to Hezbollah, which used them with devastating effectiveness against Israeli forces in the 2006 war. According to a June 2004 report on the well-informed military website Strategypage.com, RPG-29s were already turning up in Iraq, “apparently smuggled across the Syrian border.” (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

The earliest EFPs appearing in Iraq in 2004 were so professionally made that they were probably constructed by Hezbollah specialists, according to a detailed account by British expert Michael Knights in Jane’s Intelligence Review in 2006. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

By late 2005, however, the British command had already found clear evidence that the Iraqi Shi’ites themselves were manufacturing their own EFPs. British Army Major General J. B. Dutton told reporters in November 2005 that the bombs were of varying degrees of sophistication. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

Some of the EFPs required a “reasonably sophisticated factory”, he said, while others required only a simple workshop only meant that some of them were being made inside Iraq. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

After British convoys in Maysan province were attacked by a series of EFP bombings in late May 2006, British forces discovered a factory making them in Majar al-Kabir north of Basra in June 2007. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

In addition, the United States military also had its own forensic evidence by Fall 2006 that EFPs used against its vehicles had been manufactured in Iraq. These were shown in photographic evidence of EFP strikes on United States armored vehicles that “typically shows a mixture of clean penetrations from fully-formed EFP and spattering…” That pattern reflected the fact that the locally made EFPs were imperfect, some of them forming the required shape to penetrate but some of them failing to do so. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

Then United States troops began finding EFP factories. United States troops raided a Baghdad machine shop in November 2006 and discovered “a pile of copper discs, 5 inches in diameter, stamped out as part of what was clearly an ongoing order.” (Andrew Cockburn, Los Angeles Times, February 15, 2007)

On February 23, 2007, NBC Baghdad correspondent Jane Arraf quoted “senior military officials” as saying that United States forces had “have been finding an increasing number of the advanced roadside bombs being not just assembled but manufactured in machine shops here.” (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

Against the backdrop of Bush’s failures in Iraq, the White House’s attacks on Iran intensified. In October, the Bush administration imposed the most sweeping set of unilateral sanctions on Iran since 1979, and proceeded with its controversial decision to brand the Quds unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps as a “terrorist organization” for its alleged proliferation of WMD as well as the Quds Force’s alleged support of “terrorism” in Iraq. (Inter Press Service, October 31, 2007)

Bush’s hard line drew harsh criticism from his presumed international allies such as Putin who likened Washington’s recent sanctions to “mad people wielding razor blades.” Bush decided to put the blame for the EFPs squarely on the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, after Bush agreed in Fall 2006 to target the Quds Force within Iran in order to make Iranian leaders feel vulnerable to United States power. The allegedly exclusive Iranian manufacture of EFPs was the administration’s only argument for holding the Quds Force responsible for their use against United States forces. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007),/P>

At the February 11, 2007 military briefing presenting the case for this claim, one of the United States military officials declared, “The explosive charges used by Iranian agents in Iraq need a special manufacturing process, which is available only in Iran.” The briefer insisted that there was no evidence that they were being made in Iraq. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

But the Bush administration’s claim that EFPs were manufactured in Iran began to break down almost immediately. On February 23, General Ray Odierno began to take the EFP story back. He said the EFPs had “started to come from Iran,” but he admitted “some of the technologies” were “probably being constructed here.” (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

The following day, United States troops found yet another EFP factory near Baqubah, with copper discs that appeared to be made with a high degree of precision, but which could not be said with any certainty to have originated in Iran. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

The explosive expert who claimed at the February briefing that EFPs could only be made in Iran was then made available to the New York Times to explain away the new find. Major Marty Weber now backed down from his earlier statement and admitted that there were “copy cat” EFPs being machined in Iraq that looked identical to those allegedly made in Iran. Weber insisted that such Iraqi-made EFPs had slight imperfections which made them “much less likely to pierce armor.” But NBC reported the previous week that a senior military official had confirmed to her that the EFPs made in Iraqi shops were indeed quite able to penetrate United States armor. The impact of those weapons “isn’t as clean,” the official said, but they are “almost as effective” as the best-made EFPs. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

The idea that only Iranian EFPs penetrate armor would be a surprise to Israeli intelligence, which reported that EFPs manufactured by Hamas guerrillas in their own machine shops during 2006 had penetrated eight inches of Israeli steel armor in four separate incidents in September and November 2006. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

It soon became such an accepted part of the media narrative on Iran and Iraq that the only issue about which reporters bothered to ask questions was whether the top leaders of the Iranian government had approved the alleged Quds Force operation. (Inter Press Service, October 26, 2007)

Refusing to acknowledge that Teheran lacked nuclear capability, United States military officials placed huge pressure on interrogators in hopes that they would link Iran to Iraqi insurgents. (The Guardian, November 11, 2007)

Micah Brose, a privately contracted interrogator working for American forces in Iraq, said, “They’re (the United States military) really pushing the Iran thing. It’s like, shit, you know. …They push a lot for us to establish a link with Iran. They have pre-categories for us to go through, and by the sheer volume of categories there’s clearly a lot more for Iran than there is for other stuff. Of all the recent requests I’ve had, I’d say 60 to 70 per cent are about Iran.” (The Guardian, November 11, 2007)

In November, the United States military in Iraq said they discovered caches of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and bomb-making materials. The military claimed they came from Iran. Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, spokesman for Multi-National Force Iraq, said it was possible they crossed the border before a recent promise by Iran to stop the flow of munitions into Iraq. (The Guardian, November 11, 2007)

Among the weapons the military accused Iran of supplying to Iraqi insurgents were EFPs, or explosively formed projectiles, which fired a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating even the most heavily armored military vehicle. (The Guardian, November 11, 2007)

7. THE IRAN-HALLIBURTON CONNECTION

Halliburton performed between $30 million and $40 million annually in oilfield service work in Iran. The oil giant received an inquiry in 2001 about possible violations of national security sanctions that prohibit United States companies from doing business in Iran. However, under confusing federal regulations, their foreign subsidiaries might be permitted to operate “independently” from United States management. Halliburton’s subsidiary, operating in Iran, was based in the Caymen Islands. (BBC, July 20, 2004; Washington Post, July 21, 2004; Newsweek, February 15, 2005)

Then only weeks before Halliburton announced it was pulling out of Iran, it quietly signed a major new business deal to help develop Teheran’s natural gas fields. This suggested a close connection with Iran’s hard-line government. This came at a time when the Bush administration was chastising Iran for its alleged nuclear enrichment program. (Newsweek, February 15, 2005)

8. THE 2007 NIE REPORT

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) regarding Iran was ready to be released in 2006. However, it contained dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear program Teheran’s support of insurgents in Iraq. Consequently, the report was delayed for over one year as a result of Cheney’s persistence, according to a CIA official. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Cheney wanted the NIE report to reflect a consensus on key conclusions -- particularly on Iran’s nuclear program. The NIE used opinions from 16 intelligence agencies to make its recommendation that there were differing views as to Iran’s nuclear capability. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

A second former CIA officer Philip Giraldi provided a similar account, stating that intelligence analysts had to review and rewrite their findings three times because of pressure from the White House. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 20070

In the fall of 2006, Giraldi wrote in The American Conservative that the NIE on Iran had already been completed, but that Cheney’s office had objected to its findings on both the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s role in Iraq. The draft NIE did not conclude that there was confirming evidence that Iran was arming the Shi’ite insurgents in Iraq, according to Giraldi. (The American Conservative, October 2006) Giraldi said the Bush administration decided to postpone any decision on the internal release of the NIE until after the November 2006 elections. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Cheney’s opposition to the 2006 NIE report might have been a major factor in the replacement of John Negroponte as director of national intelligence in early 2007. Other high-level officials opposing Cheney’s position included Secretary of State Rice, Secretary of Defense Gates, and John Negroponte. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Negroponte angered the neoconservatives in the administration by telling the press in April 2006 that the intelligence community believed that it would still be “a number of years off” before Iran would be “likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into or to put into a nuclear weapon, perhaps into the next decade.” (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Neoconservatives immediately attacked Negroponte for the statement, which merely reflected the existing NIE on Iran issued in spring 2005. Robert Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and an ally of Cheney, contradicted Negroponte the following day. He suggested that Iran’s nuclear program was nearing the “point of no return” -- an Israeli concept referring to the mastery of industrial-scale uranium enrichment. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Frank Gaffney, another neoconservative and ally of Richard Perle, complained that Negroponte was “absurdly declaring the Iranian regime to be years away from having nuclear weapons.” (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

On January 5, 2007, Bush announced the nomination of retired Vice Admiral John Michael McConnell to be director of national intelligence. McConnell was approached by Cheney himself about accepting the position. After being confirmed by the Senate, McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee he was “comfortable saying it’s probable” that the alleged export of explosively formed penetrators to Shi’ite insurgents in Iraq was linked to the highest leadership in Iran. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Two weeks after Ahmadinejad announced in mid-April 2007 that Iran would begin producing nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, the chairman of the NIE, Thomas Fingar, said the completion of the NIE on Iran had been delayed while the intelligence community determined whether its judgment on the time frame within which Iran might produce a nuclear weapon needed to be amended. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Fingar said the estimate “might change”, citing “new reporting” from the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as “some other new information we have. …We are serious about reexamining old evidence.” (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

That extraordinary revelation about the NIE process, which was obviously ordered by McConnell, was a signal to the intelligence community that the Bush administration was determined to obtain a more alarmist conclusion on the Iranian nuclear program. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

By October, Cheney still had not received a consensus charging that Iran was moving forward with a nuclear program and that Iran was involved in aiding insurgents in Iraq. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

On October 27, David Shedd, a deputy to McConnell, told a congressional briefing that McConnell had issued a directive making it more difficult to declassify the key judgments of national intelligence estimates. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

That reversed a Bush administration practice of releasing summaries of “key judgments” in NIEs that began when the White House made public the key judgments from the controversial 2002 NIE on Iraq’s alleged a WMD program in July 2003. (Inter Press Service, November 9, 2007)

Even though the administration had hoped that the NIE report would have indicated a nuclear arms program in Iran, Bush continued his diatribe against the Ahmadinejad regime. (New York Times, December 3, 2007)

On November 4, Bush said, “The world needed to view the report as ‘a warning signal.’ I have said Iran is dangerous.” He denied that the United States’ credibility had suffered in light of the NIE report, arguing instead that it reflected a more rigorous approach to intelligence. Bush added, “I want to compliment the intelligence community for their good work. Right after the failure of intelligence in Iraq, we reformed the intelligence community.” (New York Times, December 3, 2007)

Bush’s comments left some United States allies feeling uncertain about the way ahead. Key partners like France and Britain said the report underscored that past concerns about Iran were well-founded. But Russia and China took the lead in refusing to impose sanctions against Iran. (New York Times, December 3, 2007)

The Iranian government struck back, claiming the Security Council resolutions punishing them for not suspending their alleged enriched uranium activities were illegal. (New York Times, December 1, 2007)

9. IRAN-AMERICAN INCIDENTS IN 2007 AND 2008

THE UNITED STATES KIDNAPS IRANIN SAILORS. In January 2007, United States troops in Erbil kidnapped five Iranians. Three months later in Iran released 15 British sailors and marines. At that time, Secretary of State Rice argued that the captured Iranians should be released, but Cheney insisted that the United States military should continue to hold on to them. (Inter Press Service, November 27, 2007)

During September and October, officials of the Shi’ite-dominated government of al-Maliki were pressing for the release of the “Erbil Five.” They argued that Iranian policy had helped bring about the six-month ceasefire declared by al-Sadr on August 29 and thus a reduction in attacks by units of the Mahdi Army. (Inter Press Service, November 27, 2007)

On September 30, General Petraeus said that Ahmadinejad “pledged he would stop the flow of weapons, the training, the funding and the directing of these militia extremists…” However, the United States claimed that Iran continued to inspire Shi’ite militia attacks despite Teheran’s pledge to do more to police the Iran-Iraq border to prevent weapons from entering Iraq from Iran. (Inter Press Service, November 27, 2007)

THE UNITED STATES FABRICATES AN ATTACK BY IRANIAN BOATS ON U.S. WARSHIPS. On January 7, 2008, the Pentagon claimed that Iranian speedboats harassed American warships in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States navy ships were close to firing on the Iranian boats. Three days later, it was revealed that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no United States commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats.

This contradicted the original version of the incident.

1. United States officials spliced the audio recording of an alleged Iranian threat onto to a videotape of the incident. That suggested that the threatening message might not have come in immediately after the initial warning to Iranian boats from a United States warship, as it appeared to do on the video.

2. A former United States naval officer said that non-official chatter was common on the channel used to communicate with the Iranian boats.

3. Testimony from the commander of the United States 5th fleet that the commanding officers of the United States warships involved in the incident never felt the need to warn the Iranians of a possible use of force against them.

3. A video released by Iran showed an Iranian naval officer on a small boat hailing one of three ships. The Iranian commander is heard to say, “Coalition warship 73, this is Iranian navy patrol boat.” He then requested the “side numbers” of the United States warships. A voice with an American accent replied, “This is coalition warship 73. I am operating in international waters.” (Inter Press Service, January 1, 2008)

Bush immediately seized on the “incident” to show that Iran was a threat. Then the truth emerged. Iranian speedboats, apparently belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard navy, had made moves to attack three United States warships entering the Strait and that the United States commander had been on the verge of firing at them when they broke off. (Inter Press Service, January 1, 2008)

A mysterious pair of messages was heard by a sailor who said he heard officers onboard immediately saying, “I am coming at you …”, and “You will explode after a few minutes.” But the voice in the audio clearly said “I am coming to you,” and the second message was much less clear. (Inter Press Service, January 1, 2008)

The five Iran boats involved were hardly in a position to harm the three United States warships. The warships were not concerned about the possibility that the Iranian boats were armed with heavier weapons capable of doing serious damage. Asked by a reporter whether any of the vessels had anti-ship missiles or torpedoes, Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, Commander of the 5th Fleet, answered that none of them had either of those two weapons. (Inter Press Service, January 1, 2008)

Cosgriff also failed to say that there was any threat to American ships following the initial warning. He suggested that the Iranian boat’s maneuvers were “unduly provocative” only because of the “aggregate of their maneuvers, the radio call and the dropping of objects in the water.” (Inter Press Service, January 1, 2008)

Cogreff described the objects dropped by the Iranian boat as being “white, box-like objects that floated.” That description indicated that the objects were clearly not mines, which would have been dark and would have sunk immediately. Cosgriff indicated that the ships merely “passed by them safely” without bothering to investigate whether they were explosives of some kind. (Inter Press Service, January 1, 2008)