U.S. President George W. Bush: Warmonger & global lunatic says Iran still a threat despite NIE report saying program scrapped in 2003

The Toronto Star is reporting that U.S. President George W. Bush “told a press conference today that there was no change in American foreign policy even after a U.S. intelligence report released yesterday showed Iran had scrapped its nuclear weapons ambitions in 2003.”

“The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) said Iran has left the door open to pursuing atomic weapons, but had made no moves in that regard by the end of last month and was probably incapable of building a bomb before 2015.”

In Iran still threat to peace, says Bush (Toronto Star, Dec. 4, 2007) Bush said “What’s to say they couldn’t start another covert nuclear weapons program?’’

“Iran was dangerous. Iran is dangerous. And Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” Bush said.

Perhaps Bush should take a look in the mirror to see who the real danger and threat to peace in the world is today.

In Bush Is in Denial on Iran (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 4, 2007) the Bush administration is described as being “in total denial.”

The article goes on to say:

Bush must have taken a course – “Turning Defeat Into Victory” – at Yale or the Harvard Business School. Rather than admit that the Bush inner circle had erroneously tried to frighten citizens over Iran's nuclear program, the president said nothing had really changed.

He even had the temerity, at his press conference, to warn Congress about a “gap in intelligence” if it did not renew authority for the National Intelligence Estimate by next February. The gaps in intelligence have already been demonstrated with the fiasco in Iraq.

Bush was dancing all around the Iranian issue to try to avoid any blame for scaring the nation about a potential World War III as recently as October. The president, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have repeatedly been warning about Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon.

Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, compounded Bush's problems the day before with rope-a-dope moves that Muhammad Ali would admire. Hadley's message: Admit nothing.

There is no doubt Iran is led by a tinhorn dictator with some crazy ideas about the past and present.

But he does not have a nuclear program and hasn't had one for four years.

The Nation said today that the NIE report “is undoubtedly terrible news for the Bush Administration, contradicting nearly everything Bush-Cheney and their neocon supporters have told us about the threat from the Iranian regime.”

In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said the new US assessment should “help to defuse the current crisis,” ElBaradei said, urging all parties concerned to enter into negotiations without delay.

The IAEA never concluded Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.

“The Estimate tallies with the Agency’s consistent statements over the last few years that, although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the Agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons programme or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran,” ElBaradei said.