NIE spin begins

The National Intelligence Estimate released yesterday, which concluded that Iran halted its WMD program in 2003, once again highlights the atrocious mendacity of the Bush administration. The report was completed a year ago, yet its findings fly in the face of all the anti-Iran propaganda the administration has been cranking out ever since then. No wonder they suppressed it for so long. Someone must have put enormous pressure on the administration to release the report -- who, and what they were threatening, remains to be seen. A feverishly spinning Georgie rationalized today:

"At a press conference Tuesday morning, President Bush said the proper way to view a new report by US intelligence agencies on Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is as a warning for the international community to be vigilant about Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program," Mr. Bush said. "The reason why it's a warning signal is they could restart it.""

Bush declared that "the intelligence community has made a great discovery", as if the "great discovery" is something so recent that all the sabre-rattling towards Iran this past year was justified. But but but... from May 2006:

"Iran's "mad mullahs" want nuclear weapons to destroy Israel and can only be stopped by the threat or use of military force. That's what the Bush administration would have the public believe, as it pushes toward a confrontation with Iran over that country's nuclear program. A key link in the argument is that Tehran has shown no interest in negotiating over the nuclear issue. As State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters last January, the administration didn't then see "anything that indicates the Iranians are willing to engage in a serious diplomatic process on the nuclear issue."

In the woeful history of falsehoods about the targets of potential U.S. force, however, this one is particularly egregious. In the spring of 2003, the Islamic Republic of Iran not only proposed to negotiate with the Bush administration on its nuclear program and its support for terrorists but also offered concrete concessions that went very far toward meeting U.S. concerns."

Overtures from Iran started in the spring of 2003. The NIE says Iran halted their nuclear program in 2003. Coincidence?