Britannia Radio

Disinformation Campaign 
On Israel-Iran Attack
From Joel Skousen 

Editor - World Affairs Brief  

1-16-9

 

About a year ago, the US suddenly made a dramatic about-face and backed down from its planned air and missile attack on Iran's nuclear weapons program. The weapons and munitions for the attack were aboard two naval task forces stationed in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf while the Pentagon waited for the "Go" signal from Washington. Instead, the White House engineered a remarkable and bogus intelligence story about how Iran had formerly been pursuing nuclear weapons but that the program had somehow stopped in 2003. The purpose of the deception was to give the US a plausible reason for canceling an operation that was deemed too risky politically at a time when strong anti-war sentiment was threatening to sway a crucial election. Now that the election is over and another slate of controlled globalist operatives are in the White House, government intelligence masters are changing their tune and prepping for another disinformation campaign on Iran. This time it's all about preparing the public for an Israeli attack on Iran--but in a very backhanded way. NY Times journalist David Sanger was selected to be their mouthpiece in print.   As I pointed out in previous briefs during that period, the purpose of the bogus National Intelligence Estimate (NIE of November 2007) was to both defuse the reason for the planned attack AND permanently alter the public perception about Iran's nuclear weapons program. Prior to the changed NIE the US government had never made their case that Iran actually had a working nuclear weapons program --even though we could all see that Iran had every reason to do so (given the degree to which they perceived the Western powers were "out to get them"). But now, in an instant, US disinformation experts were able to turn that corner by simply stating that Iran HAD a weapons program and had abandoned it. With the apparent threat gone, the public now had no reason to pursue or even doubt the first assertion that there was, indeed, a weapons program--which, in fact, was never proven.   Of course, this was all enhanced by the fact that not a single journalist or pundit dared to point out this discrepancy to the public in their commentaries. The US did have solid evidence that Iran was interested in a weapons program because the US itself provided the initial weapons plans--but they couldn't admit to that directly. We now know (due to certain admissions about CIA involvement with the Abdul Khan ring of nuclear smugglers in Pakistan) that the US actively fed Iran's nuclear ambitions with partly flawed nuclear plans that were sold to Iran via the CIA's nuclear front man in Pakistan, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. Only Pakistan got the real plans--thanks to a US black operation. Others were sold bogus plans in an attempt to create future conflict in the Middle East which, in turn, provides the globalists with the excuse to intervene.   As the US expected, the Iranians got help from the Russians in correcting portions of the formulas that were bad and the Russians have continued to assist Tehran ever since. Thus, this story allows the US to claim it was only sabotaging Iran's nuclear intentions by the bogus plans and to simultaneously blame the Russians for Iran's actual nuclear program. The US has refrained from attacking the Russians, for now--that's a matter of a different war still to come.   In September of 2007 when the US attack was imminent an Arab underground newspaper out of the Iranian province of Khuzestan, reported that the entire staff of Russian nuclear engineers and experts employed in building the nuclear reactor at Bushehr had suddenly left on the 28th of that month for Russia. The Russian technicians are now back and they have nearly a thousand workers in Iran feverishly trying to finish the Bushehr reactor during this lull in US attack plans.   The attack is still coming but probably not imminent. That's what this week's rash of disinformation leaks from the government is all about--prepping the public for who they will look to for blame in the future (Israel) and who to give cover for (the Obama administration).   The point man for this disinformation campaign is David E. Sanger of the NY Times. The Times has often been the vehicle for setting up public opinion for acceptance of a coming war. My older readers will remember the Time's propaganda campaign on behalf of Fidel Castro by Herbert L. Matthews, or the campaign by Washington Post columnist Jack Anderson to undermine President Samoza of Nicaragua in favor of the Marxist Sandinistas. Each of these disinformation campaigns is carried out by "unnamed sources" in government that regularly feed leaks to the designated reporter(s) at mainstream newspapers. Sanger's new book and this week's piece in the Times are full of these sources. Although Sanger never mentions the contradiction between the former bogus NIE report and his new revelations that clearly show that every government leaker in Washington is convinced that Iran never did stop its nuclear program--and thus knew that the former NIE was falsified for political purposes.   Sanger's new book, The Inheritance -- The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power is dedicated to bashing the foreign policy errors of George W. Bush, but as review by Bush apologist professor Gary Bass (Princeton) points out, "Mr. Sanger's criticism... is too hawkish to be easily dismissed by conservatives. He believes in putting brute military power behind diplomacy, wants to win the war in Afghanistan and hates the thought of a nuclear-armed Iran and North Korea." Yes, Sanger's real agenda, providing fodder for future globalist wars, is clear to Bass, though Bass doesn't see it as a negative and therefore throws it out as a counter to conservative critics. And, to that, Clay Waters has this retort: "Wanting to win in Afghanistan makes you a hawk at the Times? That seems a pretty low bar. And how about winning in Iraq?"   What Waters is alluding to is how disinformation reporters selectively evade talking about subjects that would undermine or contradict their thesis. People like Sanger are far too intelligent not to notice the same contradictions that I do, but their skewed motives (wanting to support the thesis being fed to them by government sources) make them partially blind to contradictions. Readers of commentaries themselves are led down the disinformation path by their own failing to look past what a commentator writes and compare it to other facts, not said, that contradict those assertions or that illuminate inconsistencies in principle. Of course, that's hard to do if you haven't read enough in alternative sources to know that contradictions exist.   Here are excerpts from Sanger's NY Times piece claiming that the "US rejected aid for Israeli raid on Iranian nuclear site" [my analysis in brackets]. "President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran's main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran's suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons [notice how this is a direct contradiction to last year's claim by the Bush administration that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons program, and yet Sanger never mentions it. In fact, he never asks, "What's the rationale for a covert program if Iran isn't pursuing nuclear weapons."], according to senior American and foreign officials.   "White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office [Nonsense. Israel is working hand in glove with the US on this issue and the White House very well knows that Israel wouldn't proceed on their own--since the US supplies all their major weapons].   "But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran's major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country's only known uranium enrichment plant is located [Another fib. The US has already allowed Israel to fly into US airbases in Iraq and do aerial refueling using US tanker aircraft]. The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily [The real reason was that the US had not yet delivered to Israel its latest bunk-busting bomb technology- but, they are now on the way. see story following this]. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran's nuclear infrastructure, a major covert program that Mr. Bush is about to hand off to President-elect Barack Obama."   Sanger now comments on his sources. "This account of the expanded American covert program and the Bush administration's efforts to dissuade Israel from an aerial attack on Iran emerged in interviews over the past 15 months with current and former American officials, outside experts, international nuclear inspectors and European and Israeli officials. None would speak on the record because of the great secrecy surrounding the intelligence developed on Iran." So, what are they talking to a NY Times reporter for, even "off the record" if this is so hush-hush? It's because this is NOT a secret. This is a planned government "leak and misinform" campaign. But, you'd have to know how government secrecy works to figure out why these are purposeful leaks.   Let me tell you straight. Sanger's bragging about the depth of his sources is his undoing. A truly top secret covert program like this would only be known to a tiny handful of people in the intelligence community. Sanger thinks he is being careful by saying, "Several details of the covert effort have been omitted from this account, at the request of senior United States intelligence and administration officials, to avoid harming continuing operations." That's an understatement. Don't kid yourself. Just mentioning this covert operation even once to the public in a general statement would cause Iran to instantly take countermeasures to ferret out the moles. Besides, no honest government intelligence official would have even mentioned damaging details to a reporter in the first place.   Any of these government sources caught talking to the press, even "off the record" would be hunted down by the CIA's counterintelligence boys and put in jail. The only reason they aren't in jail is because these people all know Sanger is "approved" and that they have permission to share this disinformation message. Sanger doesn't even have to be a knowing conspirator for this to happen. Government officials feed leaks to reporters all the time. Such leaks ensure a reporter's success and often lead to a Pulitzer Prize. Thus, it is natural they don't fret about the illegalities. After all, they've been given the "wink and the nod" that it's OK.   Here's more proof that Sanger is being fed purposeful disinformation. "The interviews also suggest that while Mr. Bush was extensively briefed on options for an overt American attack on Iran's facilities, he never instructed the Pentagon to move beyond contingency planning, even during the final year of his presidency, contrary to what some critics have suggested." Ask any military logistics person aboard those carriers who knew the weapons on board and they will confirm this was far beyond "contingency planning." Clearly that isn't the impression Sanger is giving.   What's the purpose behind all this? The phony NIE of November 2007 was designed to make it easy for the US to change positions on Iran's threat quickly and without further debate by simply saying, "Iran did stop its weapons program in 2003 but we found out later they started it up again." --No proof necessary because they already convinced Congress and the public in the former NIE that an Iranian weapons program was a fact--not with evidence but by decree!   Now, because they've put in a nominally anti-war president, they have to shield him from the appearance of the US launching an attack on Iran directly. They plan on letting Israel do the attack, so that Obama will appear to be "forced to respond." They leaked this story about the US refusing to give permission to Israel to attack Iran in order to plant the idea firmly in the public's mind that Israel is intent on doing this attack (which they are) and simultaneously inferring (falsely) that the US is in vehement opposition to this attack. The US is just as much in this as the Israelis but is planting the seeds of plausible deniability.   Part of that deniability is Obama's pitch that he is willing to "engage" Iran diplomatically. This was echoed in Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearings this week where she talked about her new "smart power" foreign policy. I did note, however, that she was quick to emphasize that, in dealing with Iran, "all the options, including military, remained on the table." In other words, diplomacy with Iran is simply the prelude to excusing military action when US impossible demands are rejected.   US SECRET ARMS BASES IN ISRAEL   The subject of more arms to Israel emerged again this week with a leaked story about a huge arms shipment heading to Israel via Greece. While most of the Palestinian supporters were concentrating on the charge that the US was resupplying Israel in the midst of its battle with Hamas in the Gaza strip, I will concentrate on the larger picture.   The US is planning something very big in the Middle East and has been ever since they started building two huge logistic bases in Israel in the year 2001. I covered these in the briefings at that time. One huge base is located ten minutes from Ben Gurion Airport, another located in the southern Negev district. Here are pictures of the former provided by Barry Chamish and his sources. This is only the above ground portion. http://rense.com/general66/excl.htm   For some reason the US has made arrangements to build these bases with US military funds rather than use aid to Israel to finance them. The US is also keeping custody of these bases which indicates that in the long range planning for war, the US is putting its own soldiers and armaments at risk--perhaps as a trigger for US involvement in some future war. But it also allows the US to control what Israel does with the arms it sends there--essentially forging golden military handcuffs.   These arms in transit (reportedly 325 container loads of munitions--3,000 tons) were apparently part of an even larger shipment from US ships docking at a Greek port and transferring their cargos to smaller Greek ships for the trip to Israel. This was done in part because the US wants to avoid the overt evidence of showing the quantity of armaments it is shipping to Israel. More importantly, this quantity of arms and munitions has to be planned months in advance. These shipments were too large to be in response to resupply needs of the IDF in its Gaza operations. I believe these shipments are destined for the eventual Iran attack. If so, it makes a lie out of what the US is proclaiming in its campaign about this being solely an Israeli fetish.   When the shipments were discovered the media took it as a resupply of the Israeli military in Gaza. The US quickly claimed the shipments were cancelled. Believe me--they weren't cancelled--just postponed until there is less media frenzy in the region. It can't have been good for the Greek government to be seen as collaborating with the US and Israel against the Palestinian cause, which has great support in Greece. Neither Israel nor the US are popular with the Greek Left which holds a political majority in the country. The Leftist Greek political parties naively think they control the government, but, as usual, these revelations demonstrate the ability of the US to buy off even anti-American governments at will. They are all corruptible.   There was a certain amount of disinformation involved in the US government leaking the details of the naval tender agreement for shipping the weapons. First of all, these shipments to Israel are very hush-hush. These things don't go out for public bid. The reports claimed the "The United States Navy's Military Sealift Command issued a tender on December 31st for a ship to deliver 325 standard 20-foot containers of ammunition on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January... But the request to shippers had now been canceled due to safety concerns at the final destination related to the conflict in Gaza." Good excuse, but that wasn't the real reason. The US rep admitted that "EUCOM (U.S. European Command) is developing an appropriate course of action to deliver the items to the U.S. stockpile in Israel."   I'll bet it's news to most people in Congress that the US has a large stockpile of weapons in Israel. That kind of stockpile, out of sight out of mind, makes it much easier to use in black operations, exchanges to terrorists, or off-budget aid to Israel or compliant Arab states.         World Affairs Brief - Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World   Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com   World Affairs Brief, 290 West 580 South, Orem, Ut 84058, USA