Bush and Cheney exposed as liars

White House humiliated by damning report that undermines Bush Administration

December 4, 2007 - A just released National Intelligence Estimate shows President Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney have deceived the American people into believing that Iran was developing nuclear weapons.

As the White House was airing dire warnings about the Iranian threat, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency were secretly concluding that Iran's nuclear weapons work halted years ago and that international pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran was working, according to the NY Times.

The declassified summary of the report, which draws together information from the US's 16 intelligence agencies, says with "high confidence" that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 "in response to international pressure" and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015.

That's a major turnaround from a 2005 report that Iran was determined to push ahead regardless of international pressure.

"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it's less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," the report says.

Joe Cirincione of the Center for American Progress says the report "undercuts the argument for a military strike and strengthens the case for engagement." He says there was never any good evidence of a crash bomb program, and he and many experts always believed Iran was years away from the ability to make nuclear fuel or a nuclear bomb. "This is not a nuclear bomb crisis. This is a nuclear diplomacy crisis."

Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich released a statement Monday, saying "this report shows that the Administration's case for war is in direct opposition to the facts as stated in the NIE report."

"The Bush Administration has falsely led the American people into believing that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, and as recently as last month," Kucinich declared. "Belligerence and obfuscation is the same foreign policy that brought us to war."

Senator Hillary Clinton said "The new declassified key judgments of the Iran NIE expose the latest effort by the Bush administration to distort intelligence to pursue its ideological ends.

Senator John Edwards said "The new National Intelligence Estimate shows that George Bush and Dick Cheney's rush to war with Iran is, in fact, a rush to war.

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