Rowan Wolf

President George Bush once attempted to say "Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me." Lies and fabrications greased public support of a preemptive invasion of Iraq. Now, the rhetoric on Iran sounds hauntingly familiar.

The other night, CNN replayed a report they had done in August of 2005 called "Dead Wrong" on the "intelligence" used to take the US into Iraq. It was a timely rebroadcast given the current rhetoric.

The transcript of "Dead Wrong" is telling.

Rumsfeld set up a special unit inside the Pentagon to provide an "alternative intelligence analysis, focusing on a possible link between Saddam and al Qaeda." Not surprisingly, "The Pentagon unit is not mentioned by the president's commission."

"LARRY JOHNSON, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: They even briefed their findings to the community and the community would come back and say, wait a second, you don't know what you're talking about. That's garbage. That's misleading, that misrepresents."

Meanwhile, starting in the summer of 2002:

"... the White House Iraq Group, WHIG, had quietly begun a campaign to build support for war. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes and the chiefs of staff to both the president and the vice president planned strategy in weekly meetings."

And the crew started the propaganda with the unquestioning megaphone of the "mainstream" media.

"CHENEY: The Iraq regime has, in fact, been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents and they continue to pursue the nuclear program they began so many years ago.

This declaration was the statement of "no doubt" Saddam has weapons of mass destruction; aluminum tubes and yellow cake uranium from Niger; Iraq being close to nuclear weapons; ability to launch biochemical weapons in 45 minutes; support for al Qaeda; and the infamous "smoking guns" being "mushroom clouds." Hussein is painted as the brutal dictator who used chemical weapons on his own people (with chemicals provided by the U.S.).

According to "Dead Wrong," it was Rumsfeld's special intelligence office that started pushing the Hussein - terrorist link. The CIA had nothing "credible" to support such a leap. The significant doubts of both the State department and Intelligence community were relegated to footnotes in the supposed NIE.

The drum beat of threat goes on. The UN Security Council is clearly not going to authorize an invasion - in spite of Powell's poignant public testimony. So Bush preempts the UN and launches a failed strike to assassinate Hussein, and the promised "shock and awe" begins ... and it continues to this day.

Now a new nation is in the crosshairs - Iran.

As with North Korea, the Bush administration refuses to talk with Iran regarding its nuclear program. It leaves the talking to others while building the threat of a nuclear Iran. Ahmadinejad seems to have as much hot air and unwillingness to compromise as George W. Bush. They sound remarkably similar in so many ways. He plays to a crowd with threat and invective while Bush does the same in the US. Iran says they will continue to pursue their nuclear program, while Bush refuses to take preemptive nuclear strikes on Iran off the table. Watching the headlines is as frightening as they are familiar - of Iraq.

Seymour Hersh wrote extensively on The Iran Plans in which he details a number of events and discussions that indicate that the U.S. is actively moving towards striking Iran. The administration has denied that the military plans being made for attacking Iran are no different than any other plan. A statement which given the current administration opens frightening possibilities. What is clear, is that the talking points and rhetoric are remarkably similar to what we saw in generating support to invade Iraq.

Typical of the headlines are US in warning to 'defiant' Iran. Meanwhile, Shimon Peres predicts Iran's leader will meet Saddam's fate.

Fuel is added to the fire with more legitimations for invasion including accusations that Iran is attempting to illegally procure U.S. weapons technology.

Once again, the mainstream media seems reluctant to step back from the rhetoric. Once more they dutifully help build the case for a preemptive invasion of another nation. Israeli papers also fan the rhetoric which makes its way to the "news" program circuit of the United States. One example is claims that Iran has suicide squads defending nuclear facilities, and The Times of London reports that Iran has 40,000 suicide bombers waiting to strike.

The plan to invade Iran is not new and the plot thickens on how far in advance the planning began. With the ongoing investigation of Scooter Libby in perjury involving lying about who ordered the leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson's name, yet another brick is placed. While leaking Plame's name to attempt to discredit Joe Wilson's revelations of the Niger uranium hoax seems like pure bar room politics, Plame and her cover company - Brewster Jennings & Associates - were actually in Iran. In fact they were the covert operation monitoring Iran's nuclear activities. With the outing of Plame, Brewster Jennings left Iran - and any ability to keep a covert eye on nuclear activities left with them. This was revealed in the Raw Story article of February 13, 2006 "Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say.

This is similar to the forced withdrawal of weapons inspectors from Iraq, or the removal of Arabic speaking forces from Afghanistan. Create an intelligence vacuum, and you can speculate anything you want that "might" be going on inside a nation.

It seems clear that there is a desire on the part of the Bush administration to attack Iran. There are the new nukes to be tested and a regime to "change." I think that Hersh's report that Bush feels he has nothing to lose in this endeavor is likely accurate. Bush definitely sees himself as a man with a mission. The larger concern is that his mission seems to involve the application of the full force and destructive power of the US arsenal.

Many were fooled by the rhetoric and propaganda that allowed the "shock and awe" invasion of Iraq. Hopefully, people will not be fooled again.

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