THE IRAN NIE GETS MORE ATTACKS FROM THE WINGNUTS

The neo-cons will all fall into line behind the Israeli government's attack on the recent NIE that shows fears of Iran are greatly exaggerated. The headline below tells you almost all you need to know:

Israeli officials reject U.S. findings on Iran
By Dion Nissenbaum McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Defense Minister Ehud Barak directly challenged the new assessment in an interview with Israel's Army Radio, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the new finding wouldn't deter Israel or the United States from pressing its campaign to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability.

"It seems Iran in 2003 halted for a certain period of time its military nuclear program, but as far as we know, it has probably since revived it," Barak said.

On Tuesday morning, Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper called the U.S. findings "a blow below the belt."

"Even after this report, the American stance will still focus on preventing Iran from attaining nuclear capability," Olmert said. "We will expend every effort along with our friends in the U.S. to prevent the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons."

John Bolton, noted Zionist, echoed Crazy Norman Podhoretz's attack on the integrity of our national intelligence community:

I think there is a risk here, and I raise this as a question, whether people in the intelligence community who had their own agenda on Iran for some time now have politicized this intelligence and politicized these judgments in a way contrary to where the administration was going. I think somebody needs to look at that.