British spy chiefs: Iran 'hoodwinked' CIA over nuclear plans

By Tim Shipman in Washington, Philip Sherwell and Carolynne Wheeler
The Sunday Telegrapg (UK) Last Updated: 1:39am GMT 09/12/2007
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/09/wiran109.xml

British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.

Analysts believe that Iranian staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation

The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.

The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.

The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.

You must be a seriously dumb scholar to think that if you just leave Iran alone, they will opt not to continue attacking US interests. This is blind, stupid, isolationism and it amounts to appeasement of a potential threat.
Russia does far more business with Europe than Iran, and in a crunch, you would see Russia siding with the EU and her partners on this issue. Russia wants to make money and so plays both sides, but if it had to make a decision, she would make the right one in the end.
YOU continue to deny the real issue, and Im amazed that a supposed educated Merican such as yourself isn’t taking the threat from Iran seriously. Perhaps our media have been wrong about you on this count, perhaps it is indeed only the EU with some of her more stalwart allies that are willing to take a stand. A student of history who cant learn from the past, now I really do know they give degree’s away for free in the US.
Shame too, I happen to love the country, but the tide of its people is changing, and they are getting set to cower away and hide and let Europe take the brunt of it once more. I will be looking forward to the Mericans joining the party, although lets not hold out any hope they will be on time...

Isolationism. Pure and Simple.

You have seen the headline of the thread and just jumped at it. No doubt you’re one of the freepers who trolls around looking for thread that he can slam the UK and the EU on. Shameful, but you aren’t the only Merican to do this.

We will take care of Iran, as it in our interests. You boys, simply have lost your balls. You never were tough enough to stick it out, and you aren’t even going to finish what you started. Shame on you. Its your intelligence, your mighty CIA, that says ‘all is well’. Its ours that is standing up for itself and doing the things. You sir, are behaving like a coward.

PS: You cant spell, no matter how much it aches, there are still two E’s in EUROPEAN. See. E...U...R...O and so on....

The US, in a dominant position after WW2, dismissed this advice and established Israel on the lands of former Palestine.

I would not object to a lot of what you say about the wars. It's too easy to inflate the importance of the US in WW1, e.g., and neglect the benefit of Britain trying to control a savage, medieval culture, empire building notwithstanding.
But come on! Claiming that modern Israel was US conspiracy?? Hello? Have you heard of the Balfour Declaration?! Then there was also the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement. Later the Peel Commission (more Brits). Finally, the UN Mandate that pushed things over the edge, and only at that point can you claim US a great influence. Just because Britain wanted to flip-flop and bail out in 1946, you can't claim it was all a US idea!
No doubt, some would have preferred a different "Final Solution" that would have been "neater" (your preference?), but there was no GOOD, simple solution, IMHO, and no clean hands, least of all in Arabia.
Get a handle on your condescending Brit attitude about history, "Mate"!

You have made a fair point. I was merely trying to explain to your learned colleague about the history of the middle east, after Mr RKV managed to lay the blame for Iraq at the feet of the UK. I was, in an effort to be obstructive, merely reciprocating the gesture and blamed the US for Israel and all the ensuing madness. Of course it was decided by ‘all’ parties, but I know what books tell me and Britain was not in a position to really object to anything the US had to say on the matter. We preferred Uganda, but there is nothing to say that a similar situation wouldn’t have unfolded in Africa instead of the Middle East.

We all need to deal with the threat that Iran poses, and name calling and insults aren’t going to do the trick. The arrogance shown on this thread in rejecting alternative information vis a vis the nuclear issue, is scary and isolationist. Perhaps when you all vote for Hillary Clinton you can withdraw all we wont have to be bothered by your bragadacio for a hundred years or so. We will suffer for it of course, as the world needs a benign US influence, but to be honest the way we are viewed on these threads by supposed ‘allies’ makes me want to focus more on allies who actually give a s**t about what we say.

Now, I have to agree with some of the things you say. The traditional power blocs in Europe are the UK, France and Germany. These powers need to be seen to be upholding the things that we stand for in Europe, and it is with these armies that we should be able to project our power across the world. This has happened to a certain extent, although not perhaps in the breadth we both would have liked. Of course, the UK is absolved of these charges, as we are currently engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan (recently doing the dirty work in Musa Qala). We have power projection across the Atlantic, from the top to the bottom, in the middle east, around the horn of Africa and the far east. Our entire military is fighting, from the RN to the RAF, to the grunts on the ground in the British Army.

The French are engaged in a police action/peacekeeping in southern lebanon with around 2,000 troops there, and a further 1,000 as part of ISAF.

Germany, currently provides most of the naval tonnage for the police action/peacekeeping along the lebanese coast. She also provides some 2,500 troops to Unifil and 3,500 to ISAF, leading regional command North. Although the caveats are a pain, it is still no little commitment from a nation that has every right to be a little adverse to war.

The Netherlands (Holland) currently has 1,600 troops in Uruzgan province in the South of Afghanistan helping the UK and Canada defeat the Taliban as part of ISAF.

Italy currently maintains 2,500 troops as the command nation of ground units for Unifil, the peacekeeping force in Lebanon. It also contributes some 2,000 troops as part of ISAF

Sweden, Spain, Romania, Poland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark and Norway are all contributing several hundred troops apiece towards ISAF.

In total Europe provides more than 50% of forces for Unifil and over 20,000 troops as part of ISAF, which is defeating the Taliban and doing your work for you, after the US allowed the Taliban back into regional power bases. (for example, you had 300 troops in Helmand province, the ‘Black Hear of the Taliban after 2001, while there are nearly 7,000 UK troops and thousands of ANA and other ISAF forces).

There is much work yet to be done, and caveats need to be relaxed. but I think I have proved a point in demonstrating that Europe can and does act with a military purpose, and as France and Germany gradually flex their muscles, they can join the UK in a powerful triumvirate that will defend European interests. If this means doing Iran alone without the US, then we shall.

No matter that these nations contribute ‘some” troops. They neither spend an appropriate fraction of their GDP’s on their military forces, nor even after years of NATO membership (for many of them) are they able to interoperate effectively. Germany spends 1.5% of GDP on its armed forces. Italy 1.8%. The UK 2.4%. France 2.6%. The US percentage is 4%. Time for Europe to spend the same fraction and then demonstrate that their troops are combat effective before the US does any more. Iran is closer to Urope than it is to the US and Urope’s muslim problem isn’t going away. Get it done and tell us about it when it’s over.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html#Military

I guess if I had come back with reports of 1,000,000 Europeans sweeping away Iran you would still find room to complain. Maybe abouts the accents of the French and Germans, maybe the teeth of the Brits and the sweaty pits of the Spanish.

None of us are obligated to spend as much as the US does in terms of military spending. Each sovereign nation of Europe secures its own borders first and foremost. Dont forget that the US in is an enviable position of not really being attackable, in a conventional sense at least. Our historic continent shares borders or close maritime boundaries with a number of fairly dodgy states. So internal security first.

I have been to your country and I can see where the extra 1-2% of the GDP goes, and it certainly isn’t on your infrastructure. It rivals some parts of Africa (having lived there also I should know) in its antiquity. Sure, you have the mightiest military on the planet, but then yours is a militaristic society. Most of Europe have been through militarism and come out the other side, having learned from tough mistakes.

As for combat effectiveness, I can only point to the work being done in Helmand by the UK, the Danes and the Estonians as being first rate. That you have the gall to claim our troops aren’t effective in combat is an insult to the 250+ UK soldiers, airmen and seamen that have died, the thousands wounded, taking some of the burden away from our ‘ally’ across the pond. Speaking on behalf of the UK, we operate the finest, most professional, toughest bunch of personnel in the Western World. Quality, not quantity.

Besides, both the UK and France has nuclear warheads, an although I really dont want them used, the option is there if needs be. Regarding your point of interoperability between NATO states, the problem is that the US thinks itself head of NATO, while its charter espouses a balanced and fair partnership for all members. Its head is always US, and so is sometimes seen as an extension of US policy, which, occasionally, it certainly is.

Far better to check out the work that EUFOR has been undertaking in Kosovo to use as an example of interoperability between European nations. Fact remains that Europe has far more specialised troops per capita than the US, which looks at massed ranks, ideologically trained, combat soldiers. In Europe we have the Nordic and Scandanavian countries with unsurpassed arctic warfare knowledge, with some solid maritime nations, the best fighter interceptor on the planet and an increasingly battle-hardened core soldier force. Lets take the example in Afghanistan in the wake of Operation Anaconda the Pentagon requested that the UK send her Royal Marines Mountain Warfare Cadre, who specialise in mountain terrain. This was because the US, even her fabled Marines, dont train to the intensity and specialisation that UK maintain.

You can retreat in disgrace as you propose in the face of a tyrant, and let the mighty US be brought low by cowardice in the face of Ahmadinejad and Irans theocracy. I cant stop you, but our history books will look at you in a different light if, once again, you fail to live up to your responsibilities.

Thanks for reading.

“Live up to whose responsibilities?”

Your own. As the most powerful nation on the planet, its your job. What about solidarity? What about shared interests of the Western World? Us guys first this time? We WERE first in both of the world wars, and you boys sauntering in when you figured out which side to be on. But ok, if you want to abdicate your duty, then we will have to look for another world leader.

The King is Dead. Long live the King.

You stand for everything that we Europeans despise about Americans. What an infantile attitude you show, you just dont get it do you?

Enjoy your lovely Democratic party. Build big walls, not so much so keep you safe, more to keep your kind from infecting our soil with your isolationism, infantile character and cowardice.

I feel profoundly sorry for the majority of Americans who value the Transatlantic partnership and hope that they somehow stop characters like Mr RKV from giving you Yanks a bad name.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.