Israel has a year to stop Iran bomb, warns ex-spy [MOSSAD]
It's looking more and more like something wickedly mossadic this way comes. Looking for a bowl bid in the new year, I worry predict that it will be something big enough to justify Bush going to a quick count after coming out of the November election huddle and calling a quarterback sneak at the line before handing off the football to Obama in January.
It looks like the 2009 Tostitos Plutonium Bowl will be hosted by Tehran.
"As an intelligence officer working with the worst-case scenario, I can tell you we should be prepared. We should do whatever necessary on the defensive side, on the offensive side, on the public opinion side for the West, in case sanctions don't work. What's left is a military action."
-- Shabtai Shavit, a former head of Mossad and deputy director of Mossad when Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981.
Can you say "Hail Mary!"?
Israel has a year to stop Iran bomb, warns ex-spy
telegraph.co.uk
Full story right here at WTCD after the jump.
Shavit warned that he had no doubt Iran intended to use a (singular, as in one, without testing it first, I guess) nuclear weapon once it had the capability.
"Our missile power and capability are such that the Zionist regime cannot confront it."
-- Mohammed Ali Jafari, head of the feared Revolutionary Guard.
Why would a person who obviously knows, within reason, how many nuclear warheads Israel probably has aimed at his very own head say something this idiotic? Is there any reason to believe that Jafari did say this other than that the writers of this article have attributed the quote to him?
Israel has a year to stop Iran bomb, warns ex-spy
By Carolynne Wheeler in Tel Aviv and Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 10:42PM BST 28/06/2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/2212934/Isra...
A former head of Mossad has warned that Israel has 12 months in which to destroy Iran's nuclear programme or risk coming under nuclear attack itself. He also hinted that Israel might have to act sooner if Barack Obama wins the US presidential election.
Shabtai Shavit, an influential adviser to the Israeli parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee, told The Sunday Telegraph that time was running out to prevent Iran's leaders getting the bomb.
Mr Shavit, who retired from the Israeli intelligence agency in 1996, warned that he had no doubt Iran intended to use a nuclear weapon once it had the capability, and that Israel must conduct itself accordingly.
"The time that is left to be ready is getting shorter all the time," he said in an interview.
Mr Shavit, 69, who was deputy director of Mossad when Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981, added: "As an intelligence officer working with the worst-case scenario, I can tell you we should be prepared. We should do whatever necessary on the defensive side, on the offensive side, on the public opinion side for the West, in case sanctions don't work. What's left is a military action."
The "worst-case scenario, he said, is that Iran may have a nuclear weapon within "somewhere around a year".
As speculation grew that Israel was contemplating its own air strikes, Iran's military said it might hit the Jewish state with missiles and stop Gulf oil exports if it came under attack. Israel "is completely within the range of the Islamic republic's missiles," said Mohammed Ali Jafari, head of the feared Revolutionary Guard. "Our missile power and capability are such that the Zionist regime cannot confront it."
More than 40 per cent of all globally traded oil passes through the 35-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, putting tankers entering or leaving the Gulf at risk from Iranian mines, rockets and artillery, and Mr Jafari's comments were the clearest signal yet that Iran intends to use this leverage in the nuclear dispute.
Despite offering incentives, the West has failed to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium. Israeli officials believe the diplomatic process is useless and have been pressing President Bush to launch air strikes before he leaves office on January 20 next year.
They apparently fear that the chances of winning American approval for an air attack will be drastically reduced if the Democratic nominee wins the election. Mr Obama advocates talks with the regime in Tehran rather than military action.
That view was echoed by Mr Shavit, who said: "If [Republican candidate John] McCain gets elected, he could really easily make a decision to go for it. If it's Obama: no. My prediction is that he won't go for it, at least not in his first term in the White House."
He warned that while it would be preferable to have American support and participation in a strike on Iran, Israel will not be afraid to go it alone.
"When it comes to decisions that have to do with our national security and our own survival, at best we may update the Americans that we are intending or planning or going to do something. It's not a precondition, [getting] an American agreement," he said.
No shit, Shavit!
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There's nothing to worry about. Really.
NO WAR IN IRAN SAY WARMONGERING WARMONGERS
With the rapidly rising cost of diesel fuel...
...making it difficult to operate bulldozers for but only a few mass graves, and in marked contrast to US and British forces in Iraq who leave rotting corpses to decay along roadsides,
Iran to ready thousands of graves for enemy soldiers
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080629185519.5hi45ii3&show_artic...
(AFP also finds room to quote Shavit, too.)
Jun 29 02:55 PM US/Eastern
Iran is to dig 320,000 graves in border districts to allow for the burial of enemy soldiers in the event of any attack on its territory, a top commander said on Sunday.
"In implementation of the Geneva Conventions... the necessary measures are being taken to provide for the burial of enemy soldiers," the Mehr news agency quoted General Mir-Faisal Bagherzadeh as saying.
"We have plans to dig 15,000 to 20,000 graves in each of the border provinces or a total of 320,000," the general said, some of them mass graves if necessary.
Bagherzadeh said Iran was keen to "reduce the suffering of the families of the fallen in any attack against our country... and prevent any repetition of the long and bitter experience of the Vietnam War."
His comments came as the United States continued to refuse to rule out an eventual resort to force against Iran over its contested nuclear programme, which the West fears is cover for a drive to build an atomic weapon.
They also came as Israeli officials spoke of their determination to prevent Iran developing a nuclear capability at all costs.
A former head of Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence agency said in comments published on Sunday that the Jewish state had one year to destroy Iran's nuclear programme or face the risk of coming under nuclear attack.
Shabtai Shavit told a London weekly that the "worst-case scenario" was that Tehran would have a nuclear weapon within "somewhere around a year".
"The time that is left to be ready is getting shorter all the time," he told the Sunday Telegraph.
Israel is the only, if undeclared, nuclear armed power in the Middle East.
Lieberman: U.S. May Be Attacked In 2009
Lieberman: U.S. May Be Attacked In 2009
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2008
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/29/ftn/main4217516.shtml
(CBS) In describing the reasons he believes the Republicans' presumptive nominee for president would be better prepared than the Democrats' to lead the nation next January, Sen. Joe Lieberman said that history shows the United States would likely face a terrorist attack in 2009.
"Our enemies will test the new president early," Lieberman, I-Conn., told Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer. "Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration."
Lieberman nonetheless distanced himself from remarks by McCain chief strategist Charlie Black, who came under criticism for suggesting in an interview that McCain's election chances would be improved if a terrorist attack occurred before November.
"Sometimes even the best of them say things that are not what they intended to say," Lieberman said. "Certainly the implications there I know were not what Charlie intended. And he apologized for it. Senator McCain said he didn't agree. And, of course, I feel the same way.
"But here's the point. We're in a war against Islamist extremists who attacked us on 9/11. They've been trying to attack us in many, many ways since then."
A former Democratic nominee for vice president, Lieberman endorsed McCain for president because, he says, the Democratic Party he joined in the early 1960s is not reflected by the party's current leadership.
He also said that he feels McCain is better prepared to be commander in chief than Barack Obama. "[McCain] knows the world," Lieberman said. "He's been tested. He's ready to protect the security of the American people."
Lieberman also assailed Obama and fellow Senators who called for a timetable of withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and opposed the "surge" of additional U.S. forces pushed forth by President Bush.
"It's now working," Lieberman told Schieffer. "If we had done what Senator Obama asked us to do for the last couple of years, today Iran and al Qaeda would be in control of Iraq. It would be a terrible defeat for us and our allies in the Middle East and throughout the world. Instead, we've got a country that's defending itself, that's growing economically, where there's been genuine political reconciliation, and where Iran and al Qaeda are on the run. And that's the way it ought to be."
However, McCain's readiness was disputed by retired General Wesley Clark, who is backing Obama for president, despite McCain's storied military experience in Vietnam. "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," he said.
(CBS)
"I think Joe has it exactly backwards here," Clark told Schieffer. "I think being president is about having good judgment. It's about the ability to communicate. And what Barack Obama brings is incredible communication skills, proven judgment. You look at his meteoric rise in politics and you see a guy who deals with people well, who understands issues, who brings people together, and who has good judgment in moving forward.
"And I think what we need to do, Bob, is we need to stop talking about the old politics of left and right, and we need to pull together and move the country forward. And I think that's what Barack Obama will do.
“Because in the matters of national security policymaking, it's a matter of understanding risk. It's a matter of gauging your opponents and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service … But he hasn't held executive responsibility
Poll: Joe Lieberman Sinking At Home As He Campaigns For McCain
Poll: Joe Lieberman Sinking At Home As He Campaigns For McCain
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/01/poll-joe-lieberman-sinkin_n_110...
According to a new Quinnipiac poll, as Joe Lieberman campaigns for McCain his approval rating at home is sinking:
Sen. Joseph Lieberman gets a 45 - 43 percent approval, down from 52 - 35 percent March 27 and his lowest score ever.
"Sen. Lieberman's approval rating has dropped below 50 percent for the first time in 14 years of polling, with nearly two-thirds of Democrats giving him low marks, probably because he is campaigning for Sen. John McCain," Dr. Schwartz said.
Lieberman recently argued that voters should choose John McCain because a terrorist attack would come early in the next presidency.
he's right, you know
The word going around in patsy circles is that as soon as the next infidel takes office there will be an end to our employment slump. Don't have to tell you how *I'll* be celebrating... I wonder if Mr. Joe got my resume? I should email him just to check in--or would I appear too eager?