Rice: Iran not on Agenda

[LoungeMachine]

·
Updated: 06:39 AM EST
Rice Says U.S. Attack on Iran 'Not on the Agenda'
Secretary of State on Tour of European Capitals
By ANNE GEARAN, AP



LONDON (Feb. 4) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a U.S. attack on Iran ''is simply not on the agenda,'' despite the United States' continued criticism of Iran's human rights record and potential nuclear weapons.

Rice would not say whether the United States supports a change of government in Iran, although Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has expressly said that regime change is not the U.S. goal.

Speaking in London, first stop on a weeklong tour of European capitals, Rice said there is broad international agreement that Iran cannot be allowed to use a civilian nuclear power project to conceal a weapons program.

After a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Rice was asked directly whether the United States might attack Iran. Doing so could presumably head off the threat that Iran could use a nuclear device against Israel or other nations.

''The question is simply not on the agenda at this point,'' Rice said at a news conference.

Rice said ''We believe particularly in regard to the nuclear issue that while no one ever asks the American president to take all his options, any of his options off the table, that there are plenty of diplomatic means at our disposal to get the Iranians to finally live up to their international obligations.''

The United States and its allies still have diplomatic means to persuade Iran to halt any weapons development, Rice said.

She called the Iranian human-rights record ''abysmal.''

Earlier, Rice met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the United States' closest ally in Iraq, holding her first meeting with a foreign leader since taking over from Colin Powell as the top American diplomat.

Their 90-minute breakfast meeting at Blair's Downing Street office covered Iraq, the Middle East and other subjects.

Rice thanked Blair for Britain's support in Iraq ''as we work to support the Iraqi people in their quest and most especially ... as we try to bring to the Israelis and the Palestinians a chance for a lasting peace.''

London is the site of a one-day conference in March to help the Palestinian government build democratic institutions.

En route to London on Thursday, Rice indicated the United States may take a back seat for now in the international effort to bring Israel and the Palestinians closer to a lasting peace.

Rice said she does not plan to attend next week's Middle East summit meeting in Egypt, although she will be close by for talks in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

''Not every effort has to be an American effort,'' Rice said. ''It is extremely important that the parties themselves are taking responsibility. It is extremely important that the regional actors are taking responsibility.''

She said the United States welcomes Egypt's help in hosting the summit and called it one of several hopeful signs for peace.

Middle East peace is one of the main topics for Rice's discussions with European leaders over the coming week, as is Iran. She will visit eight European capitals and the Vatican, with a weekend side trip to see the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

In stops in Berlin later Friday and Paris next week, she may run into opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Iran's nuclear ambitions also is expected to be a topic of discussion with Europeans who are trying to head off nuclear weapons development.

It is not clear how much international support there is for any potential action against Iran. The Europeans have offered Iran technological and financial support, and have hinted at a trade deal if weapons development stops. The Bush administration has been cool to the European diplomacy, preferring economic sanctions against Iran.

In his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, President Bush called Iran ''the world's primary state sponsor of terror.''

At her Senate confirmation hearings last month, Rice said the United States wants ''a regime in Iran that is responsive to concerns that we have about Iran's policies, which are 180 degrees'' antithetical to America's interests. On Thursday, Rice said Iran's approach to human rights and its treatment of its own citizens were loathsome.

''I don't think anybody thinks that the unelected mullahs who run that regime are a good thing for the Iranian people and for the region,'' she said.

Iran's supreme leader on Thursday said Bush's policies toward Iran would fail.

''America is like one of the big heads of a seven-headed dragon,'' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in Iran's capital. ''The brains directing it are Zionist and non-Zionist capitalists who brought Bush to power to meet their own interests.''

[Nickdfresh]

February 5, 2005

Senators Examining Quality of CIA Intelligence on Iran

By Greg Miller and Bob Drogin, Times Staff Writers
LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-intel5feb05.story)

WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee has launched what its chairman called a "preemptive" examination of U.S. intelligence on Iran as part of an effort to avoid the problems that plagued America's prewar assessments on Iraq.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said in an interview Friday that he had sought the unusual review because the erroneous prewar claims about Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction had made lawmakers wary of the CIA's current assessments on Iran.

"We have to be more preemptive on this committee to try to look ahead and determine our capabilities so that you don't get stuck with a situation like you did with Iraq," said Roberts, who also voiced concern about current intelligence on the insurgency in Iraq.

The White House has made it clear that Iran will be a focus of U.S. foreign policy in President Bush's second term. In his State of the Union speech this week, the president identified Iran as "the world's primary state sponsor of terror, pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve."

A recent CIA report concludes that Tehran is vigorously pursuing programs to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The aim of the Senate review, Roberts said, is to ensure that any weaknesses in American intelligence on Iran are disclosed to policymakers, and that U.S. spy agencies have adequate resources to fill gaps in information on the Islamic republic.

Roberts said that the review was in its early stages and that the committee had not reached any preliminary judgments about the quality of U.S. intelligence reports on Tehran's alleged weapons activities.

Senior aides on the committee emphasized that the panel was not opening a formal investigation or inquiry. Rather, they said that the review of intelligence on Iran was part of a broader shift in the way the committee approached its oversight responsibilities, toward anticipating problems rather than investigating intelligence failures after they occur.

Roberts said the review of U.S. efforts to spy on Iran would largely take place behind closed doors, involving interviews with analysts and intelligence officials and a review of classified documents.

Aides said that unlike the committee's review on Iraq, which culminated in a 500-page public report containing harsh criticism of the CIA, there was no plan to go public with its findings on the quality of intelligence on Iran.

The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, said Friday that he supported the review of intelligence on Iran.

"One of the lessons we learned from Iraq was not to take all information at face value and to ask more questions in the beginning than in the end," Rockefeller said in a statement.

A CIA spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the agency was aware of the committee's plan to examine intelligence on Iran and would assist in the review.

"We will, as usual, be working closely with the committee in this effort," the official said.

Senior intelligence committee aides from both parties said that the panel also intended to examine U.S. intelligence gathering and reporting on other important U.S. espionage targets, including North Korea and China.

Roberts said that the committee's efforts would focus on Tehran first because Iran had become "the big bully on the block" since the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Amid mounting speculation that the United States is contemplating a preemptive military strike against Tehran, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, now traveling in Europe, said Friday that such an option was "not on the agenda at this point in time."

"We have many diplomatic tools still at our disposal and we intend to pursue them fully," she told reporters after meeting in London with British Foreign Minister Jack Straw.

The European Union and Iran are expected to resume talks on Tehran's nuclear program next week in Geneva.

A series of inspections in Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog group, over the last 18 months has exposed a long-hidden Iranian program to produce fissile material that could be used for nuclear weapons, but IAEA officials say they believe Tehran has frozen the program. Iran insists that its nascent nuclear program is designed to produce energy, not weapons.

The CIA, in its recent unclassified report, said Tehran was using its civilian nuclear program as a shield for illegal weapons development. But U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged that the CIA and other agencies have few reliable sources of information on the regime's alleged weapons-related activities.

Roberts was also critical of the CIA's efforts to penetrate the insurgency in Iraq, saying that although the agency had deployed a large number of officers to the country, many CIA operatives were hunkered down in the heavily fortified sector of Baghdad known as the Green Zone.

"They're inside looking at flat [computer] screens," Roberts said of CIA operatives. "They're not out there with that poor damn Marine out there getting his tail shot off."

Roberts, a former Marine, said there had been quality reports on the insurgency. "We get, I think, pretty good briefings on who people are, how many, where they are, where they're going," he said.

But he said key assessments had been significantly flawed. In particular, dire predictions about violence and expected participation in the Iraqi elections proved wrong.

Asked about the overall quality of intelligence on the insurgency in Iraq, Roberts said, "I don't know how to rate it except to say we can do better."

He declined to disclose details from the latest assessments on the scope and composition of the insurgency.

The CIA spokesperson staunchly defended the agency's recent intelligence on Iraq, noting that in an appearance Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had praised a recently issued, classified CIA report that focused on the motivation of Iraqi insurgents.

"The CIA has received a positive response from many in the policy community with respect to our reporting in Iraq," the spokesperson said.

Asked to comment on Roberts' statement that agency operatives were confined to watching "flat screens," the spokesperson said, "There are CIA officers who are risking their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe."

After an extensive review, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a scathing report in July on U.S. prewar intelligence failures in Iraq.

The panel concluded that most judgments about Iraq's suspected nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs were "either overstated or were not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting."

Last month, the agency issued the first in a series of planned reports acknowledging that its prewar assessments on Iraq had been wrong, and that Baghdad likely had abandoned its chemical weapons programs after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

[ELVIS]

Can you say Regime change ??

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Can you say Regime change ??

Can you answer: 'You and what army?'