You could not make this stuff up even if you tried. Under the direction of new owner Rupert Murdoch, the Wall Street Journal is becoming the paper version of Faux News. Here is their latest nonsense on the Iran NIE: "The Iranian opposition group that first exposed Iran’s nuclear-fuel program said a U.S. intelligence analysis is correct that Tehran shut down its weaponization program in 2003, but claims that the program was relocated and restarted in 2004.
The claim, to be made public today by the National Council for Resistance in Iran, joins a broad pushback by conservative hawks who say the U.S. analysis has wrongly given the impression that Iran’s nuclear-fuel program doesn’t present an urgent threat." Since when is a terrorist group a credible source for anything, let alone one to be used in a mainstream article? The National Council for Resistance in Iran is the MEK lobby in DC. They call themselves the true government of Iran in exile and their president is Maryam Rajavi. Let’s do a MEK/MKO basics crash course:
• During the 1970s, the MeK was accused of conducting several assassinations of US military personnel and civilians working in Iran, and of actively supporting the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979. That same year, the MeK helped to overthrow the Shah and install the new Shiite regime led by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
• The Secretary of State has amended the designation, under Executive Order 13224 on terrorist financing, of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, known as the MEK, to add its aliases National Council of Resistance (NCR) and National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). That Executive Order blocks the assets of organizations and individuals linked to terrorism. The decision also clarifies that the designation includes the U.S. representative office of NCRI and all its other offices worldwide, and that the designation of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (‘PMOI’) as an alias of the MEK includes the PMOI’s U.S. representative office and all other offices worldwide.
• Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion. Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility. But Vice-President Dick Cheney’s office rejected the plan, the official said. The offers came in a letter, seen by Newsnight, which was unsigned but which the US state department apparently believed to have been approved by the highest authorities. In return for its concessions, Tehran asked Washington to end its hostility, to end sanctions, and to disband the Iranian rebel group the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and repatriate its members.
So basically, what the Wall Street Journal is saying is that a terrorist group on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organization – who has also killed US citizens and was close to Saddam Hussein – is unhappy with the Iran NIE.
Moreover this same group is close to the Vice President, who chose to protect his friends rather than hand them over to Iran in exchange for…Iran giving up all enrichment activities – the thing that Cheney has claimed is the problem. Do you follow this logic? Does the WSJ not have a fact-checking crew? Is the Wall Street Journal now aiding a terrorist organization by giving them a say in US foreign policy? This is good to know. So next time there is a Saudi Arabia NIE, perhaps the Wall Street Journal can feature al Qaeda as supporting the conservative position. Like I said, you could not make this crap up if you tried. Propaganda news at its finest folks… and the war on terror at its most laughable.
at-Largely