Bush and Cheney are getting all hot and bothered over Iran again. They’re back on the wagon, talking up their fears that Iran may still be on track to build weapons of the nook-u-lar variety:

Washington Post:

Most striking was Bush’s accusation that Iran has openly declared its nuclear weapons intentions, even though a National Intelligence Estimate concluded in December that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003, a major reversal in the long-standing U.S. assessment.

“They’ve declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people — some in the Middle East. And that’s unacceptable to the United States, and it’s unacceptable to the world,” Bush told U.S.-funded Radio Farda, which broadcasts into Iran in Farsi.

Experts on Iran and nuclear proliferation said the president’s statement was wrong. “That’s as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain’s statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda. Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It’s just not true. It’s a little troubling that the president and the leading Republican candidate are both so wrong about Iran,” said Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation.

Financial Times:

Dick Cheney, US vice-president, said yesterday that Iran might have restarted work on nuclear weapons, writes Daniel Dombey in Washington . Speaking in Oman on a tour of the Middle East in part focused on rallying the region’s leaders against Tehran, Mr Cheney said the current status of Iran’s programme was unclear.

Last year, a US national intelligence estimate said it had “high confidence” that Iran’s weaponisation work had halted in 2003, adding with “moderate confidence” that it had not been resumed as of mid-2007.

“We don’t know whether or not they’ve restarted,” Mr Cheney told ABC News.

I’ve been watching the signs for some time. The question is - will they pull the trigger?

Filed under: American Empire, The Drums of War