{"id":34166,"date":"2018-05-11T07:46:31","date_gmt":"2018-05-11T12:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=34166"},"modified":"2018-05-11T07:46:31","modified_gmt":"2018-05-11T12:46:31","slug":"the-coming-war-against-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=34166","title":{"rendered":"The Coming War Against Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2018\/05\/10\/the-coming-war-against-iran\/\">The Coming War Against Iran<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>We\u2019ve been through this before: the trumped-up threat from Iraq based on false evidence in 2003 is the harrowingly similar model to what is emerging for Iran in 2018, argues John Kiriakou.<span id=\"more-27744\"><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p align=\"LEFT\"><a class=\"image-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/kiriakou.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-27747\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/kiriakou-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"85\" height=\"85\" data-lazy-loaded=\"true\" \/><\/a>I spent nearly 15 years in the CIA. I like to think that I learned something there. I learned how the federal bureaucracy works. I learned that cowboys in government \u2013 in the CIA and elsewhere around government \u2013 can have incredible power over the creation of policy. I learned that the CIA will push the envelope of legality until somebody in a position of authority pushes back. I learned that the CIA can wage war without any thought whatsoever as to how things will work out in the end. There\u2019s never an exit strategy.<\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">I learned all of that firsthand in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. In the spring of 2002, I was in Pakistan working against al-Qaeda. I returned to CIA headquarters in May of that year and was told that several months earlier a decision had been made at the White House to invade Iraq. I was dumbfounded, and when told of the war plans could only muster, \u201cBut we haven\u2019t caught bin Laden yet.\u201d \u201cThe decision has already been made,\u201d my supervisor told me. He continued, \u201cNext year, in February, we\u2019re going to invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam Hussein, and open the world\u2019s largest air force base in southern Iraq.\u201d He went on, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go to the United Nations and pretend that we want a Security Council Resolution. But the truth is that the decision has already been made.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_27745\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a class=\"image-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/saddam-hussein-d3618d8d-24de-4b88-a2bc-ac62e5e1b987.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-27745\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/saddam-hussein-d3618d8d-24de-4b88-a2bc-ac62e5e1b987-239x300.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 296px) 100vw, 296px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/saddam-hussein-d3618d8d-24de-4b88-a2bc-ac62e5e1b987-239x300.jpg 239w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/saddam-hussein-d3618d8d-24de-4b88-a2bc-ac62e5e1b987-160x200.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/saddam-hussein-d3618d8d-24de-4b88-a2bc-ac62e5e1b987.jpg 760w\" alt=\"\" width=\"296\" height=\"372\" data-lazy-loaded=\"true\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Next Year: Saddam<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">Soon after, Secretary of State Colin Powell began traveling around Europe and the Middle East to cultivate support for the invasion. Sure enough, he also went to the United Nations and argued that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, necessitating an invasion and overthrow because that country posed an imminent threat to the United States.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Coming War Against Iran We\u2019ve been through this before: the trumped-up threat from Iraq based on false evidence in 2003 is the harrowingly similar model to what is emerging for Iran in 2018, argues John Kiriakou. I spent nearly 15 years in the CIA. I like to think that I learned something there. I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[135,6963,441,442,9965,827,862],"class_list":["post-34166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-cia","tag-consortium-news","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-john-kiriakou","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34167,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34166\/revisions\/34167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}