More Bush, Cheney BS:

On CNN, New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh reported that a new CIA assessment concludes that “there’s no evidence Iran is doing anything that puts them close to a bomb.” Despite the intelligence agency’s conclusion, Hersh reports that the White House is still aggressively moving ahead with preparations for a military conflict with Iran.

As part of the White House’s preparations for Iran, Hersh says President Bush and Vice President Cheney are “stovepiping” intelligence and keeping information provided by the Israelis hidden from the CIA...

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HERSH: We can’t find, the new assessment says, we cannot find — the CIA says there’s no evidence that Iran is doing anything that puts them close to a bomb. There’s no secret program of significant bomb making.

BLITZER: The Israelis have a different assessment.

HERSH: Absolutely.

BLITZER: They think the Iranians may be within a year of getting to the threshold of having a point of no return, if you will, from having a bomb. When I was there in July, I had briefings. That’s what they suggested.

HERSH: They’ve been saying for, as you know, for five or ten years. The fact is Israelis have coming up with new human intelligence, sort of the counter CIA assessment, they’ve come up with an agent inside Iran. They have more than one. And this agent is — who’s been reliable so the Israelis claim in the past — who now says the Iranians are secretly working on making an actual trigger for a bomb. Even though they may not — we don’t have any specific evidence of a facility where they’re doing this work, the Israelis say yes they are, they’re getting ready to start detonating a weapon. Once they get the fissile material, the enriched material. Now, that information is being handled pretty much by the white house and various offices in the pentagon. And the CIA isn’t getting a good look at the Israeli intelligence. It’s the old word stovepiping. It’s the President and the Vice President, it’s pretty much being kept in the White House...

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/hersh-iran-agent/

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