Cheney Behind Moves To Launch Attack on Iran

According to The Guardian, Bush is becoming more convinced of Cheney's 'military solution' to Iran. According to the report:

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.

The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."

The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Well hey, I never saw that coming. When you dig a little into Cheney's past at Halliburton, his views on Iran become even more intriguing. For example, take this statement he made in March 1996:

“Let me make a generalized statement about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well,” Cheney said. “I think we Americans sometimes make mistakes . . . There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what’s best for everybody else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like.”

Yes, you did not mis-read that. But it gets even more interesting:

Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton Corporation at the time he uttered those words. It was Cheney who directed Halliburton toward aggressive business dealings with Iran—in violation of U.S. law—in the mid-1990s, which continued through 2005 and is the reason Iran has the capability to enrich weapons-grade uranium.

It was Halliburton’s secret sale of centrifuges to Iran that helped get the uranium enrichment program off the ground, according to a three-year investigation that includes interviews conducted with more than a dozen current and former Halliburton employees.

So, in case you missed it Halliburton supplied centrifuges to Iran to help it enrich uranium. Sounds remarkably similar to the chemical weapons Saddam had that were supplied by the West, doesn't it? Why would Cheney be instrumental in dealings with Iran, particularly as they have been considered an enemy of the US ever since the revolution. As always, Bill Hicks seems to sum it up best............