===================================================================== http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2008/04/the_old_drumbeat.html "Here we go again: anonymous briefings, dubious dossiers and claims of secret weapons. Watch out, Iran. A shrill cacophony of Washington voices is once again attempting to ratchet up pressure on Iran over its "malign influence" in Iraq and its suspect nuclear activities. Although military options remain on hold, Bush administration officials have been briefing for the first time on possible targets inside the Islamic republic." ====================================================================== http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/28/un_nuclear_watchdog_chief_blasts_us "The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog group Mohamed El Baradei has criticized the United States for withholding intelligence that it says showed the construction of a nuclear reactor in Syria that Israel bombed in September. The International Atomic Energy Agency chief was critical of both the U.S. delay in releasing the information and of Israel’s bombing of the site before the IAEA could inspect it." ====================================================================== http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/us-senate-attacks-delay-on-syria-nuclear-claims/2008/04/28/1209234761341.html "TOP US politicians have questioned why the US revealed only this week that Syria had built a military-oriented nuclear plant, and asked why Washington had not shared its intelligence with the UN's nuclear watchdog." ====================================================================== http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/108275.html "Syria never developed a secret nuclear reactor nor sought weapons of mass-destruction, Bashar Assad said. In his first public comments since last week's disclosures by the CIA that Israel bombed a North Korean-built reactor in northern Syria last September, the Syrian president on Sunday dismissed the allegations as false." ====================================================================== http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23612814-2703,00.html "A MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR gas pipeline project linking Iran, Pakistan and India that is bitterly opposed by Washington is set to go ahead after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a historic first visit to meet leaders of the new coalition government in Islamabad." ====================================================================== http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8702090937 "TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez have agreed during a telephone conversation to meet soon to boost cooperation on several levels, the Venezuelan foreign ministry said." ====================================================================== http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042608Z.shtml "The nation's top military officer said today that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq." ====================================================================== http://baltimorechronicle.com/2008/042808Lindorff.shtml "I admit to feeling a little like the weatherman who keeps saying it's going to rain, and who eventually is proven correct. I feel certain that the Bush/Cheney regime is going to launch a disastrous attack on Iran, but have made several calls, which have been proved wrong, beginning back in October 2006, when I wrote that it looked like several aircraft carrier battle groups were being put in position for the assault, but then it was called off, thanks to the intervention of former Secretary of State James Baker, who moved to release, several months early, the opinion of his "Iraq Study Group" three months early, which called for negotiations with Iran. Now it looks like the attack is coming soon. The Washington Post's Ann Scott Tyson is today reporting in an article headlined, Joint Chiefs Chairman Says US Preparing Military Options Against Iran, that Admiral Michael Mullen, the nation's top military officer, thinks the US military is not stretched too thin to take on Iran, and that Iran is becoming an "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq. This article comes only a day after a US civilian ship under contract to the US military to deliver supplies to Iraq fired on Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf--just the kind of aggressive action that could lead to an Iranian reaction and trigger a full-blown US response." ====================================================================== Sokerina pohjalla: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/6648 "With the next new moon arriving May 5, 2008, which is usually the time the Pentagon War Mongers love to attack countries Israel wants bombed, this next terror drill, coming up next week, could be more than interesting. Especially the part about invoking "Continuity Plans and Capabilities." That's bureaucrat speak for Martial Law. Bet the "Dick", Cheney, has already slithered into his bunker in an undisclosed location. The overall exercise scenario unfolds as a Category 4 hurricane threatens the National Capitol Region (NCR) while events in the Pacific Northwest include terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the state of Washington and an accidental release of a chemical agent at chemical stockpile facility in Umatilla, Oregon. The scenario culminates with the hurricane's imminent landfall combined with a credible terror threat to the NCR which causes the federal government to invoke continuity plans and capabilities."