Seymour Hersh points out the inevitability of war with Iran:

The Administration’s planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House’s assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (The C.I.A. declined to comment on this story.)

The C.I.A.’s analysis, which has been circulated to other agencies for comment, was based on technical intelligence collected by overhead satellites, and on other empirical evidence, such as measurements of the radioactivity of water samples and smoke plumes from factories and power plants. Additional data have been gathered, intelligence sources told me, by high-tech (and highly classified) radioactivity-detection devices that clandestine American and Israeli agents placed near suspected nuclear-weapons facilities inside Iran in the past year or so. No significant amounts of radioactivity were found.

A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the C.I.A. analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it. The White House’s dismissal of the C.I.A. findings on Iran is widely known in the intelligence community. Cheney and his aides discounted the assessment, the former senior intelligence official said. “They’re not looking for a smoking gun,” the official added, referring to specific intelligence about Iranian nuclear planning. “They’re looking for the degree of comfort level they think they need to accomplish the mission.”

Never try to stop Cheney in his thirst for more blood. It’s always either daylight or a stake through the heart that ends the reign of vampires.

I root for daylight, lots and lots of daylight. Cheney’s trying to twist reality to support a war with a country larger than any we’ve fought since Vietnam. A country where the majority of its population is very pro-US. A country without a nuclear bomb. A country that didn’t attack us and had no connections to the 9-11 attacks.

Its government officials are certainly hostile to secular societies like ours. But their capacity or intent to wage war with us is nil.

Our troops need to be out of Iraq and back into Afghanistan, to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda. Bombing Iran is an unjustifiable act of aggression that would further create more extremists and terrorists throughout the Middle East, and could turn Iran’s majority into certain enemies.

Dick Cheney is nuts. He’s a ruthless killer. More than the push to get Bush impeached, Cheney should be impeached first for his continuing efforts to kill innocents.

It is precisely because of his aggression towards Iran that provides Iran’s motivation to develop nuclear weaponry, as the single best defense against a US invasion.

There may come a time when Iran’s government becomes more than a posturing irritant, and becomes a certain threat to other Middle East nations, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the time is not now. And our White House has burned its cred so thoroughly that we risk global condemnation and creating more terrorists by the hasty action of an incompetent and untrustworthy team.

Lacking intelligence that the threat is imminent, inspections, diplomacy and the other tools of competent governance remain the best safeguards. Not the lies and selling of fear that characterizes everything Cheney stands for. Only his departure from office can give us an unfettered objective view of the situation.

Cheney should resign, or face impeachment.