Creating Their Own Reality

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,” a Bush administration “senior advisor” told reporter Ron Suskind in 2004. And, the advisor warned, “while you’re studying that reality . . . we’ll act again, creating other new realities” (“Without a Doubt,” New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004).

The release of the National Intelligence Estimate indicating that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 brings to light a new attempt to “create reality” in the face of contrary evidence. Whether the NIE will thwart that attempt remains to be seen.

According to an Inter Press Service report on November 8, which two former CIA officers as sources, the report was essentially completed in 2006, but was blocked by administration officials who wanted it to lend support to the hard line position that was being publicly advocated.

After the report finally was released last week, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley stated that the president had been notified about the “new information” it contained sometime in the last few months – August, September, or October.

Thus, it is clear that the President, Vice President, and other administration made alarming statements such as the following, compiled by Think Progress, in direct contradiction to the information coming to them from the government’s intelligence services:

“So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously.” [President Bush, 10/17/07]
“Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions. … The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences.” [Vice President Cheney, 10/21/07]
“The problem is Iran, and Iran has not stepped back from trying to pursue a nuclear weapon, and — or reprocessing and enriching uranium, which would lead to a nuclear weapon.” [White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, 10/26/07]
“We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace.” [Bush, 11/7/07]
“We’re in a position now, clearly, especially when we look at Iran, where it’s very, very important we succeed in our efforts, our national security efforts, to discourage the Iranians from enriching uranium and producing nuclear weapons.” [Cheney, 11/9/07]
“We are convinced that they are developing nuclear weapons.” [Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, 11/13/07]

Moreover, now that the NIE has been made public, it does not seem to be making any greater impact on the administration’s position than before. At his news conference on December 4, President Bush stated that “the NIE doesn’t do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world—quite the contrary” (see Robert Scheer, “It Turns Out that Ahmadinejad Was the Truthful One,” Truthdig, December 4, 2007).