Ron Paul: "Unproven charges against Iran eerily reminiscent of the false charges made against Iraq.

[Flabbergasted]

(Shockingly unavailable in Western Media)

Rice confronted over Iran evidence

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has been confronted in congress over the US administration's failure to provide firm evidence for Iran's alleged nuclear weapons development.

Ron Paul, a Republican congressman, said: "Unproven charges against Iran's nuclear intentions are eerily reminiscent of the false charges made against Iraq."

Paul said "unproven accusations of Iranian support for the Iraqi insurgency" were also serving as a pretext for "escalating our sharp rhetoric towards Iran".

"Pressed for proof of dramatic claims of Iranian involvement in Iraq, the administration keeps promising that they are compiling it."

Paul was speaking as Rice presented the US state department's annual budget request to the congressional foreign affairs committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday.

Paul referred to discredited allegations that Saddam Hussein's government was building weapons of mass destruction.

US officials have promised to make public what Sean McCormack, a state department spokesman, described as a "mountain of evidence" to back up allegations about Iranian involvement in attacks on US and allied forces in Iraq.

No such evidence has yet been put forward by the administration.

Rejecting Paul's suggestions, Rice said: "We are not planning or intending an attack on Iran.

"What we are doing is responding to a number of Iranian policies both in Iran and around the world that are actually quite dangerous for our national security."

"We're going to do this on our own timeline"

Sean McCormack, State Department spokesman

Rice also said that Iranian support for "terrorism" was "well known and well-understood", referring to Hezbollah in Lebanon and sectarian death squads in Iraq.

She said British forces in Iraq had also linked Iran to attacks on allied forces in the country, notably with sophisticated bombs able to penetrate armoured vehicles.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/193267D2-4A3D-48...

[Hissyspit]

1. What if the charges are true? Why do we have the right to interfere

with Iraq and Iran doesn't? They live next door. We were nice enough to take out Iran's worst enemy for them, and I guess they have strategic interests. Funny how WHAT WE DID to unsettle the region is, according to Rice, now threatening out national security.

Not that I'm not completely skeptical of anything the Bush admin says about Iran's involvement.

[razors edge]

2. If the DLCrs started smoking pot

would they start asking questions like these?