Israel, US faking intelligence to attack Iran: Ex-CIA analyst

A former CIA analyst says the United States and Israel seek to come up with a pretext for attacking Iran by fabricating intelligence, a ploy similar to the one adopted by the United States for justifying the war on Iraq a decade ago.

“As we saw 10 years ago with respect to Iraq, if one intends to whip up support for war, one needs to find a casus belli – however thin a pretext it might be,” Ray McGovern wrote in an article.

“How about juxtaposing ‘weapons of mass destruction’ with terrorism. That worked to prepare for war on Iraq, and similar rhetorical groundwork for an attack on Iran is now being laid in Israel,” his article further read.

Referring to the recent attack on a number of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, McGovern said, “Netanyahu broke all records for speed in blaming Iran and Hezbollah” for the bombing.

“On Fox News, Sunday on July 22, Mr. Netanyahu claimed Israel has ‘rock-solid evidence’ tying Iran to the attack in Bulgaria. The same day on CBS’s Face the Nation, Mr. Netanyahu said, ‘We have unquestionable, fully substantiated intelligence that this [terrorist attack] was done by Hezbollah backed by Iran,’ adding that Israel gives ‘specific details to … responsible governments and agencies,’” McGovern went on to say.

The former CIA analyst added that Israel, however, has so far failed to provide any evidence for its claims of Iran’s involvement.

“Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has admitted that he was aware of no information concerning the terrorist or those who dispatched him,” he underlined.

McGovern then refered to the historical moment when British intelligence chief Sir Richard Dearlove admitted that intelligence on Iraq had been fixed.

“… Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove [executed Iraqi dictator] Saddam [Hussein], through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,” Dearlove said on July 23, 2005.

“The likelihood of hostilities with Iran before the [US] presidential election in November is increasing. Beware of “fixed” intelligence,” McGovern concluded.