The right wing Associated Press and Fox News are reporting this morning that Iran is developing plans to attack British nuclear power plants in the event of strikes against Iran.
The source for this inflamatory propaganda is a hitherto obscure Brussels think tank "privately" established in 2002, the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. Who founded it and for what propaganda purpose is even more obscure. The person fronting the think tank, Claude Moniquet, has been described as "Michael Ledeen with a French accent" who "sells to the highest bidder".
Let's walk back the cat on another piece of pro-war propaganda from the usual suspects.
"Walk back the cat" is spy slang for retracing the train of evidence and assumptions until the double agent, the false source or the analytic error is identified.
There's every reason to believe that the bullshit testimony by Claude Moniquet was choreographed by Blairites to push for war with Iran as a final gesture of affection toward Bush. This from the AP story:
Iran is attempting to draw up plans to strike targets in Europe and has conducted reconnaissance of European nuclear power stations, a security analyst told a meeting at Britain's parliament Tuesday.
Claude Moniquet, president of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, a private think-tank in Brussels, said his organization also had evidence Tehran has increased numbers of intelligence agents across Europe.
"We have serious signals that something is under preparation in Europe," Moniquet said. "Iranian intelligence is working extremely hard to prepare its people and to prepare actions."
The center, which he said deals directly with European intelligence agencies, believes Iranian operatives have carried out "reconnaissance of targets in European cities, including nuclear power stations," Moniquet said. He mentioned no other specific targets.
I'd like to know what kind of pissant "evidence" this think tank might have about the actions of Iranian intelligence that no official intelligence agency claims.
Cannonfire and I both immediately searched for background on Moniquet - something the press doesn't seem to have done. If they had, they would have found that Moniquet is not an entirely reliable source on intelligence matters.
A previous report prepared by the same ESISC was reviewed in scathing terms:
Contrary to all expectations, what emerges in the pages of the report is an embarrassingly amateurish, poorly researched, factually inaccurate, and badly written hatchet job. The most disturbing aspect of the report is not so much its poor quality (which is not exceptional if you keep up on the transparent propaganda that has been coming out of Rabat for over thirty years on the Western Sahara), but the clear malicious intent of Claude Moniquet and his crew. The lack of scholarly rigor, the numerous factual errors and the omission of widely accepted facts, the use of unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo, and ultimately the baseless attacks and badly reasoned conclusions, the accumulation of all these serious faults leaves no doubt in my mind that this is an intentional attempt to inflict extreme harm on the Polisario Front and the Western Saharan cause by purposely distorting the historical record.
I've already stocked up on potassium iodide, but only because the UK government still hasn't dealt with the leak in the Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant several years ago so I have no confidence in their ability to handle any other cock up. After the major fuel depot fire at Buncefield near hear - the biggest in Europe - I stocked up on a lot of stuff.
I'm more afraid for the Iranians than I am afraid of the Iranians. It's the American government that scares the crap out of me with their unremitting propaganda in prosecution of yet another war for oil.