Plame: White House Likely To "Twist Intelligence" On Iran

Posted by Amanda Terkel at 3:00 PM on October 22, 2007.

This post, written by Amanda Terkel, originally appeared on Think Progress

This morning, former CIA agent Valerie Plame appeared on NBC's Today Show and spoke about whether the Bush administration is on a path to war with Iran. She told host Meredith Vieria that she believes the administration is "capable" of again misleading the American public "into a disastrous war based on twisted intelligence." Watch it to your right.

Plame's comments come one day after Vice President Cheney issued "his sternest warning to date on Iran," stating that "the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences." Norman Podhoretz recently met privately with the President for 45 minutes, advocating war with Iran. In a CSPAN interview earlier this month, Podhoretz stated, "I believe President Bush is going to order airstrikes [on Iran] before he leaves office."

While the right wing continues to bolster Cheney's war-mongering, members of the intelligence community are reportedly trying to "slow down what the president, most particularly the vice president, want to do in Iran."

Before Bush administration officials blew her cover as a covert CIA agent, Plame was involved in preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. She was "involved in one highly classified mission to deliver fake nuclear weapons blueprints to Tehran."

Transcript:

VIEIRA: I want to ask you, before we go, about the situation now in Iran. There has been almost a beating of the drums. A lot of rhetoric that you heard leading up to Iraq from the President and from the Vice President. I know you've been out of the CIA for awhile now -- for a year.

But given what you know -- and you were working on proliferation in Iran, I understand -- do you believe what happened in Iraq could possibly happen in Iran? Do you believe we are headed toward war with Iran?

PLAME: There's no doubt Iran has intent and it's malevolent. However, I hope that the American people have learned the lessons and paid close attention to what their leaders are saying and tried to educate themselves and get as much information before we rush headlong again into a disastrous war based on twisted intelligence.

VIEIRA: But do you believe the administration is capable of doing that in Iran?

PLAME: I do.

Tagged as: iran, plame, cheney, nuclear weapons

Amanda Terkel is Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and serves as Deputy Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.