Joan Walsh print employee Glenn Greenwald

This is false in every respect (http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/30/iran/permalink/41c69d66c72080444c09ead24e7a6467.html).

has decided that because he is not in possession of publicly released evidence that Tehran exposed its Qom facility after it learned that the West knew of it anyway, that "there's absolutely no evidence for it."

Can you point to evidence that Iran learned the West had discovered the Qom facility?

Do you believe this to be a "fact"?

Do you believe it to be true at all?

Well, if that's possible, then it may be either true or false. If true, then doesn't it also follow logically that the 2007 NIE Report was either incompetent (meaning that within the CIA the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing) or intentionally slanted?

No - it's perfectly possible that they looked at Qom and decided it constituted no evidence that it was devoted toward a nuclear weapon program.

We spent $75 billion a year on our intelligence community. They publish a report that their consensus is that Iran froze its nuclear weapons program. Despite that, people eager to believe otherwise ignore it and insist it's untrue based on no evidence.

It's the definition of irrationality, and the fact that exactly this behavior led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings at least over the last 8 years in Iraq doesn't give these hysterics any pause for thought.

Greenwald has spent YEARS since the inception of the Iraq war railing against CIA incompentence

No, I haven't. You just completely made that up.

While there are more facts to come to light, what's missing is the willingness to consider that the facts may lead to conclusions contrary to his preferences. He is so concerned about potential American or Israeli military action that he would rather not follow where the evidence may lead.

Are you illiterate? I'm asking that seriously. In every post -- including the one you claim to have just read -- I emphasize that I don't know what the answers are, that it's perfectly possible they are seeking nuclear weapons and that, given what Israel and the U.S. do, it would actually surprise me if they don't.

My objection is to those of you who are eager to repeat like little parrots whatever the U.S. Government says about Iran even if you have no evidence for it. I'm not claiming to know the truth one way or the other. I'll wait until there's evidence to decide. That's what sane people do, by definition.

I don't really disagree with you - as I said above (http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/07/iran/permalink/e521e310fae0d23f76f01b8a67506b0b.html), I'm not criticizing the CIA for refusing to disclose their sources -- merely pointing out that this claim is unaccompanied by evidence, and therefore, rational people (and especially journalists) shouldn't run around assuming it's true or treating it as "fact."

Colin Powell certainly found a way to reveal all sorts of so-called "evidence" gathered by the intelligence community during his U.N. slideshow. Intelligence agents spent months leaking all sorts of claimed discoveries to the press in the run-up to the Iraq War to justify claims about WMD. If there was really a will to provide evidence for this claim, they'd find a way.

But either way -- without evidence, it's nothing more than an uncorroborated assertion and should be treated as such.

If the CIA discovered that Iran knew that we knew of its Qom reactor it couldn't have known THAT by google! It would need a "source and a method" a guy on the ground. Does it seem likely they would compromise such an asset by an over-explanation? In fact that would be criminal, more criminal in fact than the Plame disclosure. You can favor Iran over Israel without being plain stupid.

There could be lots of other ways they could have learned it - including eavesdropping. They could at least say that they learned it through intelligence operations, and provide as much information as they can (including when they learned that Iran "discovered" it). Colin Powell managed to present "evidence" at the U.N., as did the administration through leaks.

I'm not complaining they're not revealing more information - just pointing out there's no evidence for it at all, which would make rational people -- and the most minimally competent journalists -- refrain from assuming it to be "fact." That's true by definition.

But all you need is exactly what J.C. Miller said: "President said they are dangerous people who won’t do what we say. It was on the TV." And, to bolster that in your case: "They and Israel don't get along - what else more is needed?"