An intelligence mutiny on Iran?

This news is all over CNN international, president Bush's positions are being hammered repeatedly on tv. I wonder what the real story is? Are the neocons giving themselves some breathing room to back out of a war without angering Israel?

Here is an account of how the NIE was developed and the decision to release it.  Of course, coming from Washington Post, a little skepticism from the reader is prudent. 

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/07/AR2007120702418.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Here is an article on the missing US Air Force nukes which the author posits could have been linked to a plot to attack Iran.  My own question is, was the "recovery" of the lost weapons another form of mutiny by the men in service to sabotage an Iran war conspiracy?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7158

It is also
worth noting that on August 27, 2007, just days before the "lost" nukes
incident, three B-52 Bombers were performing special missions under the
direct authorization of General Moseley, the Chief of Staff of the U.S.
Air Force. [3] The exercise was reported as being an aerial information
and image gathering mission. The base at Minot is also home of the 91st
Space Wings, a unit under the command of Air Force Space Command
(AFSPC).

According to official reports, the U.S. Air Force
pilots did not know that they were carrying weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs). Once in Louisiana, they also left the nuclear weapons unsecured
on the runway for several hours. [4]

U.S. Air Force Deputy
Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans, and Requirements, Major-General
Richard Y. Newton III commented on the incident, saying there was an
“unprecedented” series of procedural errors, which revealed “an erosion
of adherence to weapons-handling standards” [5]

These
statements are misleading. The lax security was not the result
of procedural negligence within the U.S. Air Force, but rather the
consequence of a deliberate tampering of these procedures.

...

In other words, unauthorized removal of nuclear weapons would be virtually impossible to accomplish unless the chain of command were bypassed, involving, in this case, the deliberate tampering of the paperwork and tracking procedures.

...

This last point raises the
question of what were the nuclear weapons meant for? In this context,
Stomrer puts forth the following list of important questions to which
he demands an answer:

1. Why, and for what ostensible purpose, were these nuclear weapons taken to Barksdale?
2. How long was it before the error was discovered?
3. How many mistakes and errors were made, and how many needed to be made, for this to happen?
4. How many and which security protocols were overlooked?
5. How many and which safety procedures were bypassed or ignored?
6. How many other nuclear command and control non-observations of procedure have there been?
7. What is Congress going to do to better oversee U.S. nuclear command and control?
8.
How does this incident relate to concern for reliability of control
over nuclear weapons and nuclear materials in Russia, Pakistan and
elsewhere?
9. Does the Bush administration, as some news reports suggest, have plans to attack Iran with nuclear weapons?

Bush loses ground with military families, poll finds

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1206poll-bush1206-ON.html

Los Angeles Times
Dec. 6, 2007 05:17 PM
WASHINGTON - Families with ties to the military, long a reliable source of support for wartime presidents, disapprove of President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, with a majority concluding the invasion was not worth it, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The views of the military community, which includes active-duty service members, veterans and their family members, mirror those of the overall adult population, a sign that the strong military endorsement that the administration often pointed to has dwindled in the war's fifth year.

Nearly six out of every 10 military families disapprove of Bush's job performance and the way he has run the war, rating him only slightly better than the general population does.

And among those families with soldiers, sailors and Marines who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 60 percent say that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost, the same result as all adults surveyed.

"I don't see gains for the people of Iraq ... and, oh, my God, so many wonderful young people, and these are the ones who felt they were really doing something, that's why they signed up," said poll respondent Sue Datta, 61, whose youngest son, an Army staff sergeant, was seriously wounded in Iraq last year and is scheduled to redeploy in 2009. "I pray to God that they did not die in vain, but I don't think our president is even sensitive at all to what it's like to have a child serving over there."

Patience with the war, which has lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in World War II, is wearing thin -- particularly among families who have sent a service member to the conflict. One-quarter say American troops should stay "as long as it takes to win." Nearly seven in 10 favor a withdrawal within the coming year or "right away."

Military families are only slightly more patient: 35 percent are willing to stay until victory; 58 percent want them home within a year or sooner.

Here, too, the military families surveyed are in sync with the general population, 64 percent of whom call for a withdrawal by the end of next year.

"You generally expect to see support for the president as commander-in-chief and for the war, but this is a different kind of war than those we've fought in the past, particularly for families," said David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland.

Today's all-volunteer force is older and more married than any before it. Facing a shortage of troops, the Army increased the maximum enlistment age from 35 to 42 and called up reservists, who tend to be older and more settled than recruits out of high school. The result is a fighting force that left thousands of spouses and children behind.

At the same time, deployments have grown longer and more frequent as soldiers rotate in and out of the war zone, sometimes three and four times, with no end date in sight, a wearing existence that has contributed to opposition to Bush and his war strategy.

"The man went into Iraq without justification, without a plan, he just decided to go in there and win and he had no idea what was going to happen," said poll respondent Mary Meneely, 58, of Arco, Minn. Her son, an Air Force reservist, served one tour in Afghanistan. "There have been terrible deaths on our side, and it's even worse for the Iraqi population. It's another Vietnam."

The survey, conducted under the supervision of Los Angeles Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus, interviewed 1,467 adults nationwide from Nov. 30 through Monday. It included 631 respondents from military families and 152 who have had someone in their family stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The margin of error for the entire sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points; for military families it is 4 points and for families with someone in the war zone it is 8 points.

Other surveys have shown an erosion of support for Bush and the war among military personnel, including a 2005 poll by Military Times of their active-duty readers.

Now the disapproval of Bush appears to have transferred to his party. Pro-Republican leanings of military families that began with the Vietnam War - when Democratic protests seemed to be aimed at the troops as much as the fighting - have shifted, the poll results show.

When military families were asked which party could be trusted to do a better job of handling issues related to them, respondents divided almost evenly: 39 percent said Democrats and 35 percent chose Republicans. The general population feels similarly, 39 percent for Democrats, 31 percent Republicans.

"The Democrats are not seen as the anti-soldier group anymore," said Charles C. Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University. He added that Bush's firm backing of the troops does not gain him any points because the entire country is now viewed as supportive of the military, even if not of the war. "He doesn't get extra credit for that."

"We support the troops, we don't support Bush," said respondent Linda Ramirez, 52, of Spooner, Wis., whose 19-year-old son is due to be deployed with the Marines early next year. "These boys have paid a terrible, terrible price."

The carnage - nearly 3,900 killed and 29,000 wounded - is contributing to the war's unpopularity, even though the number of dead is low compared with previous wars, Moskos believes. Medical advances on the battlefield have saved more lives but sent home more severely injured troops; for every soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, eight are wounded, nearly triple the ratio in Vietnam.

Asked about the Bush administration's handling of the needs of active-duty troops, military families and veterans, 57 percent of the general public disapprove. That number falls only slightly among military families - 53 percent give a thumbs-down.

And most military families and others surveyed took no exception to retired officers publicly criticizing the Bush administration's execution of the war. More than half of the respondents in both groups - 58 percent - say such candor is appropriate. Families with someone who had served in the war are about equally supportive at 55 percent.