Iran : comment stopper l’attaque ?

Les élections du 7 novembre bouleversent nombre des données sur les problèmes et crises qui secouent Washington depuis le 11 septembre 2001. L’une des questions dont personne ne parle beaucoup, qui est pourtant l’une des plus importantes : peut-il y avoir encore une attaque contre l’Iran ?

Daniel Ellsberg, fameux au début des années 1970 pour avoir rendu public l’énorme dossier sur la guerre du Viet-nâm (The Pentagon Papers) est persuadé que le risque existe. Interviewé par Amy Goodman, de Democracy Now!, le 10 novembre, Ellsberg s’explique après que Amy Goodman ait exposé l’hypothèse d’une procédure d’impeachment contre le couple Bush-Cheney :

«AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to former Congress member Elizabeth Holtzman, who has written a book on impeachment. Daniel Ellsberg is also with us, perhaps the country’s best-known whistleblower. leaked to the press the Pentagon Papers, the 7,000-page top-secret study of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam that set in motion actions that would eventually topple Nixon. He recently published an article in Harper's magazine about Iran. It’s called ‘The Next War.’ How do you tie this in, what your campaign is now, which is not exactly impeachment, Daniel Ellsberg?

»DANIEL ELLSBERG: I think the impeachment process, starting with investigations, is very important, but it’s not the only important thing right now. Actually, Maurice Hinchey introduced a bill on June 20th this year calling for Congress to cut off any funds, to deny any funds of the appropriation bill for an attack on Iran, unless that had followed, as in Article 1, Section 8, from a decision by Congress. And it was a very brief little discussion in the night of June 20th. Two hours later, there was a vote. He had 158 votes in favor of that, somewhat surprisingly. That is the way the Vietnam War was stopped. I don't think they’ll stop the Iraq war very quickly that way. It takes a long time for a congressman to face the charge that he’s taking money away from the troops, no matter how long, and whether they should be there or not.

»But the Iran War has not yet started, and a measure to prevent it before it starts has, I think, a lot more promise, and I think that approach with the new Congress has real promise. But even so, you would need, I think, a crucial aspect of that would be information from inside the government, and this applies both to the impeachment process and to measures like this. If you rely entirely on the administration cooperating by providing the documents you're asking or the witnesses you're asking, that’s not going to happen. They’ve promised already. I think it’s Cheney who said “a cataclysmic fight to the death,” before they will let these documents get out.

»Now, a process like that is what finally emboldened Congress or enraged Congress to the point where, in fact, they did begin to cut off the funds for the war and they did seriously begin to look at impeachment. If the President was going to totally subordinate their role, rule it out of the Constitution essentially, that finally got their backs up. That could happen here, as investigations start, on a variety of reasons, which should happen, including Cheney. You’ll get the facts on the table from leakers. The facts you’ll get will be unauthorized.

«And now, an unauthorized disclosure, a leak, has a chance of being acted on by Congress, which in the last several years, people have gotten discouraged. They’ve put out the truth to Sy Hersh and to others, and we can all see, not much happens. Congress, the Republican committees are not interested in hearing that. They don't want to act on it. Now, it's a challenge. If somebody inside the government gives information either on criminal wrongdoing by their bosses, which bears directly, or, you know, terrible high crimes and misdemeanors, which bears directly on impeachment, if they give that to Congress and the press, Congress can’t — Congress now led by the Democrats cannot just ignore it, at least not if we let them. We can demand that they do act on it, and that’s a great inducement to get.»

Mis en ligne le 12 novembre 2006 à 08H24