Caroline Glick, deputy editor at Murdoch's Jerusalem Post and fellow of the neoconservative Center For Security Policy, is back on the Iran warpath in an article she entitles "It is time to act". She writes that "Iran is just a heartbeat away from the A-bomb", and to justify this claim she begins with three untruths.

Firstly:

Last Friday the Daily Telegraph reported Teheran has surreptitiously removed a sufficient amount of uranium from its nuclear production facility in Isfahan to produce six nuclear bombs. Given Iran's already acknowledged uranium enrichment capabilities, the Telegraph's report indicates that the Islamic Republic is now in the late stages of assembling nuclear bombs.

But the IAEA has already told the Telegraph that it's report, written by another neoconservative, Con Coughlin, is in error.

“The article, entitled ‘Iran renews nuclear weapons development’ published in [Friday’s] Daily Telegraph by Con Coughlin and Tim Butcher is fictitious,” IAEA Spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said in a statement.

“IAEA inspectors have no indication that any nuclear material is missing from the plant,” reads the statement.

Indeed, the IAEA guareantees that no uranium has been diverted to non-civilian programs or even can be without the Agency's knowledge.

Then, she says that "US spy satellites recently discovered what the US believes are covert nuclear facilities in Iran." Again - no. What was revealed (back in February) was an until-now unknown missile testing facility, revealed by commercial satellites rather than US ones. Whatever else it is it isn't a "nuclear facility". If it or any other more recent "finds" were, then the IAEA would be making a stink about it in their recent report, and they don't. Iran had enough problems putting together the Nanantz cascades and getting them to run. The notion that they might have been able to develop some other secret facility just as big is James Bond fantasy stuff - those "reporting" such fantasies, often sourced from the utterly-nutterly MeK, might as well photo-shop a white persian cat onto file pictures of Ahmadinejhad and claim it proves something.

Then, Glick writes:

As to the IAEA, this week it presented its latest report on Teheran's nuclear program to its board members in Vienna. The IAEA's report claimed that Iran has taken steps to enable its Shihab-3 ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads.

Of course, she neglects to mention that any such work ended in 2003 according to US intelligence, that neither US spies nor the IAEA have seen any indications of it resuming and that in any case experts say the modifications wouldn't have worked as there still wouldn't be enough room in such a missile for the kind of nuke that Iran could build. The IAEA report makes it clear that the Agency just wants to clear up the details of the old Iranian program, for completeness' sake.

It's all a bit desperate. Glick says that these three factoids are why Israel should bomb Iran, because sanctions cannot stop these steps towards an imminent Iranian nuke. But they don't need to - none of these steps exist. All this because the recent IAEA report gave the warmongers no ammunition at all, so they're reduced to making things up.

It's because of warmongers like Glick and Coughlin, willing to bend the ttruth all out of shape, that senior US military officers are giving off-the-record briefings to reporters trying to calm things down.

An Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear installations would destabilise the entire region and open a new battlefront which could have a damaging effect on Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior American army commander said today.

In a highly unusual statement on the issue from the US Defence establishment the officer, who requested anonymity, stressed that a diplomatic solution was imperative to solve the crisis.

The commander, in the heart of US military policy-making, said that there was "a lot of rhetoric" over Israel's repeated threats to carry out air-strikes to stop Iran developing a nuclear arsenal.

However, he said, that an exercise by over 100 Israeli war planes in the skies above the Mediterranean in June showed the Israelis were practising for a possible offensive.

"But it would not be the right thing to do, it will open up another front and this is not going to help the situation in the region, Iraq or Afghanistan," said the officer. "A diplomatic solution is the only logical answer to this."

Recently, Shimon Peres said pretty much the same thing. As long ago as last year, so did IAEA head Mohammed El Baradei.

And analysts also acknowledge that hardliners rhetoric has meant Ahmadinejhad of Iran has managed to consolidate his position instead of being brought down by his incompetent handling of their economy.

People like Glick should be consigned to the wilderness, they simply are too dangerous to be given a bully pulpit like the Jerusalem Post.