News from the Debkafile

In our never ending search for information regarding the potential U.S. attack on Iran we have unearthed the DEBKAfile. O.K., we stumbled on it. Alright, alright, a friend sent us a link or we might never have found it.

What is the DEBKAfile ? It depends on who you ask.

WIRED magazine calls it "a blend of anonymous tips, unsubstantiated rumors and chilling, detail-laden stories on Middle Eastern military, intelligence, diplomatic, and terrorist matters."

This is Rumor Control decries Debka's "penchant to issue breathless accounts about “secret operations,” “secret networks,” “sophisticated strategies,” “behind-the-scenes pressures” and the like, " and calls some of its reporting "pure unadulterated fiction."

“DEBKAfile describes itself as " a self-supporting Internet publication devoted to independent, investigative reporting and forward analysis in the fields of international terrorism, intelligence, international conflict, Islam, military affairs, security and politics.”

Why does the Zoo care ? Because Debka is reporting the Israeli Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz opining that "all means are legitimate" to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Furthermore, buried deep in another article about new corruption charges against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, we find a timetable for the Iran attack. Here we find warnings from Minister Mofaz again, this time that Iran may achieve "command of uranium technology" by the end of 2008, putting weapons in reach by March or April.

According to Debka:

This warning carries a critical time frame for an American or Israel military attack: June, July or August, 2008. The window of action is then narrowed by the fall and approaching winter. After that it will be too late.

We argued for a later date, October, in a recent post, but Debka's sources may well be much better than ours and we were weighing suspected motives around influencing the November elections.

This analysis also requires all sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies to have been wrong in their unanimous opinion that no such early success by Iran is likely, but we have already questioned neocon attacks on that document.