Rush Limbaugh Program - January 18, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #2

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Jan. 18, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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January 18, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #2

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	Thanks, Johnny Donovan.
	Thanks uh to you too for tuning in to this, your favorite radio station for the excellence in broadcasting network, the Rush Limbaugh program.
	I too am disappointed that Rush isn't here.
	It's one of the worst parts of my day is when I tune in and he's gone.
	But the fact of the matter is, he's off having a good time back at the Bob Hope Desert Classic.
	He hasn't been there in a while, and the uh he was looking forward to it, and we're happy for him.
	You can go to RushLimbaugh.com, Rush Limbaugh.com, and you'll be able to see him having some fun out there.
	He'll be back this next week.
	We're at the uh East Coast office of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, where there's never a final exam, but we are tested daily.
	And by the way, quick note uh phone number 800 28282, 800-282-2882.
	That line always open to you because we want to hear what you have to say.
	But a little unfinished business from the last hour, Roy in Dearborn, uh, and anybody who's listening in a situation where uh you know the signal for AM doesn't come into buildings or have problems in certain areas, of course, the answer is podcasting.
	And in fact, to this program, podcasts.
	You can go to Rush Limbaugh.com and it'll all be explained to you there.
	But at least uh for the short term, that's the easy answer for your problem, uh Roy, and for anybody else who can't hear this fine program inside a building if it's on uh AM radio.
	And I don't know if HD radio or any of that other new stuff is going to change that.
	I just don't know, but I do know that podcasting does work.
	Kenneth Timmerman has uh has brought uh awareness to the threats facing our country to millions of readers around the nation.
	In fact, it was in nineteen ninety-eight he tracked renegade Saudi financier Osama bin Laden and his international terrorist network halfway across the globe.
	He was doing that, I think, at the time for uh Reader's Digest.
	Matter of fact, he's written lots of books too about that the death lobby, how the West Armed Iraq, etc., etc.
	Uh most recently, uh countdown to crisis, the coming nuclear showdown with Iran.
	Obviously, uh Kenneth, you have gotten my attention.
	My name's Paul W. Smith.
	We haven't talked before, but I'm uh truly interested in hearing what you have to say, since Iran is so much in the news and you know so much about them.
	Well, I appreciate you having me on, Paul, and uh it sure is in the news, and the story, by the way, is going to be coming to New York next one next month when uh Iran's case gets referred to the UN Security Council.
	Well, and as well it should as they're playing this deadly nuclear game of chicken with the world.
	It it you you you start to think uh well, I I don't want to say that.
	I I don't when you have a country that is uh debating whether the Holocaust took place and their president uh who says the Holocaust didn't take place, but then again, if it did take place, uh then uh then all the Jews should leave Israel and go to Germany because they're the ones who did it and they should be responsible for taking care of it.
	I mean, it is it's madness.
	Add to that nuclear weaponry and a hate for the United States, and it gets our attention.
	Uh it it sure does.
	Now, the those statements that you just mentioned about the Holocaust were uttered by the new Iranian president, uh Mahmoud Madinijad, and this is the man who has also said that Israel should be wiped off the map.
	Uh you know, the Iranians have been saying that for the past twenty-six years, ever since the so-called Islamic Revolution in 1979, but it's only been recently that they have uh gained the technical wherewithal, the weaponry to be able to carry out that uh agenda.
	You know, they parade their Shahab III missiles.
	Uh these are missiles that were built with the help from the Russians in the night mid-1990s, and the Clinton administration did not stop, and they could have.
	They prayed those missiles around Tehran with big banners across them that say Israel must be wiped off the map.
	So you've got intent, and now you've got capability.
	Well my concern is, as we talk with Kenneth Timmerman, uh, and he's been uh studying Iran, following them for a long time.
	Uh how is it that our intelligence uh has not had warnings, or as you have uh said, ignored warnings about Iran's secret to nuclear program.
	How could that be?
	Well, I I think that's a really good question, Paul, and I and I asked that in countdown the crisis.
	You know, I'm just a journalist, and yet in nineteen eighty eighty seven, as I'm reading the Iranian press and and listening to what they're saying in their own broadcasts, uh they they they announced publicly that they have signed a deal, nineteen eighty-seven, with the infamous Pakistani nuclear scientist, A. Q. Khan.
	This is the man who's the father of the Islamic bomb.
	And for some reason that just didn't seem to get on the radar screen of our intelligence community.
	Uh and uh they missed most of the transfers from the Khan network to Iran until 2003, when they when they uh began to track the network anew.
	You you say that the Moolas have already enough uh nuclear material for twenty to twenty-five bombs.
	Are you saying they have those bombs?
	No, what I what what I do say, and I'm trying I I try to be very careful about exactly what we know and then what we don't know.
	Here's what we do know, and we know this because the International Atomic Energy Agency has finally, finally, after 18 years of closing its eyes to what's going on in Iran, uh demanded that the Iranians uh come clean on some of their programs.
	They have their inspectors have seen documents and actual shipments of uh 2,000 centrifuges uh sent by these are to enrich uranium to make uh uh potentially nuclear weapons uh material uh shipped to Iran by the Khan network in 1995, uh 1994, 1995, 1996.
	Now, if the Iranians had used those those centrifuges, today they could have enough nuclear weapons material for twenty to twenty-five bombs.
	Now, they want us to believe that they kept them in crates in a warehouse all this time.
	I sure wouldn't bet my security on that.
	Hey, and by the way, uh Kenneth is kind enough to take your calls.
	There are probably questions you have.
	We want you to participate here on the Rush Limbaugh program at 800-282-2882.
	While he's here with us, he will definitely take your calls at 800-282-2882.
	There's a lot in uh your most recent book.
	I should point out that this is not new to Kenneth.
	He's been following these issues for some time, but he's talking now of the coming nuclear showdown with Iran, not just because Iran's in the news so much lately and we're trying to figure out what to do with them.
	But you do talk about a lot of what would have to be considered failures by the CIA along the way regarding many of the issues with Iran.
	That's right.
	And and frankly, I think these are these are devastating failures that show that uh our intelligence community may just be broken beyond repair.
	Uh I start out the book with the with a pretty incredible story uh that was told to me by an Iranian defector, a man who worked really at the highest reaches of Iranian government intelligence, and he was personally present in January and May of 2001, when Osama bin Laden's son, his eldest son Saad, and his number two, a man who's been in the news recently, Al-Za Wafri, the man that we thought the CIA killed with a predator drone just a couple of days ago in Pakistan.
	This intelligence officer was present when they were in Iran in May and and January and May of 2001 to meet with top Iranian government officials to do what?
	To help plan the September eleventh attacks.
	Now he came out uh and went to the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan, next door to Iran, in July of 2001.
	And he met with the CIA and he said, you know, he told them this story, and they uh essentially brushed him off, gave them a couple hundred dollars, and told them to get lost.
	Well, uh and then your book goes on to say, too, uh the agency uh tried to smear and discredit him after.
	That's right.
	And I think that little section is called uh CIA CYA.
	Uh they they missed they missed the clue, and now they try to smear the source that provided it to them.
	Do you you even have a note uh here, uh, Kenneth Timmerman, that uh uh White House counterterrorism advisor at the time in Media Darling, Richard Clark, steered the intelligence community away from a terrorism investigation of the attack of TWA Flight 800?
	Yeah, he was uh actually critical, uh we've now learned, uh because he was in the White House at the time.
	He was critical to uh uh uh focusing the investigation on that center fuel tank, which uh uh many people still believe it was not the cause of the TWA eight hundred disaster.
	Well, there's a lot here, uh, including a story that I hadn't heard before about a congressman who who became apparently so frustrated with the CIA and their their refusal to act on the intelligence that bin Laden was in Iran that this Congressman actually tried to tried to uh hire a bounty hunter himself.
	Yeah, it's uh it's a pretty incredible story.
	He told this to me about uh two and a half years ago.
	This took place in in two thousand three, uh uh late two thousand three, and he and uh the way he told me the story, it goes like it goes like this, Paul.
	He he goes in to see George Tennant, who's then the director of CIA, and he tells them that they know where bin Laden is in Iran, and that he's gonna get an invitation to go to Iran as part of a congressional delegation and bring this bounty hunter along with him.
	And Tennett, after he gets himself up off of the floor, uh he looks at the Congressman, he says, you know, Congressman, you really don't want to be involved in this kind of thing.
	It's too bad he wasn't.
	Uh we've got some folks who want to speak with you.
	We appreciate that you're gonna stick around.
	Kenneth Timmerman is here.
	Uh Countdown to Crisis, the coming nuclear showdown with Iran, it's in the headlines, and this guy has some insight that he can share.
	And you have some questions to ask, and we look forward to them here at 800-282-2882.
	That's 800-282-2882 on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	I'm Paul W. Smith.
	Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh.
	Hope your day's going well.
	Nice to be able to spend a part of it here with you on your favorite radio station.
	And talking with interesting guests and interesting uh callers, also uh part of our guest lineup, you at uh 800-282-2882.
	800-282-2882 in the news.
	Uh Europeans, the United States, if they can succeed in referring Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council, sanctions or other enforcement actions would be uh a long way off if imposed at all, but a minimum at a minimum, the West is uh counting on a political and diplomatic embarrassment for Tehran.
	Uh Kenneth Tim Timmerman, can we embarrass uh Iran?
	Can we embarrass them?
	Are they concerned about becoming a uh pariah like uh North Korea, for example?
	You know, they've been at Pariah State since uh 1979, uh when they took uh the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and our uh uh diplomats hostage for 444 days.
	So I don't think you're going to shame them into good behavior.
	Uh I have always said and been arguing for a long time uh with uh people in its this administration and and previously in the Clinton administration that we should be empowering the Iranian people, aiding the pro-democracy forces in Iran to change the regime because they are not going to change their behavior.
	And we know that we don't like each other, but I was uh concerned as much about Russia and China, who are now in this mix in a very big way as well.
	Uh well that's right.
	And and the key to the de uh the uh diplomatic piece here is going to be getting uh the Russians and the Chinese at the very least to abstain to some sort of uh significant uh sanctions resolution at the UN Security Council.
	If it's a watered down sanctions, uh frankly, it's not going to have any impact whatsoever, and it'll just allow the Iranians to gain time.
	We need something with teeth in it.
	I believe we should really hit them where it hurts in the pocketbook, and uh, for instance, do some of the things that we did to Libya uh in retaliation for Pan Am 103.
	Well, interestingly enough, uh, as we have Kenneth Timmerman with us, an expert on Iran, uh that's one of the questions that Steve in Ottawa, Kansas, has.
	Uh Steve, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
	Paul.
	Hello.
	Hello, Steve.
	Paul, it's an honor to speak with you.
	I am a first-time caller.
	I have been listening for years, and uh uh I don't recall hearing you on the program before, but I am uh thoroughly enjoying your broadcast.
	Well, thank you very much, Steve.
	Uh, okay.
	Um what I was thinking, Paul, what about a sim uh uh uh unilateral uh naval blockade?
	Um, as far as hitting them in the in the pocketbook.
	Just the very thing that Ken was talking about, some uh some economic uh uh clout, some sanctions.
	Well, Steve, thanks for that.
	I think in the end we may ratchet up to a naval blockade, and we may get there.
	Uh we have to start with something a bit smaller because it's very important that we keep uh the Europeans on board.
	We learned with the Iraq debacle at the uh UN in 2003.
	That's an earlier book I did called The French Betrayal of America.
	We learned that the French can be great spoilers if they're not along with us.
	Uh and the key, we want to keep the French, the Germans, the British with us, and they're gonna go with us on a uh pretty significant economic and diplomatic uh sanctions passage uh package.
	They could go along, for instance, with pr with preventing Iranian aircraft from landing anywhere in Europe.
	They could go along with preventing Iranian diplomats and intelligence officers from traveling anywhere in the world.
	They could embargo uh uh Iran's state shipping lines, and they're and they're actually pretty extensive, and they could block certain oil deliveries.
	We could, though, get to an oil blockade, a naval blockade, that could be down the road.
	But you have to kind of ratchet this up bit by bit.
	Let's get to North Carolina, and Laurie joins us on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	I'm Paul W. Smith, along with our guest Kenneth or Timmerman.
	Hi, Laurie.
	Hi.
	Mr. Timmer Timmerman, this is Laurie Byrd.
	Um, I blog at PolyPundit.com, and I have um quoted frequent frequently from a piece you did at Front Page Magazine in 2004 about the findings of the Iraqi um survey group.
	And my question relating to Iran is um uh how is our intelligence there different than it was in Iraq?
	And from things I've read that you've written before, um I think our intelligence in Iraq probably wasn't as bad as most people think it was.
	But um I wondered how um our intelligence in Iran is different than Iraq.
	Th thanks very much for that, Lori, and I and I appreciate you you citing that uh uh piece from Front Page Mag.
	It is not very well known that uh uh you know the extent to which Iraq had become one vast weapons factory.
	I mean, they had a uh missile plant north of Baghdad that was as big as Detroit.
	Uh it was just enormous, and they had, you know, hundreds of factories like that all across the country.
	Uh they might have taken out some of the stockpiles of weapons, but all you know, a lot of the manufacturing equipment and the facilities and the people were still there.
	Our intelligence in Iran today is based on uh defectors that the CIA won't talk to, but you can read their stories in my book, but it's also uh uh based on pretty hard documentary evidence that uh the IAEA, the international uh inspectors from Vienna have been able to gather over the past two and a half years in uh Iran.
	They've been able to go to some of these nuclear facilities, take pictures, get documents of the equipment that's in there.
	So we have a pretty good idea of the type of capabilities that they're building up.
	Let me just add one thing here.
	In November 2004, Colin Powell mentioned new intelligence had come in, a laptop compu computer from an Iraqi an Iranian uh in Iranian missile scientist, and on that computer they found designs to uh put a nuclear warhead on top of Iran's missiles that are capable of reaching Israel.
	So we know as well, that's a pretty sure uh indicator that the Iranians are trying to get uh nuclear weapons.
	And we found their fingerprints, Iran's and Syria's for that matter, on EFPs.
	That was classified information at one point isn't any longer those explosively formed penetrators, the EF projectiles that are doing so much damage to our armored uh vehicles there, uh with parts from Iran, clearly, and with, as I say, their fingerprints on them.
	I I don't know what more proof we need.
	Let's go to Claire in Encinitas, California, here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Claire.
	Hi, Paul.
	I'm sorry to tell you, I'm looking over the Pacific Ocean and watching some pelican and it's a beautiful sunny day.
	Well, I'm looking over uh Manhattan and seeing uh gloopy conditions at best.
	Although I it's not it doesn't look is it still raining out?
	It is still raining.
	Okay.
	You know, there's no fr I love Manhattan, I love New York City, but it's a tough place to be in the rain.
	Okay, so you've held that over us now.
	In fact, you've helped us because we're picturing the beautiful weather that Russia's enjoying over there uh at the uh Bob Hope Desert Classic.
	That's right.
	Well, my question to Mr. Timmerman is just from a basic psychological standpoint.
	Um Iran's not poor.
	They're not like North Korea that desperately needs money and food.
	What do they really want to achieve at the at the end?
	Do they really want to just bluster and look famous?
	Are they waiting for us to leave Iraq to join up with the uh cowy?
	What what would make them at the table?
	It's a good question.
	It's a very good question, Claire.
	Yes, it it is.
	Thank you for that, Claire.
	Yes.
	What is our leverage?
	What is it that they really care about?
	How do we we really hit them?
	Uh I lay some of this out in Countdown to Crisis, but but I can really sum it up in one single phrase.
	They want to preserve their power.
	They want to stay in power.
	That's what dictators do.
	They want to s uh uh retain this so-called Islamic uh government that they have, uh, where uh the supreme leader takes his cue from God and no elected official can counter countermand what he says.
	Uh and they want at all costs to preserve that.
	So that's why I have always argued That our greatest weapon is to try to undermine the regime from within to help the pro-democracy forces uh in Iran to uh overthrow the regime.
	In the meantime, we need to isolate them as much as we possibly can.
	We need to delegitimize them in in the international community and and expose them as we did with the apartheid regime in South Africa to international uh uh sanctions and approprium.
	You know what?
	I I'll tell you what I'd like to do when we come back.
	I'd like to get your opinion, uh, Kenneth Timmerman, as an expert on what you think the biggest mistake we've made in Iraq, what we need to avoid in Iran, and in fact, what you think if you had the President's ear right now, and you very well may, what we should do in Iran, how we should deal with them.
	Will you help us with that when we come back?
	We'll continue here in the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
	It's the Rush Limbaugh program.
	I'm Paul W. Smith.
	Thanks, Johnny Donovan, and uh we continue with Kenneth Timmerman, who's written a number of books, The Death Lobby, How the West Armed Iraq, uh the French Betrayal of America, and uh his latest countdown to crisis, the coming nuclear showdown with Iran.
	This is not a book that was rushed into print because of everything that's going on with Iran.
	This guy's been uh following uh these problems in this part of the world for a very long time.
	And I asked you as we took our break here on uh the Rush Limbaugh program, Kenneth, the the biggest mistake you think we've made in Iraq, if you would.
	Well, uh frankly, I think in Iraq uh the problem was that we had a plan when we went in and uh in mid-course we essentially ditched it and went with another plan.
	Uh there was sabotage from within the Bush administration, from people in the CIA and the State Department.
	Uh they did not want to see a uh uh an Iraqi government stood up right after the invasion, and they they turned a the liberation of Iraq into an occupation, and that was a huge mistake, created the insurgency, led to two thousand American dead, and it didn't have to be that way.
	If if in fact that is true, what's been done with the saboteurs within the administration and the CIA?
	Uh well, you know, as generally happens in in uh Washington Paul, they tend to get promoted.
	No, no.
	I was afraid you were gonna say that.
	Oh boy.
	All right.
	Uh and now what should we do?
	And we are getting back to you callers uh that are uh calling in at 800-282-2882, 800-282-2882.
	But what should we do, in your opinion, if you were to sit down with the President of the United States right now, Dr. Rice, etc.
	Uh with Iran.
	Well, Iran obviously presents a very serious challenge, but also a great opportunity.
	The first thing we absolutely have to recognize is that the Islamic Republic of Iran declared war on us.
	They declared war in 1979 when they took our embassy, and they've never given up.
	They blew up our embassy in uh Beirut in 83, they killed our Marines, 241 in 83, and on and on and on.
	Is there ever a chance before I forget to ask you this question of us ever coming to an understanding and and actually getting along with an Iran?
	If we listen to them and they listen to us, or is that impossible?
	Well, you know, there are people in this country who believe that all we need to do is sit down at a table like reasonable people and thrash out our differences.
	That was the Clinton philosophy.
	It's what the Council on Foreign Relations believe, and it's what some people in the State Department believe.
	I happen to believe that if you look at twenty-six years of behavior by this regime, it's incredibly delusional to believe that they would uh want to seek uh any kind of arrangement with us that wouldn't keep them in power, keep them killing Americans, and keep their missiles pointed at Israel.
	Well, then uh it sounds as if there's only one thing for us to do, and uh but you tell me what it is.
	Well, here's here's point number two.
	We need to name the enemy.
	And I would tell the President the enemy is this regime.
	It's this clerical regime in Iran.
	Number three, we need to use all the tools at our disposal to get rid of the regime, to help the Iranian people to uh uh to to achieve their freedom and to have another a different regime.
	We need to use economic tools, diplomatic sanctions, we need to use political subversion, we need to help the pro-democracy forces inside Iran.
	We need to use the Iranian intelligence agencies against themselves.
	Everything is for sale in Iran.
	You can buy just about anybody in Iranian intelligence, and we're not doing it.
	We can so panic through this throughout this regime by Taking some uh covert measures that would be uh pretty extraordinary, not just in the intel take, but also in in you know uh upsetting and subverting the regime.
	Not that it should have any uh uh uh bearing, but do we have, as Americans, the fire in the belly to go through and do what we need to do with Iran after, post-Iraq?
	Well, you know, after 9-11, uh we thought that we had the fire in our belly to fight the war on the short memories.
	We have the shortest memories.
	And we have short memories.
	And my fear is that it's going to take an Iranian mushroom cloud over an American city or over Israel for people to recognize that we are indeed at war.
	It's this regime that's declared war, and that we need to fight it and to counter them.
	And with all you know from all of your experience and all the time you have been studying this, uh, how likely are we to see a mushroom cloud over the United States or over Israel from Iran?
	Well, you know, one of the things I I talk about in the book is the test in 1998 uh that the Iranians carried out in the Caspian Sea of a sea launched ballistic missile.
	They they launched it off a barge in the Caspian.
	They could today, if they had the nuclear warhead, and we just don't know for sure whether they've got it or not, they could hand off a nuclear warhead to a terrorist group, put it on board a cargo ship uh off the coasts of the United States, off the coast of New York or Baltimore or or Los Angeles,
	Miami, and detonate and and send a nuclear uh warhead over a U.S. city or launch an EMP weapon over uh high up in um uh uh you know in in this you know 300 kilometers uh overhead and shut down our telecommunication system and um uh basically uh our entire defenses.
	You uh I want to get back to our callers, and I promise our callers that's what we'll do.
	Uh do you agree with what the President has been doing, what's been called domestic spying, whatever you want to call it, eavesdropping.
	Do you agree that he needs to do this sort of thing to protect us?
	Well, duh.
	I mean, uh you know, if he's not going to if the intelligence uh agencies are not going to be able to uh pursue the communications of suspected terrorists, and remember, uh the these calls initiate with somebody who is known to have ties to Al Qaeda overseas.
	Of course they want to know.
	So then it's okay for all of us from this point on to quote you as an expert, and when someone asks us that question, we will just all say, let's do it all together.
	Duh.
	Let's get to uh Levi in Los Angeles, California on a cell phone call.
	Levi?
	Hi, how are you doing?
	Thanks for having me.
	It's our pleasure.
	Um the question I have is uh what to what extent is Iran honoring their signatory status um in their treaty for nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, and uh how ready is the Pentagon to use our own uh bunker busting mini-noose if we were to engage in armed conflict with Iran.
	Two two very good questions, Levi.
	Uh let me see if I can answer them uh succinctly.
	Uh Iran is in violation of Article II of the nonproliferation treaty, which it ratified in 1970, which requires that any nation that seeks to get peaceful nuclear energy or nuclear technology must have an entirely transparent program and must provide confidence that they are not pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program.
	So Iran has violated that very clearly by a number of different actions that they've taken.
	And the Democrats asked us to sign another treaty again?
	Yeah, I think probably they have.
	Yeah, that's their next step.
	Go ahead, Number.
	All right, now we're not going to be able to do that.
	As far as the uh nuclear bunk bunker busting bombs, we don't have them, unfortunately.
	If it failed in the Senate by one vote, the Democrats opposed it.
	Uh research was uh uh uh uh planned to go ahead and it was canned by the arms control cloud uh crowd.
	We have conventional bunker busting bombs, and we transferred quite publicly in February of last year, five hundred of them to the Israelis.
	And the Israelis have been uh uh practicing ever since then uh long-range uh strikes uh that uh if if push comes to shove and the international community does not take necessary action against Iran, that the Israelis will in fact go after 50, 60, 70 buried targets in Iran.
	Levi uh nice questions appreciated.
	Bob is in Mountain View, California with Kenneth R. Timmerman on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Bob.
	Hi, thanks for taking my call.
	Kenneth, you do great work.
	Thank you.
	Drawing a distinction between the people and the regime.
	Similar to what happened in Iraq, it appears Jacques Chirac really did have Saddam Hussein's back.
	Who's got a Mr. Adima John's back?
	Ah, now that's a very good question.
	Uh I would look to the Russians, frankly.
	Uh and uh the Russians have been uh uh in fact i in the appendix of my book, there's a a strategic study that was given to President Yeltsin in nineteen ninety-five that now you can see has been carried out almost step by step.
	It was done by his chief of staff, and they said uh we in Russia need to have a strategic relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
	We should transfer nuclear weapons capabilities, technologies, and ballistic missile technologies.
	Why?
	To counter the United States and challenge u U.S. power in the Persian Gulf.
	So I think Russia is the one who's got Madhinejad's back.
	But are they losing control?
	Uh uh is Iran becoming Russia's unruly child uh that's uh striking out on their own?
	Uh I don't think so, because um, you know, the what the Russians have asked in in exchange are a couple of things, and they're getting them all.
	Uh one is is a great deal of business.
	Uh two is no Iranian aid to the Chechen rebels, and and the Iranians have uh gone along with that, uh, just as they went along with no aid to the Afghan rebels in the nineteen eighties in exchange uh for Russian weapons.
	And uh three that uh Iran uh basically tie America's hands in the Persian Gulf, and they're more than happy to do that.
	Tim is in Sarasota, Florida on the Rush Limbaugh program with Kenneth Timmerman.
	Tim?
	Paul, good afternoon.
	You're doing a great job as a substitute at the Limbaugh Institute.
	Thanks, Tim.
	And uh if I can may uh a quick thanks to my dad for uh the Limbaugh letter subscription for Christmas.
	Oh, that's a nice gift.
	You can go to Rush Limbaugh.com, get more information about that.
	And uh Kenneth, uh a question for you, you seem to be quite the wealth of knowledge, and I'm I'm gonna end up debating some uh unread loon and I will have you as my arsenal of information Well then wait a minute, get ready.
	Duh.
	I think duh, if I could if I could suffice for all my arguments with these loons with duh, I would really be happy.
	Um they're gonna go on like they did with the Iraq thing and say, look, we can we can do this with a system of containment.
	And you're talking about economic sanctions and political sanctions, but can we contain them?
	And they have a broader terror network than people were aware of and and a bigger terror supporters.
	Can we contain this country?
	That's a good question.
	We'll get a good answer, I'm sure, up next.
	I'm Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh.
	U.S. Ambassador John Bolton saying Iran's nuclear weapons program is a classic threat to international peace and security.
	Iran saying there are no restrictions for nuclear research activities under the nonproliferation treaty protocol, and Iran has not accepted any obligation not to carry out research.
	And they say, how is it possible to prevent the scientific development of a nation?
	What's wrong with you guys, they say?
	Tim in Sarasota asked the question, will containment succeed?
	Can containment happen there in Iran, Kenneth Timmerman, the author of Countdown to Crisis, the coming nuclear showdown with Iran.
	Uh the answer uh to that, and by the way, it's a great question, Tim, and I thank you for it.
	The answer is very simple.
	No, we can't contain them.
	Uh we have been trying to contain them for twenty-six years, and they keep on uh poking their heads out and poking the missiles out and poking the nuclear programs out.
	Uh freedom is the answer.
	And uh the Iranian people, I think, have overwhelmingly chosen freedom by their boycotts of recent elections.
	Uh the mainstream press, or I guess what we should call really the formerly mainstream press, uh has called the new president, Ahmadi Najad, someone who was elected by a landslide.
	Well, if he was elected by a landslide, it was a landslide of absentee voters who never showed up with the polls.
	Uh I was uh looking at watching some of the polls.
	You know, the Iran has become a lot more modern in recent years.
	They have video camps at uh on major inner at major intersections in Tehran, and I was watching that on the internet during the elections, uh, and all of the polling places that you could find, a dozen of them, were empty almost the entire day.
	Well, and they claim they have video cameras on their nuclear facilities as well, proving that they're not doing anything wrong.
	Right.
	Well, those those video cameras are are tampered with uh by the Iranians and uh they just took the seals off and deactivated the cameras uh last week.
	So uh so much for that type of control.
	If the regime doesn't agree to it, uh it doesn't happen.
	Uh we cannot contain them.
	That is the short answer.
	Mark is in Bristol, Connecticut with a question here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Paul W. Smith in for Rush, Kenneth Timmerman taking the call, Mark.
	Hi guys, how are you?
	Good.
	It's a pleasure to talk to you.
	I have a real serious question, and this is something that's been bothering me ever since I've really gotten into politics is the fact that you hear sir some of these people who are just so anti Bush that I mean do do they seriously understand what's going on, or are they just so hateful of Bush that they don't see that this is a threat, that they don't see that we actually are in a war, that we need to protect our citizens, and that we need to do stuff to to get uh our enemy?
	Do that do they not see it, or that do they just s so consumed by hate?
	That too is a very good question.
	That in fact Russia's brought up a number of times, uh, many of these issues.
	Is it just that some people are just so consumed with being anti-Bush?
	It's a good question, and uh, I'd love to hear, Kenneth, how you handle that.
	Well, Mark, thanks for that.
	Uh uh I'm I'm afraid that there is a you know, a segment of the U.S. population and the U.S. Congress that is so consumed uh with hatred for the President that uh uh they would not uh uh see a threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran until a nuclear weapon exploded uh over one of our cities.
	Uh but I don't think that's the case of the majority of our population.
	I think uh most Americans uh have a great deal of good common sense.
	Uh and uh I think it's going to be incumbent upon the president in the coming weeks to lay out the evidence and lay out a fac make a factual presentation, which I'm told he will do during the State of the Union address, of what the Iranians are doing in their nuclear uh programs and why this poses a clear and present danger to the United States and to world peace.
	In Chino Hills, California, it's Dana's turn.
	Dana.
	Yes, good morning, Mr. Smith.
	Hi.
	Um my question uh uh is for Mr. Zimmerman with regard to the Israelis uh capability in making the strike on Iran.
	I understand uh he was referring to the uh bunker buster bombs that uh we apparently have given Israel Isra the Israelis uh for practice purposes.
	Do they have the launch capabilities uh the get of the missile distance to actually make contact uh in Iran with those sites, and do they have the numbers necessary?
	Would they be using uh MERVs or uh would it be single warheads against each target?
	Uh Dana, thanks for that.
	It's uh Ken Timmerman with the T, and the Israelis uh have been practicing air strikes uh with their Air Force uh against uh potential uh Iranian targets.
	But let me just be very clear about this.
	This is the last option.
	It is the worst option.
	Uh you're talking about a major regional conflict and things spiraling out of control.
	Should we get to this point, the Israelis don't want to do it, but neither do they want to commit suicide.
	And they and they're not going to do that.
	Quick last uh thought from Said in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Saeed.
	Yes, uh Mr. Timerman, again, uh honored to speak with you now for a second time.
	You are a real friend of the Iranian people, and your analysis is so on the money here.
	Uh to those who think that the Iranian regime can be bargained with and can be contained, all they have to do is look at the history of the last uh thirty years of how these Ayatollah since 1979 have dealt with their own internal opposition.
	Um they they lured the leaders of the Kurdish uh minority in Iran into a restaurant in in uh in fr uh in uh Germany and uh killed them, opened uh machine gun and killed them.
	Um any uh uh uh uh contract or negotiation or concession that they have made to any of their own opposition has in due time been been uh uh been discarded and disbanded um and they have no record of compliance with any treaty or any agreement that they uh that that they that they signed.
	Said your question turned into a comment and a good one, and we appreciate it, but we're out of time.
	Kenneth, thanks for spending time with us.
	We do appreciate it.
	Thank you so much.
	I appreciate that, Paul, and amen to Saeed's comment.
	The latest book, Countdown to Crisis, the coming nuclear showdown with Iran by our guest, Kenneth R. Timmerman, as we continue on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	I'm Paul W. Smith.
	Well, I'm looking forward to this uh next and final hour of the Rush Limbaugh program for today, and that is because we'll be taking a look at Iraq through Paul Bramer's rear view mirror, former head of the coalition provisional authority in Iraq.
	As you know, he is out and about talking about his new book, My Year in Iraq.
	You've probably seen and heard him making the rounds today.
	You'll get a chance to talk with him, and we're looking forward to giving you that opportunity at 800-282-2882, 800-282-288-2, as we continue sharing some time together here on your favorite radio station.
	It's the Rush Limbaugh program.

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