Seymour Hersh has another article in the New Yorker in which he states that the CIA

found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

He notes:

A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the C.I.A. analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it. The White House's dismissal of the C.I.A. findings on Iran is widely known in the intelligence community.

[...]

The C.I.A. assessment warned the White House that it would be a mistake to conclude that the failure to find a secret nuclear-weapons program in Iran merely meant that the Iranians had done a good job of hiding it.

[...]

But some in the White House, including in Cheney's office, had made just such an assumption -- that ``the lack of evidence means they must have it,'' the former official said.

This last statement is extraordinary: rather like this:

Team B began examining all the CIA data on the Soviet Union. But however closely they looked, there was little evidence of the dangerous weapons or defense systems they claimed the Soviets were developing. Rather than accept that this meant that the systems didn't exist, Team B made an assumption that the Soviets had developed systems that were so sophisticated, they were undetectible. For example, they could find no evidence that the Soviet submarine fleet had an acoustic defense system. What this meant, Team B said, was that the Soviets had actually invented a new non-acoustic system, which was impossible to detect. And this meant that the whole of the American submarine fleet was at risk from an invisible threat that was there, even though there was no evidence for it.

(see: ``The Power of Nightmares'' transcripts part 1)

See also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6167304.stm.

Hersh is not particularly optimistic about the effects of recent political changes in Washington.

Meanwhile, this article and map of ``the New Middle East'' indicate the lengths to which the Americans might be prepared to go to ``remake the Middle East''.

The Washington thugs in suits have not given up their plans for more war.