Bush Admin. Trying to Provoke Iran into a War

Yesterday we heard the President threaten Iran, today we have Rice making more threats. It is obvious this White House is preparing for war:

Speaking hours after US troops raided Iran's consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil and arrested five employees, Rice said Washington was determined to crack down on Iran's "regional aggression".

Rice declined to comment specifically on the operation in Arbil, which came shortly after President George W. Bush announced a new US strategy to end the violence in Iraq that included stepped up moves to counter Iranian and Syrian involvement in the country.

She also declined in three television interviews Thursday morning to rule out US military action against Iran, which she and Bush accused of supporting anti-US insurgents and "terrorists" in Iraq and of trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Bush made blunt and subtle threats last night:

In his speech, Bush also fueled concerns he could be preparing the ground for eventual strikes against Iran by announcing that he had ordered the deployment of an additional aircraft carrier strike group to the region and would provide Patriot anti-missile systems to nearby allies.

"We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq," he said.

Rice's words sound like war talk to me:

She added that Iranian meddling in Iraq "is not going to be tolerated".

Then we have the type of disinformation we had prior to the invasion of Iraq:

Al-Qaida poses the gravest terrorist threat to the United States, and an emboldened Hezbollah is a growing danger, the U.S. intelligence chief said Thursday.

There is no history of terrorism by Hezbollah directed against the U.S. outside of Lebanon. But here we have the neocons attempting to put that group alongside al Qaeda as a threat to America.

And lets not forget that the Pentagon is trying to increase the size of the military so they can engage in more wars of neocon crusades:

At a briefing to add details about President Bush's new Iraq strategy, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday said he would recommend increasing the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 troops over the next five years.

The cost of the troop increase would be enormous. The Army estimates that each additional 10,000 soldiers costs it about $1.2 billion a year. That does not include the cost of equipment needed for the additional soldiers.

Including indirect costs, such as equipment, the troop increase could add $15 billion or more to the annual defense budget, some analysts estimated.

Are these people preparing for Armageddon?