Thread by @ClimateAudit

The most definitive White House statement purporting to justify the Israel-US war on Iran was its March 2, 2026 statement entitled "The Iranian Regime's Decades of Terrorism against American Citizens".
whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/…

After a brief editorial opening, the article lists 44 incidents with a total of 992 US deaths. The source of the data wasn't given. Where did it come from?

Unlike the Iraq war or the Russia collusion allegation, the reporting didn't come from an intelligence assessment, flawed or otherwise.

It turns out that the list was plagiarized by the White House from a June 19, 2025 list (fdd.org/analysis/2025/…) prepared by a former AIPAC employee (Tzvi Kahn) for a think tank (FDD) founded "to provide education to enhance Israel's image in North America". The think tank's original identity was "EMET (Hebrew for 'truth')". The June 19, 2025 publication was literally on the eve of the first US bombing of Iran on June 21, 2025.

In this thread, I'll compare each and every item in the White House statement to the corresponding item in the original list by the former AIPAC employee. The list is virtually identical. Any slight changes are always in the change of ratcheting up the underlying allegation.

2/ Here's the first set of comparisons between the two documents. There are going to be about 7 pages of this. Note the more or less exact match of 5 incidents. Only the two grey outlined boxes don't match. The slight changes in the plagiarized White House version are occasionally in the direction of embellishment.

3/ the next six incidents match in both FDD and White House lists. The White House version adds "Iran-backed" in all six lists and made a firm attribution where FDD had noted "claimed responsibility".

4/ the next five incidents similarly match up to slight editorial.

Note the ratcheting up of attribution of Khobar Towers incident in Saudi Arabia in 1996. FDD said that Hezbollah al-Hejaz was "deemed responsible", while White House asserted as a fact. Clinton's Defense Secretary William Perry subsequently wondered (along with many others) whether Khobar Towers should have been attributed to Al Qaeda - see upi.com/Defense-News/2…

The attribution of Khobar Towers had a strange connection to Russia collusion hoax. Clinton administration had wrestled for years on attribution. The Saudi government had obtained confessions from Shia prisoners, but the then DC Attorney was skeptical and refused to charge. In the very early days of incoming Bush administration in 2001, while the incoming administration was disorganized, the then Acting Deputy Attorney General (Robert Mueller) transferred the case to EDVA where an ambitious AUSA (James Comey) took over the case and promptly (summer 2001) indicted Saudi Hezbollah operatives.

From time to time, I've wondered whether subsequent history might have unfolded differently if Mueller and Comey had spent as much time on Al Qaeda in their 2001 investigations as on the insubstantial Saudi Hezbollah.

I've also wondered whether Comey's experience with the powers displayed by an Acting Deputy Attorney General in February 2001 influenced his manipulations in February 2017 to recuse Sessions and put an Acting Deputy Attorney General (Dana Boente) in charge of the Russia collusion investigation in March 2017 in Comey's successful operation to institutionalize the investigation by announcing it to the public, thus precipitating the demand for a special counsel.

5/ the next five in the White House list correspond to FDD entries. The FDD author (formerly AIPAC) purported to attribute responsibility to Iran for a supposed role in 9/11. The White House didn't follow this.
The attribution of 603 military deaths in Iraq to "Iran-backed militias" is the largest single item (by far) in the entire list, accounting for 60% of the total attributed deaths. This attribution is not made in the State Department annual reports on Global Terrorism/ The attribution is also vigorously disputed by Matthew Hoh and Scott Horton, both of whom have subject matter expertise.