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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (766636)	12/6/2007 2:09:23 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 769670

Hyper-partisan' The three authors of a National Intelligence Estimate seen as undermining the Bush administration's efforts to keep Iran from creating a nuclear weapon are all "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials," the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday in an editorial, citing an unidentified intelligence source. "As recently as 2005, the consensus estimate of our spooks was that 'Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons' and do so 'despite its international obligations and international pressure.' This was a 'high confidence' judgment. The new NIE says Iran abandoned its nuclear program in 2003 'in response to increasing international scrutiny.' This too is a 'high confidence' conclusion. One of the two conclusions is wrong, and casts considerable doubt on the entire process by which these 'estimates' — the consensus of 16 intelligence bureaucracies — are conducted and accorded gospel status," the newspaper said. "Our own 'confidence' is not heightened by the fact that the NIE's main authors include three former State Department officials with previous reputations as 'hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials,' according to an intelligence source. They are Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research; Vann Van Diepen, the National Intelligence Officer for WMD; and Kenneth Brill, the former U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "For a flavor of their political outlook, former Bush Administration antiproliferation official John Bolton recalls in his recent memoir that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage 'described Brill's efforts in Vienna, or lack thereof, as "bull——." ' Mr. Brill was 'retired' from the State Department by Colin Powell before being rehired, over considerable internal and public protest, as head of the National Counter-Proliferation Center by then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte."

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (766636)	12/6/2007 2:12:37 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 769670

Conflicted intelligence? By Claude Salhani December 6, 2007 Who does one turn to for intelligent intelligence in the absence of comprehensive intelligence from the intelligence community? For years the Bush administration was shouting to the world the perils of a nuclear-armed Iran. As recently as last summer there were persistent rumors — in fact, some sources believe it was more than rumors — that the United States was gearing up for a military strike on the Islamic republic's nuclear building sites. The "proof" was there, we were told. Suddenly, as of Monday, the latest release of a collective study by all 16 U.S. intelligence services — known as the National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, reveals Iran turned its back on its nuclear ambitions as early as 2003. But as far back as August 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran broke the story to the world that Iran was engaged in a secretive nuclear program to turn the Islamic republic into a nuclear-armed power. The Iranian opposition group offered proof, backed-up by photographs and satellite images, that Iran had built facilities in cities across the country. Iran had learned a lesson from Iraq's mistakes when it concentrated its nuclear facilities under one roof at Osirak. Israel put an end to Iraq's nuclear aspiration on June 7, 1981, when a squadron of Israeli F-16 fighters, escorted by F-15s, bombed the Iraqi facility. Not wishing to offer its enemies the same opportunity, the Islamic republic scattered its nuclear building sites across the country, rendering a military strike by the United States or Israel all that more difficult. There was a conversion plant at Isfahan, an enrichment facility at Natanz, a plutonium processing center at Arak; the list went on. The Iranian opposition group provided details of Iran's nuclear program down to the names and home addresses of government officials allegedly involved in building Iran's nuclear arsenal. Also last summer, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was calling for concrete action against Iran's nuclear sites before the Bush administration left office, saying he did not believe the next administration would have what it takes for a face-down with Iran. Now if we are to believe the combined U.S. intelligence community, none of this is real. The hype, the pressure, the meetings between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Iranians would have been theatrics. Granted, for those of us not in the intelligence community, much of this saga is pure guesswork based on facts made available to the public or the media. But not being part of the intelligence community doesn't mean we are totally lacking in intelligence, either. Something here is not right. Either the NIE is grossly mistaken, or all the information, intelligence, data, etc., provided by the Iranian opposition group, also known as the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, was intended to railroad the Bush administration into a military confrontation with Iran's ruling ayatollahs. But what about the statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran would continue its nuclear program come what may? Are we to believe now he never said that? Was it all part of our imagination? What about Mr. Ahmadinejad's recent statement that Iran now possessed more than 3,000 centrifuges? Or did that not happen as well? The answer to all the above questions is: hardly. Something is fundamentally wrong in the latest NIE report. The fundamental question is why this sudden reversal of policy? Is it, as asks Clare M. Lopez, a 20-year veteran CIA operations officer, in a column in the Middle East Times, "accepting that the NIE is actually the collective genuine conclusion of the intelligence community and not some elaborate ruse of disinformation means accepting that the overwhelming evidence about Iran's nuclear weapons program revealed during the last several years was nothing but a chimera." Indeed, for all this to be but a figment of our imagination is questionable. For the public to accept this unexpected policy reversal would perhaps require a gadget that erases memory, such as the one used by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the science fiction film, "Men in Black." Though closer to reality, one may question the timing of the release of the NIE report, on the heels of the Annapolis meeting. As Ms. Lopez notes, "this NIE smacks strongly of the politicization of intelligence inside the intelligence community, a charge last leveled at Republicans before the 2003 invasion of Iraq." If indeed there is truth to the NIE report, then there is a need for a much closer look at the intelligence provided by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The dilemma is how to gather enough intelligence on those who provided the intelligence? Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.