Soccer Dad

After examining the NIE I am less than impressed on many grounds, but the most dissatisfying is the bureaucratic overhead now present to produce such documents. And if you don't believe that bureaucracy influences INTEL... well, I step through it bit by bit to give a flavor of just how tha happens... and why.

to your question:

Caution, employing all of the Miss America "dialog" the self-immolating left can stomach. They've already made that clear.

So who exactly makes the decision to declassify these things?

Assuming this is correct, this is the difference between the doctor telling you you have cancer and probably one year to live, and telling you that you have cancer and may or may not live five years. Either way, the time to act is now.

To the extent that putting this information on the public record alters the strategic dialogue, it strikes me as a decision that really should be made by the President. At some point, someone needs to be hung out to dry for these making-policy-by-leak activities because the intelligence community really has no business providing anything other than information.

There is no great mystery why the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) turned around about the assertion that the Iranians were developing nuclear weapons. The 2005 estimate was fixed by the same person who tried to fix the last estimate, Dick Chaney. Chaney, more that any other person was also responsible for fixing the previous NIE that told us about all those Iraqi WMD You know the WMD that were stolen by space aliens in flying saucers shortly before we invaded Iraq.

Gareth Porter of IPS reports that the NIE has been floating between intelligence agencies and the Bush Administration for a year, because Chaney refuses to accept it, and the Intelligence agencies refuse to back down on their estimate.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has known since 2004 that the A.Q. Khan gang sold the Iranians defective centrifuge designs that can only enrich Uranium to reactor grade fuel, not atomic weapon material.

CNN reported at that time: “IAEA inspectors detailed its findings in the report titled “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran” – a report compiled for the June 14 meeting of the IAEA board of governors in Vienna, Austria. ”

The Iranian Nuclear project was blocked by the inability of the Iranians to perfect their production of the P-2 centrifuge. The IAEA has recently closed its case on Iranian centrifuges concluding that the Iranians were currently unable to produce weapons grade U235, and not interested in obtaining the technology to do so.

Most US intelligence agencies, recalling that the IAEA was spot on about the fraudulent Bush/Chaney claims about Iraqi nuclear weapons programs, dug in and refused to kowtow to Chaney’s demands for more dummied up intelligent estimates. There is no mystery here, only further evidence of the disgusting, corrupt, dishonesty and insane methods of the Bush Administration.

“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” reads a declassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate key findings. “We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon is late 2009.”

What this means is that the reason that they believe that Iran halted the program in 2003, is that they would otherwise already have a bomb. Somehow this is not very reassuring.

Actually, what does "halting the nuclear weapons program" mean. It sounds as if they already have the knowledge and capability to actually build and deliver nuclear weapons and only need to get sufficient explosive material to do so. Considering the latest reports about the Syrian hole in the ground (a bomb assembly plant), they may not need to do anything further.

Sabba Hillel, The Iranlans were unable to get the P-2 centrifuge to work properly. The appear to have given up on the P-2 design. Only the P-2 could enrich uranium to weapons grade levels. The Iranian government has decided, at least for the present to nor resist international pressure against expanding its uranium enrichment program. No one, including the Iranians, know what Iran might do in the future. We can only speculate. But speculation is not motive for launching another war. Chaney tried to bolster the case for war, by demanding another intelligence fix up. The Intelligence community is disgusted with Chaney anyway, because not only has he demanded false reports on the Iranians plans and capacities, he has also damaged the US anti-proliferation program for Iran by exposing one of its major covert operatives, Valerie Plame, endangering her life.

We actually do not know what the Syrians were doing, my guess is that the North Koreans had sold them some P-1 and P-2 centrifuges. Yu cannot build a bomb without highly enriched fissionable materials.

To read the NIE it is important to understand all the cooks that make this broth. Before something goes into the NIE it has to be agreed to by all the contributing agencies, including CIA, DIA, NSA and the State Dept. I&R. I've been out of the game a while, but years ago it seemed to me, based upon personal conversations with interested players, that many in the agencies (CIA, DIA, NSA) held the opinion that the analysts at I&R were more beholden to the policy making decissions of their bosses than was suitable for independent analysis. As such, a single fly in the ointment can water down an NIE finding to almost useless generalities. Unfortunately, recent times seem to show that the influence of policy on product has an invasive presence in at least the CIA as well.

I tend to agree with Sabba, though, that one piece of evidence that supported the evaluation of a halted program was the lack of more evidence of pregress. This stop-and-go development was exactly the MO we saw with the DPRK. Perform the required technological operations and testing needed to get the data you want, then agree to IAEA restrictions and lay low while the scientists do the book work and dual-use technologies are developed in parallel. When Iran needs more HEU or other materials for further testing and analysis they will start up again, but just long enough to slide under the radar.

are we to believe that a substantial U.S.-led military presence in Afghanistan and in Iraq (or potential presence in Iraq, depending on when in 2003 this change supposedly occurred), had nothing to do with Iran’s supposed decision?

Interesting theory, except that if it were true then they were very, very, very dumb to end production and not let us verify that they had ended production. By your theory, they were afraid of being attacked, then gave up something they wanted badly without gaining any increased security from it. To some extent they even fostered the impression that they were continuing the program, basically thumbing their noses at Bush.

Here's an alternate theory: they had a lot of technical difficulties with production (as the NIE says), and so it really wasn't getting them anywhere. So if Bush were to bomb the alleged production sites they'd lose nothing of value to them, but gain a lot of sympathy from both the Islamic world and anti-Bush nations, and then be able to produce evidence that they really had stopped production leaving Bush with WMD egg on his face yet again. Hence the nose-thumbing and the fostering of the impression that they were still pursuing nukes.

Given how U.S. intelligence underestimated the sophistication of Syria's bio-weapons program, I would certainly not put my trust in this report about Iran nuke development.
http://fieryspiritedzionist.blogspot.com/2007/12/syrian-bio-warfare-threat.html

?Interesting theory, except that if it were true then they were very, very, very dumb to end production and not let us verify that they had ended production." - bob

Bob the Iranians did allow verification in 2004 by IAEA inspectors. The IAEA has continued the inspection process until now and not detected further signs of that the Iranians had the capacity to produce nuclear weapons, or the intent to do so. What deity are the Bush supporters channeling, when they say that the Iranians still have a nuclear weapons program? They are living in a fantasy world in which George W. Bush and Dick Chaney are not the mad adventurers which they clearly are.

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' - Ron Suskin

Charles, your last post was a bit confusing, making it look as if you had written an article for Esquire and had the reported conversation with the mystery advisor. For clarity, the entire passage is a quote from a Ron Suskind article published in the New York Times October 17, 2004.

Now, I don't know Mr. Suskind, but the "quote" to me reads much more like something one on the left might imagine one on the right saying than anything I have ever heard anyone on the right actually say except in jest. Especially someone supposedly in a senior position in the administration speaking to a journalist.

I think it's pretty easy to understand why the appraent contradicton exists.

It's highly probable that Iran has already settled on a design for a nuclear weapon. I'd go further and state that most non-nuclear nations have a design or two burried deep in the secret corners of their military complex.

Once you've selected a design that suits you, the problem comes in creating or acquiring the necessary enriched nuclear material.

So it makes perfect sense to me that Iran would give up it's "nuclear weapon development" program while continuing to enrich uranium under the guise of an "energy program".

When you collect enough material, you simple assemble your weapon based on the design you've already got, whether it be a AQ Khan design or something acquired from the Soviets and elsewhere.

There's really no need for a "program" which can be discovered. Just assemble a team to assemble the device to plan, no overly-special (or suspicious) specialty buildings no need for a bureaucracy to leave behind a paper trail.

This becomes even simpler if you have no need to put your weapon into a missile, if you can settle for a clandestine ground delivery to your target, you can "almost" truthfully make the statement that you have no "nuclear weapons program" because your "program" is complete and just awaiting the enriched uranium material for the weapon's core.

This theory also explains why Iran is enriching uranium well beyond the point needed for energy production and which is more suited to use in a weapon.

--Jason

submandave, The entire quote is from Ron Suskin, "Faith, Certainty, and the Presidency of George W. Bush," published by the New York Times Magazine, on October 17, 2004.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?pagewanted=7&ei=5090&en=890a96189e162076&ex=1255665600&partner=rssuserland

I have found little evidence of right wing skepticism about Suskind's claim that a Bush aid made the statement. Jonah Goldberg, in NRO, claimed, "the Bush aide was largely right."

The attitude found in the quote is clearly reflected in a statement by the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, Sir Richard Dearlove. According to the Downing Street memo, Dearlove told Tony Blair's war planners that "there was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

Intelligence was to be fixed around policy, rather than the other way around, I do not know if "facts" are particularly a question of left or right wing, unless one assumes facts to have a left wing bias. I am ready to criticize either left or right when they play fast and loose with the facts.

There is an air of unreality about this post and other responses to it. Everyone seems to believe that they know the facts, even though the CIA disagrees. I don;t see a point to arguing endlessly with people who don't accept the possibility that they are wrong.

The detailed knowledge that Charles Barton claims regarding the inner workings of the Iran nuclear program, the IAEA, U.S. intelligence agencies, and the Bush administration might be more believable if he knew how to spell the Vice President's name. ;-)