Iran and the NIE
If you haven’t already read the nine-page National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear intentions and capabilities, it’s here. What’s not making headlines (the certainty that Iran indeed had a nuke program) is as telling as what is making news (the halting of the program in 2003). This chart outlines the changes over the past two years:
Victor Davis Hanson spotlights the quandary the BDS crowd has in squawking about the latest report:
Are they now to suggest that Republicans have been warmongering over a nonexistent threat for partisan purposes? But to advance that belief is also to concede that, Iran, like Libya, likely came to a conjecture around (say early spring 2003?) that it was not wise for regimes to conceal WMD programs, given the unpredictable, but lethal American military reaction.
After all, what critic would wish now to grant that one result of the 2003 war-aside from the real chance that Iraq can stabilize and function under the only consensual government in the region-might have been the elimination for some time of two growing and potentially nuclear threats to American security, quite apart from Saddam Hussein?
Bryan Preston’s measured read:
My take is that we’re in a state of dangerous uncertainty all around: We can’t trust the IAEA, we don’t trust the Iranians (both with good reason), but there’s just enough doubt in the NIE to keep the B2s grounded and the Iranians on the loose because the Bush administration cannot base an attack or even another round of sanctions on this estimate, not after the intel failures in Iraq.
Thomas Joscelyn has five questions, concluding with this one:
[H]ow does the IC know what motivated Iran’s alleged change in behavior?
The NIE claims that “Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure.” How does the IC know what motivated Iran’s alleged change in behavior? Did the Iranians tell someone? Is this coming from clandestine sources? Assuming for the moment that Iran really did halt its program, 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? That is, are we to believe that U.S. led forces on Iran’s eastern and western borders had nothing to do with Tehran’s decision-making process?
We are left with a number of important questions. And without knowing the answers to these questions, the IC’s opinions are best viewed with a skeptical eye.
And a grain of salt or two.
The White House reaction is here.
***
More: Tom Maguire catches the New York Times–surprise–mischaracterizing the NIE.
See what others have said
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Trackbacks
- The Unalienable Right » Reuters spins the new NIE on Iran
- Macsmind - Blog of The MacRanger Show!
- Blue Star Chronicles
- Michelle Malkin » President Bush faces the press and Congress; Update On NIE: “They had the program, they halted the program…and they could restart it;” Update: Bush botches Saudi gang rape question
- Think Progress » Podhoretz’s ‘Dark Suspicion’: Intel Community Trying To Sabotage Bush With NIE
- Iranian Intentions « The View from Alexandria
- A NEWT ONE
- Shimshon 9
- Iran Wins this Round « Axis of Right
- Ray Robison: Pointing out the obvious to the oblivious
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Perish the thought! But I’m sure there is a way to spin this to get those war drums banging again, now that the U.S. intelligence report contradicts Bush on the Iran nuclear program.
9/11.
Sausage:
Please read the report before commenting.
First of all, if you’ve been paying attention, the signals being sent by the Administration for the last 6 months have pointed toward diplomacy - the United Nations, the EU Big Three, even getting Russia to help us with trying to dissuade IRan from enriching uranium.
Because that’s they key - as the report points out. As long as the Iranians are learning how to enrich uranium - especially on an industrial scale - it would be at most two years before they had the bomb.
And that’s if they start now. If they wait until the cetrifuges are installed at Natanz, two years - the doormant parts of their program can be reactivated and they can have a bomb in 6 months.
The report also said that they didn’t think Iran had abandoned the idea of getting nukes.
I am unwilling to believe this is a complete assessment. There is something wrong/missing/strange going on here. Since the NIE is now a public document, i.e. no longer classified, we must try to figure out which audience this version of the report is directed. Iran? Our leftist, cowardly congress? Russia? China? Israel?
No, as Bryan stated, the uncertainty, the danger is real. Something is missing here. As Allah would say, it is highly nuanced
Oh my……………a NIE that shows that sanctions, war on two borders of a country has halted the program of developing nuclear weapons in 2003, nothing says it hasn’t restarted that purpose, yet they continue to enrich Uranium.
Also for sausage, the report doesn’t contradict Bush, it contradicts theirselves on the intelligence.
You do not have to make an atom bomb to be effective in the world of terrorism. Any nuclear material will do and enriched uranium is certainly a nuclear material. A “dirty” bomb or “dirty” distribution in a dense population can have both a variety of effects.
In addition to death from an overwhelming radiation exposure, the chances of getting cancer are much higher when people are exposed to enriched uranium. It is a more radioactive form of uranium.
If my failing memory is correct once upon a time the CIA would prepare 3 NIE reports. One would be gloom and doom, the other would be seeing the world through rose colored glasses, and the third would be somewhere between the two extreme viewpoints. I am hoping this is the rose color glasses NIE.
I really don’t have much confidence in the CIA since being compromised by Clinton operatives that no one in the Bush administration had the sense to remove. All I can think of is the Valerie Plame blame game and the agencies total decent into BDS to the point I wonder who’s side these guys are on. The CIA, FBI, DOJ, NSA, and DOD have all been infiltrated by Clinton operatives all appearing to want to be the first to leak our secrets to the enemy via the press (i.e. the New York Times). They don’t care how their BDS hurts the country as long as it makes Bush look bad.
One thing I have a lot of Military experience on it is the capability and destructive power of nuclear weapons. I was Strategic Air Command aircrew for 11 years trained to fight in a nuclear exchange against the Soviet Union (OK it was a suicide mission, but we trained for it and there were war plans we studied). I spent 4 years working the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties and nothing scared any of us more than the thought of Iran or any other radical Muslim nation getting their hands on a nuke. I pray to God the NIE is right we can’t afford for the CIA to be wrong like they have been so many times in the past.
There are a few things to point out about this new NIE.
First, the NIE cites new intel. The only intel that might be available could have been from documents Israelis spirited out of the Syrian target site.
Second, that target site may have been an assembly site for nuclear weapons. Iran’s program is currently geared toward weapons-fuel production. There was an obvious synergy here. Moreover, if Iran does develop enough fissionable uranium (rather than plutonium), then assembling a fission bomb is a comparatively low-tech operation.
Third, this NIE could have been written for domestic consumption. The brief may simply be another way of saying that Bush will leave Iran for his successor to deal with.
Fourth, this NIE basically says that Iran was compelled to abort its nuclear weapons program by the US invasion of Iran. This, in and of itself, justifies the expedition into Iraq.
chsw
zorro–it’s not a complete assessment. This is the declassified portion of a larger report.
I don’t think the larger report says “The declassified portion is a lie–they’ve got bombs already!!”. I doubt they could have it say much different from the declassified portion.
But obviously, I’m curious what it says…
It seems counterproductive to go through the all the trouble build your own bomb AND refine your own fissionable material, when you can just buy empty bombs from oh, I don’t know, say North Korea maybe? & add your own uranium… kinda like hamburger helper.
And what was that the Israelis just blew up any way?
Believe who or what you want.Iran will NEVER stop.Their whole being is to be rid of Israel and America.Take all of the reports these agency’s come up with to the outhouse and you get better use of them.Their goals and intentions are to do us and they wont quit.
see-dubya, your point is well taken. This version that we have gives just a hint that there is some disagreement as to how Iran could accomplish it’s goal of owning a nuclear warhead.
The report above then continues with the assessment of Iran’s own program and technical expertise to build the bomb from scratch.
My first impression was that this declassified report was meant for an offshore audience. In my earlier comment I forgot to list North Korea. Given some of the opinions of Israeli commenters on the Syrian raid, that it might have been a bomb assembly factory, not a reactor, I’d say the danger of Iran with a nuclear tipped missile is present and real.
Was this report written by Jihad Jane? After all, she has all her relatives and resources in the Middle East to feed her all that inside information.
Could the intel be wrong? Nada. As in Nada Prouty. How many Jihad Joes and Janes work in Intel these days?
OK, Iran has fuel but no bombs. The North Koreans have the technology to make bombs but have supposedly stopped making fuel. They both have missile tech.
Where could Korean bombs & Iranian fuel hook up? I don’t know, maybe Syria?
Be sceptical! Let me rephrase that…be very sceptical!!!
This is so Orwellian, it’s uncanny.
Iran has 3000 centrifuges. They’re building a nuclear weapon and pose a true nuclear threat to the Western World. They’re going to try to annihilate Israel. There’s a new holocaust coming soon.
Iran is not building nuclear weapons and has not tried since 2003 to build any nuclear weapons. There is no nuclear threat from Iran, at least not until the middle of the next decade.
Anybody else see some Orwell doublethink action here?
I now believe that we cannot believe anything that comes out of D.C., ever again. We are being force-fed huge shovels full of b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t and expected to eat all of it.
So, what’s it gonna be now? I’ve had my fill of this song and dance.
Especially when one considers that our intelligence-types have consistently overestimated the time it would take for other nations to get hold of the Bomb.
The Soviets certainly humbugged us, albeit with considerable help from their “friends” in our own nuclear program.
The Chinese surprised us when they, too first tested a nuclear weapon.
So did the Indians and the Pakistanis catch us flat-footed with their own atomic weapon tests.
The North Koreans made fools of us by using Clinton/Carter’s “agreed framework” to switch from Plutonium to Uranium bomb construction, and we only found out when it was too late to do anything about it.
So…anybody who says that the Iranian mullahs won’t have their bomb before 2010 or 2013 or whatever merits no faith at all as a prognosticator. I’m actually surprised they don’t have a nuclear weapon already.
Hmmm…. was it the Soviet Unions Bison Bomber that we thought they had 1000 of… and they had THREE that were operational…
Missed Pearl…
Missed Chinese invasion during Korea…
Missed Bulge…
Crap… even missed the Sputnik…
And lets not even talk about Iraqi WMDs…
NIE? Newly incompetent Espianage?
It took America 4 years to create the first two Atomic bombs, using 1940s technology, not knowing how, or even IF, it could be done.
They have 3000 operational centrifuges…
The fact that this NIE is radicly opposed to past stuff, is very disturbing… and I for one don’t buy it. This is PURE politics… question is by who…
My bet? Whoever wrote this crap gave it to opponents of the Bush admin, who were then prepared to leak it… so they declassified it…
If we consider everything we are allowed to know, and put it together, I believe any logical thinking person will know that this is a smoke job. (Thank goodness my political sphincter is air-tight, or that smoke might sneak in there.)
In addition to the multitude of intelligence errors we have suffered through the last several decades, the fact is that we have been told repeatedly that we don’t really know how far along Iran’s nuclear program has progressed.
Wasn’t it just in the last week or so, Iran delivered nuclear plans to the IAEA? Now why, after all of their years of intransigence, do the Iranians now fork over that kind of info?
New reports say that Israel actually destroyed a nuclear bomb factory in Syria, not a nuclear reactor site. (Where were the cooling towers in the “before” photos?) Couple that with Syria’s noisy silence about it…where is their outrage?
Information regarding a new very long range rocket that Iran has produced, no doubt with the help of the Russians, has been recently disclosed also.
And finally, why have Russia, and China been so protective of Iran? Why has Imawannajihad been trying to yank the Eagle’s tail feathers, and getting away with it, without fear of reprisals?
I’m sorry. I don’t buy it for a second. We are never told all the information, or the truth about it. I just pray we don’t get caught with our pants down once again.
Umm, you do realize that Bush gets his information on Iran from these same intelligence agencies, don’t you? He doesn’t just pull crap about Iran out of thin air.
All 16 intelligence agencies believed that Iraq had WMD prior to us going to war, but somehow, that gets morphed into “Bush lied”. Wonder how this latest report will be morphed?
As soon as we detect a nuclear test explosion in the desert of Iran, we’ll hsve to go in, I guess. This will be especially important when the Iranian government, all smiles, announce the “success” of the test and threaten Israel or Iraq. It’s either that, or agree with the UN and pass new “sanctions” to “punish” them. Lord help us if we have democrats in power. Down comes the flag over the Capitol and up goes the white flag.
Romeo:
It appears to me that the NIE may have been leaked by the Administration itself.
They wouldn’t have been able to sit on this for long thanks to the leakers. Plus, if it had been leaked, they’d be screaming. Instead, Hadley is going on TV saying it confirms what they’ve been saying - dubious but a far cry from questioning the ancestors of the leakers.
I would like to offer the assessment that if the Democrats get elected to the White House, we get a repeat of 9/11 with nuclear weapons. Asleep at the switch has real consequences.
This report has all the fingerprints of liberal CIA lackeys doing dingy’s bidding.
I was right. This was released by the Administration: (NY Times)
“… but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public “since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed.”
So let’s get off the idea that the cabal of leakers at CIA/Defense/State had anything to do with this.
That’s not to say they didn’t agitate for its release. But it wasn’t leaked by them.
It’s sick the way Harry Reid holds this report up like it’s the Holy Grail and totally ignores facts right before his eyes on all other matters regarding Iran and Iraq.
So it is with just moderate that they think these programs have been halted.
Blame Bush is catchy.
Blame NSA, CIA, FBI, Mossad, etc. etc. is just too much of a mouthful.
So Blame Bush ™ it is.
I suspect a lot of folks will have to eat crow when the Iranian bomb goes off over telAviv - right?
I’ve been thinkin the same thing since Isreal bombed Syria.
The Iranians have the missle tech their missle’s don’t fly around in circle’s and crash into the sea.
The Korean’s know how to and may have warheads.
Marrie the two in Syria and what do you have?
Answer: The total annihilation of Isreal.
N-I-E
No Idiot Excluded
How many times does the misnamed intellegence community have to miss the elephant in the tent before
a) we all finally wake up
or
b) they actually gather correct info
The CIA regulars have been at war with our president since the beginning. How convenient that the NIE says Iran is no threat.
< waiting for the mushroom cloud over Israel… 5-4-3… >
At least the Israelis will do the jobs Americans won’t do.
A common theme here: if a national intelligence estimate disagrees with my theory, its the national intelligence estimate that’s wrong. That failure probably is the result of liberals and America haters within the intelligence community.
That attitude might work for you, but think how it looks to others. Think about libs who refuse to believe Iraq is getting less violent despite all the reports that it is. You want them to believe intelligence estimates you like, but you refuse to believe intelligence estimates they like.
The name of the report is the NIE, not the NIC.
NIE = NI ESTIMATE.
NIC = NI CERTAINTY.
Anybody that thinks this report should be used to engage in useless protracted diplomacy is fooling themselves.
Norman Podhoretz understands that it is an issue of who will bomb who first. I prefer to live.
Respectfully,
eric http://www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com
Pretty solid intel when you intercept a phonecon between two Rev Guard generals who reference a shuttered nuke program.
You can’t look at this as just another attempt by administration opponents to undermine policy. If you read what’s been declassified, I think the conclusion they reached was reasonable - Iran stopped those parts of their nuclear program dealing exclusively with bomb making while they continue other parts that are very useful to both running a reactor and building a bomb.
BTW - this is probably what we would see if they were close to being able to build a weapon. If they already have a design for a bomb, for instance, they don’t need a bomb design department active anymore. Once they learn how to enrich uranium on an industrial scale to weapons grade levels, all they have to do is take the design department out of mothballs and within a couple of months, they have a bomb.
What looks like an inactive program may actually be a program just waiting for Highly Enriched Uranium to complete the project.
But this scenario is for later when they get a lot closer to perfecting the fuel cycle. Right now, the Iranians probably shut down the aspects of their program dealing exclusively with bomb making prior to perfecting any design or delivery system. This is the basis for the extended time period for when they would be technologically capable of making a bomb. 2011 sounds better than 2013 if only because they’ve come a long way in centrifuge technology.
We do have time and should put it to good use.
It’s not A Direct Attack From Iran We Ought Worry About
Iran slipping nuke bombs or materials to terrorists under the table “no fingerprints!” style is the greatest threat here, not direct action via missiles, because there are so many players who also would love to put us away to get lost in — including Russia and China, who I wouldn’t put above to turning their backs on alerting us if they did find out about such a terrorist plot.
James Greenidge
Queens New York