The NIE Report: Solving a Geopolitical Problem with Iran

The United States released a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) Dec. 3. It said, "We judge with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." It went on to say, "Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005."

"Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs."

With this announcement, the dynamics of the Middle Eastern region, Iraq and U.S.-Iranian relations shift dramatically. The probability of a unilateral strike against Iranian nuclear targets is gone. Since there is no Iranian nuclear weapons program, there is no rationale for a strike. If Iran is not engaged in weapons production, then a broader air campaign designed to destabilize the Iranian regime has no foundation.

The NIE release represents a transformation of U.S. policy toward Iran. The Bush administration made Iran's nuclear weapons program the main reason for its attempt to create an international coalition against Iran, on the premise that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable. If there is no Iranian nuclear program, then what is the rationale for the coalition? Moreover, what is the logic of resisting Iran's efforts in Iraq, rather than cooperating?

A number of obvious questions come up. First, how did the intelligence community reach the wrong conclusion in the spring of 2005, and what changed by 2007? Why did the US reach the wrong conclusions on Iran 3 years after its program was halted? There are two possible answers. One is intelligence failure and the other is political redefinition. Both must be explored.

Excerpts from Stratfor Intelligent Report which bear consideration:

The recent U.S. successes in Iraq, however limited and transitory they might be, may have caused the Iranians to rethink their view on dealing with the Americans on Iraq. The Americans, regardless of progress, cannot easily suppress all of the Shiite militias. The Iranians cannot impose a regime on Iraq, though they can destabilize the process. A successful outcome requires a degree of cooperation and recent indications suggest that Iran is prepared to provide that cooperation.

Consider the politics. The assumption was that Iran wanted to develop nuclear weapons -- though its motivations for wanting to do so were never clear to us. First, the Iranians had to assume that, well before they had an operational system, the United States or Israel would destroy it. In other words, it would be a huge effort for little profit. Second, assume that it developed one or two weapons and attacked Israel, for example. Israel might well have been destroyed, but Iran would probably be devastated by an Israeli or U.S. counterstrike. What would be the point?

That puts the United States in an incredibly difficult position. On the one hand, it needs Iran for the endgame in Iraq. On the other, negotiating with Iran while it is developing nuclear weapons runs counter to fundamental U.S. policies and the coalition it was trying to construct. As long as Iran was building nuclear weapons, working with Iran on Iraq was impossible.

The NIE solves a geopolitical problem for the United States. Washington cannot impose a unilateral settlement on Iraq, nor can it sustain forever the level of military commitment it has made to Iraq. There are other fires starting to burn around the world. At the same time, Washington cannot work with Tehran while it is building nuclear weapons. Hence, the NIE: While Iran does have a nuclear power program, it is not building nuclear weapons.

Perhaps there was a spectacular and definitive intelligence breakthrough that demonstrated categorically that the prior assessments were wrong.

Proving a negative is tough, and getting a definitive piece of intelligence is hard. Certainly, no matter how definitive the latest intelligence might have been, a lot of people want Iran to be building a nuclear weapon, so the debate over the meaning of this intelligence would have roared throughout the intelligence community and the White House. Keeping such debate this quiet and orderly is not Washington's style.

Perhaps the Iranians are ready to deal, and so decided to open up their facility for the Americans to see. Still, regardless of what the Iranians opened up, some would have argued that the United States was given a tour only of what the Iranians wanted them to see. There is a mention in the report that any Iranian program would be covert rather than overt, and that might reflect such concerns.

All serious nuclear programs are always covert until they succeed. Nothing is more vulnerable than an incomplete nuclear program.

The suddenness of the NIE report: Explosive new intelligence would have been more hotly contested. We suspect two things. First, the intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program consisted of a great number of pieces, many of which were inherently ambiguous and could be interpreted in multiple ways. Second, the weight of evidence for there being an Iranian nuclear program was shaded by the political proclivities of the administration, which saw the threat of a U.S. strike as intimidating Iran, and the weapons program discussion as justifying it. Third, the change in political requirements on both sides made a new assessment useful. This last has certainly been the case in all things Middle Eastern these past few days on issues ranging from the Palestinians to Syria to U.S. forces in Iraq -- so why should this issue be any different?

If this thesis is correct, then we should start seeing some movement on Iraq between the United States and Iran. Certainly the major blocker from the U.S. side has been removed and the success of U.S. policies of late should motivate the Iranians. In any case, the entire framework for U.S.-Iranian relations would appear to have shifted, and with it the structure of geopolitical relations throughout the region.

Intelligence is rarely as important as when it is proven wrong.

The contradictions in the various NIE, and the slipperiness of the terminology used suggests to me that CIA has no one on the inside in a position to know anything, and wouldn't believe them if they had.

We suspect two things. First, the intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program consisted of a great number of pieces, many of which were inherently ambiguous and could be interpreted in multiple ways...

My point.

Second, the weight of evidence for there being an Iranian nuclear program was shaded by the political proclivities of the administration, which saw the threat of a U.S. strike as intimidating Iran, and the weapons program discussion as justifying it.

And the weight of the evidence for there "not" being a nuclear program is shaded by the enormity of the task required to shut it down, attacking 80-some-odd hardened sites, withstanding the counterattacks, possibly against our troops in Iraq, possibly in a US harbor near you, withstanding the political fallout not to exclude impeachment and a constant drumbeat in the press of anti-US propaganda...

Re-defining the Iranian nuclear program into non-existence kicks the rock down the road to another administration and another president.

As an aside, the fact that CIA is now apparently writing its analysis for the public suggests to me that it is finished as a serious intelligence agency. It is now no more than a publicly funded think-tank wedded to a PR agency wedded to a political action committee.

StratFor I have followed for a long time now. It is also well valued in the Intel community, if you want to take the time to research their analysis for yourself. But then you would have to read the reports over a few years to make such a testimony as you aforementioned, and perhaps you have. I have filed them religiously, and refer back to them when doing research. It navigates the political environments globally to insure sound intelligent security when it comes to doing business around the globe.

Fox News started excerpting their analysis, I noticed, this past year more and more, for one the O'Reilly segment.

Sometimes we read what “doesn’t follow our own layperson interpretations” on a certain global issue. The President can only wait for Credible findings, as with the history of Intel, best to double check whether it be a double agent, a source of bias etc, before committing to record any findings. For Instance:

HADLEY: [W]hen was the president notified that there was new information available? We’ll try and get you a precise answer. As I say, it was, in my recollection, is in the last few months. Whether that’s October — August-September, we’ll try and get you an answer for that.

The President has to also put up with the grandstanding of officials that should just offer the concise yes, no, answers along with directly "informed" answers and not try to speak for others on who knew what, when and where or seek to interpret as leads to distrust, competency of the official. Grandstanding by what should be media savvy top appointed government officials are finding themselves "fresh meat" when in front of seasoned reporters who are only looking to confuse, abuse and sabotage whatever issue for their own personal Hyena-like agendas.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/04/bush-never-learned-of-nie/#more-18041

Bush: DNI Told Me ‘We Have Some New Information, He Didn’t Tell Me What The Information Was’
POSTED: Tuesday, December 04, 2007
FROM BLOG: Think Progress - Progressive news and research blog run out of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The following blog post is from an independent writer and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.com.

At a press briefing this morning, President Bush said he was told by his Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell “in August” that “we have some new information” regarding Iran’s nuclear program. But Bush asserted “he didn’t tell me what the information was”:

BUSH: I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was John — Mike McConnell came in and said, We have some new information. He didn’t tell me what the information was. He did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze.

Later, when a reporter followed-up on this statement, Bush asserted no one ever told him to stop ratcheting up the rhetoric against Iran:

REPORTER: Are you saying at no point while the rhetoric was escalating, as World War III was making it into conversation — at no point, nobody from your intelligence team or your administration was saying, Maybe you want to back it down a little bit?

BUSH: No — I’ve never — nobody ever told me that.

Yesterday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said, “when the President was told that we had some additional information, he was basically told: stand down; needs to be evaluated; we’ll come to you and tell you what we think it means.” Later in the briefing, Hadley reversed course and said, “In terms of stand down, they did not tell the President to stand down and stop talking about Iran’s nuclear program.”

White House officials are obfuscating on what they knew and when they knew it because the answer has the potential of further damaging the credibility of what they have asserted about Iran in the past few months. As ThinkProgress has noted, while the intelligence community was processing new information that Iran was “less determined to develop nuclear weapons,” President Bush was specifically warning that Iran was trying to “build a nuclear weapon.”

To recap: At the same time Bush was ratcheting up the rhetoric on Iran, he was told by his National Intelligence Director that that have “some new information.” Yet Bush wants the public to believe he never learned what the information was, nor was he interested.

UPDATE: The Washington Post reports this morning that “intelligence officials began briefing senior members of the Bush administration” about the new information “beginning in July.” But apparently, Bush was left completely in the dark until last Tuesday.

Transcript:

QUESTION: Mr. Resident, thank you. I’d like to follow on that. When you talked about Iraq, you and others in the administration talked about a mushroom cloud. Then there were no WMD in Iraq.

When it came to Iran, you said in October — on October 17th, you warned about the prospect of World War III, when, months before you made that statement, this intelligence about them suspending their weapons program back in ‘03 had already come to light to this administration. So can’t you be accused of hyping this threat? And don’t you worry that that undermines U.S. credibility?

BUSH: I don’t want to contradict an august reporter such as yourself, but I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was John — Mike McConnell came in and said, We have some new information. He didn’t tell me what the information was. He did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze.

Why would you take time to analyze new information? One, you want to make sure it’s not disinformation. You want to make sure the piece of intelligence you have is real. And secondly, they want to make sure they understand the intelligence they gathered. If they think it’s real, then what does it mean?

And it wasn’t until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public.

And the second part of your question has to do this: Look, Iran was dangerous. Iran is dangerous. And Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.

[…]

QUESTION: President, thank you. Just to follow, I understand what you’re saying about when you were informed about the NIE. Are you saying at no point while the rhetoric was escalating, as World War III was making it into conversation — at no point, nobody from your intelligence team or your administration was saying, Maybe you want to back it down a little bit?

BUSH: No — I’ve never — nobody ever told me that.

Having said — having — having laid that out, I still feel strongly that Iran’s a danger. Nothings changed in this NIE that says, OK, why don’t we just stop worrying about it? Quite the contrary.

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...must be hittin’ the bottle again....they don’t even keep him in the loop anymore. first...they take the “football” away from him....now this.....

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