Posted on 12/06/2007 8:22:43 AM PST by 3AngelaD
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."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
This is awesome! Its like the days that followed the CNN debate when each day we learned another questioner was really a dem plant.
If the elected government cannot control the permanent government, then we no longer really live in a republic.
Instead, it's an odd kind of 'moronocracy' where the elite is almost exclusively composed of the miseducated and the morally depraved.
Yup. I have a friend who has dealings with the EPA, which the Bushies have been trying to reform since taking office. He was told by one of the members of the “permanent” government that regardless of Congressional or administration policy, the agency was going to do what its civil service drones wanted to do, they were just waiting for Bush to leave office and Congress to change. And they had all the time in the world.
Apparently not if you work for State or the CIA.
The Founders never intended there to be such a monstrosity of a government filled with alphabet agencies with laws unto themselves and beurocrats that freely and openly commit treason with impunity.
But it’s happening, and only because we the people allow it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.