Posted on 12/08/2007 1:31:09 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The intelligence came from an exotic variety of sources: there was the so-called Laptop of Death; there was the Iranian commander who mysteriously disappeared in Turkey. Also in the mix was video footage of a nuclear plant in central Iran and intercepts of Iranian telephone calls by the British listening station GCHQ.
But pivotal to the US investigation into Iran's suspect nuclear weapons programme was the work of a little-known intelligence specialist, Thomas Fingar. He was the principal author of an intelligence report published on Monday that concluded Iran, contrary to previous US claims, had halted its covert programme four years ago and had not restarted it. Almost single-handedly he has stopped - or, at the very least, postponed - any US military action against Iran.
His report marks a decisive moment in the battle between American neoconservatives and Washington's foreign policy and intelligence professionals - between ideologues and pragmatists. It provided an unexpected victory for those opposed to the neocon plans for a military strike.
The report, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which represents the consensus of the 16 US intelligence agencies, gave President George Bush one of his most difficult weeks since taking office in January 2001.
Fingar's findings were met in many Washington offices occupied by foreign policy and intelligence professionals not only with relief but with rejoicing. They had lost out in the run-up to the war in Iraq in 2003, but they are winning this one.
A backlash is under way; with the neocons being joined by even moderate foreign policy specialists who claim the report seriously underestimates the threat posed by Iran. Senate Republicans are planning to call next week for a congressional commission to investigate the report.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Would be interesting to see you provide 3 sources to back this claim up.
Thanks for the link to some good reading.
The real question is “Who is responsible for allowing commie pinkos into the CIA in the first place and how do they get in such positions where they can control U.S. foreign policy?”
The federal agency responsible for national intelligence estimates yesterday defended its report on Iran against charges that it was crafted primarily by former State Department officials who infused their personal politics into the report to undercut the Bush administration.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071208/NATION/112080051/1001
Meanwhile Gates answers ...nothing has changed:
Ever hear of Sen Joe McCarthy?
The authors of the NIE have committed Treason, in my estimation. They are selling us out to their liberal agenda, and that of their fellow travelers.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Good cop, good cop
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As I wrote in Not that Far, embracing the line that sanctions and diplomacy alone can bring Iran to heel ironically work against, well, sanctions and diplomacy.
What the new NIE has done -- and why I think even the liberals are so worried -- is that the intelligence assessment has made it very difficult to sustain even the bluff of working towards regime change; a threat they would have no truck with but at the same time probably found useful for so long as they could get a President George W. Bush to articulate it. Now that the doves have got what they ostensibly wanted, whether by design or misadventure, it has become apparent that it's not everything they wanted after all.
December 8, 2007
Defending the NIE Report
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After years of trying to expose the CIA's war on the Bush administration, we may be making a little progress. Questions about the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran have become sufficiently widespread that the intelligence community has found it necessary to respond:
The federal agency responsible for national intelligence estimates yesterday defended its report on Iran against charges that it was crafted primarily by former State Department officials who infused their personal politics into the report to undercut the Bush administration."It's not as if there are two or three people who craft this and then it's just put out there," said Vanee Vines, spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
Ms. Vines defended the report, saying that each NIE is a "group exercise" involving the "entire intelligence community."
However, another DNI spokesman said earlier this week that two individuals in particular played a significant role in drafting the report.
"Many analysts worked this issue, but Tom Fingar, our deputy director of national intelligence of analysis, and Vann Van Diepen, national intelligence officer for WMD and proliferation, had a major part in it," spokesman Ross Feinstein said in an e-mail.
A third DNI official, Kenneth C. Brill, also was reported to be a chief contributor.
Ms. Vines insisted, however, that "to try to characterize these estimates as the product of one or two individuals is just entirely inaccurate." She pointed out that a NIE is compiled using intelligence from the CIA and the other 17 U.S. intelligence agencies, and then reviewed by the National Intelligence Board, whose chairman is Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.
Apart from the fact that it doesn't even touch on the merits, this defense is unpersuasive. Every NIE is, by definition, supposed to represent a "consensus" of all of the intelligence agencies. Yet those who actually write the report obviously exercise great influence, and when the "consensus" of seventeen agencies does a 180-degree U-turn, it is reasonable to shine a spotlight on the authors. Moreover, as we have pointed out repeatedly, the liberal, anti-Bush slant of the intelligence community is not a function of a few bad apples; rather, it broadly pervades that community as a whole. So to say that many intelligence officials had a hand in the report is by no means reassuring.
Lovely bureaucrat....he should be exiled...
EXACTLY...remember Collin Powell showing the photos of the Iraqi trucks that were chemical weapons labs? Where were these people then?
Not only that, we hear over and over “rush to war” lies too...
you know after 18 UN resolutions over an 11 YEAR run-up.
And who says we were automatically going to war in Iran?
Frankly I think it’s inevitable, but not anytime soon. And certainly not on W’s watch.
Our intelligence community does not need revamping. It needs housecleaning-—and I mean down to the original bare plaster! Everyone goes. Start hiring, from scratch, new, young, truly dedicated, brilliant young people who understand what is at stake-—not a bunch of old, cold war retread, Aldrich Ames look-alikes, that were inept and co-opted then, let alone now. (I won’t even discuss what I think should happen at the State Department. I’d probably go to jail. They can’t find Iran’s nukes, but they would find me!)
The President can’t fix this because our intel folks belong to labor unions. Can you believe that? Labor unions. We MUST be the only country in the world where “secret agents” have a labor union. This is a situation that must be remedied by the American people, like illegal immigration, we MUST INSIST on something better from our government!
I cannot imagine what the “boots on the ground”, hard working, ordinary “Joe”, at these agencies must feel like-—if he does still exist. They have been betrayed just as surely as we.
The “church lady” could do a better job!
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