Posted on 12/11/2007 9:58:24 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
It seems flabbergastingly improbable that President George W. Bush learned of the National Intelligence Estimate concerning Iranian nuclear ambitions only a few days before the rest of us did, but the haplessness of his demeanor suggested that he might, in fact, have been telling the truth. After all, had the administration known for any appreciable length of time that the mullahs had hit the pause button on their program in late 2003, it would have been in a position to make a claim that is quite probably true, namely, that our overthrow of Saddam Hussein had impressed the Iranians in much the same way as it impressed the Libyans and made them at least reconsider their willingness to continue flouting the Non-Proliferation Treaty. (Given that the examination of the immense Libyan stockpile also disclosed the fingerprints that led back to the exposure of the A.Q. Khan nuke-mart in Pakistan, the removal of Saddam from the chessboard has had more effect in curbing the outlaw WMD business than it is normally given credit for.)
Nobody seems entirely sure what caused our intelligence agencies to reverse their opinion, but it seems rather likely that the defection and/or abduction of Brig. Gen. Ali Reza Asgari, Iran's former deputy minister of defense, in February of this year, has something to do with it. Asgari's ostensibly principal job had been that of liaison with Hezbollah in Lebanon, but his debriefing could also have helped confirm pre-existing surmises about Iran's reining-in of its nuclear ambitions.
Which is the most that can be said about those ambitions. It is completely false for anybody to claim, on the basis of this admitted "estimate," that Iran has ceased to be a candidate member of the fatuously named nuclear "club."
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Yes, but don’t let that cloud your judgement. You need to listen to the media and the nation’s leading marxists to understand this complex issue. /s
Might as well. Move the personnel from Langley to FoggyBottom where they belong.
Sounds like a pretty damn good argument to me. In the free market, when an organization fails repeatedly and tops it off with a fiasco like this NIE report, that’s a sign that dramatic change is long overdue.
How does Christie Hitchens reconcile his sudden absolute faith in the accuracy of the National Intelligence Estimate, when he wouldn’t have a word of it if it said Iraq had WMDs?
Hmmm?
See link at #3 for a 180 on what the NIE means....
How ironic...accusations of mutiny and treason coming from the party of mutiny and treason.
A good rule of thumb is...if Slate is for it, I’m against it.
NIE ping!
Hitchens is little more than a drama queen.
Hitchens has been pretty consistent on Iraq and has always supported the effort.
The experts at a “webazine” know better.
ROFLOL!
Slate gets their panties in a bunch again.
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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.
“Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink.”
P.J.O’Rourke
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