Behind the Iran-Intelligence Reversal
Posted on 12/09/2007 12:35:52 AM PST by FocusNexus
U.S. intelligence services attempted to influence political policy by releasing their assessment that concludes Iran halted its nuclear arms program in 2003, said John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Der Spiegel magazine quoted Bolton on Saturday as alleging that the aim of the National Intelligence Estimate, which contradicts his and President Bush's position, was not to provide the latest intelligence on Iran.
"This is politics disguised as intelligence," Bolton was quoted as saying in an article appearing in this week's edition.
Bolton described the report, released Monday, as a "quasi-putsch" by the intelligence agencies, Der Spiegel said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Behind the Iran-Intelligence Reversal
bump/ping
Politics at War.....ping
Iran 'hoodwinked' CIA over nuclear plans
British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.
The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.
A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.
The source said British analysts believed that Iranian nuclear staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. "We are sceptical. We want to know what the basis of it is, where did it come from? Was it on the basis of the defector? Was it on the basis of the intercept material? They say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white. They will say anything to throw us off.
Bolton is is a feather in the cap of this administration. Absolutely the best one to have served in it so far.
>>”This is politics disguised as intelligence,” Bolton was quoted as saying
Say it again and again, John. Someone needs to, it shouldn’t have take this long.
The whole Wilson / Plame episode was the same.
I think there are still too many Clinton holdovers in the intelligence agencies.
ping for definition of putsch?
When terrorist nuclear bombs go off in American cities, is US intelligence going to be moderately sure they came from Iran?
How Gadhafi Lost His Groove. The complex surrender of Libya's WMD.
"The inspection team returned in December 2003 (after Libya gave up its WMD programs and allowed inspectors in) , with even greater access. They were astonished by what they learned during their visits to weapons sites, labs and dual-use and military facilities. Although Libya claimed that it had no biological or germ-weapons-related facilities, and that its chemical capabilities were less than the CIA had feared, U.S. intelligence had underestimated Libya's nuclear progress.
Not only had Libya developed highly compartmentalized chemical and nuclear programs that were often unknown even to the Libyans who worked at the facilities, they had already imported two types of centrifuges from the Khan network--aluminum P-1s, (for Pakistan-1), and 4,000 of the more advanced P-2s. By 1997, Libya had already gotten 20 preassembled P-1s from Khan and components for another 200. In 2000, it got two P-2 model centrifuges, which used stronger steel, and had ordered 10,000 more. Libya had also imported two tons of uranium hexafluoride to be fed into the centrifuges and enriched as bomb fuel. In fact, it had managed to acquire from the Khan network what it needed to produce a 10-kiloton bomb, or to make the components for one, as well as dozens of blueprints for producing and miniaturizing a warhead, usually the toughest step in producing an atomic weapon. "
I hope the next president (hopefully a Republican) will nominate Bolton as Secretary of State.
“putch” — coup — “backstabbing” the president to force a change in policy, “taking over” policy ( or even the country).
Note the other articles I posted — I think the one from UK Telegraph says that the timing of this release undermined the effort to impose sanctions on Iran and they are sceptical of this report.
Some in the agencies are trying to play politics, basically pulling the rug out from under the Bush administrations efforts to contain Iran.
Merrian Webster dictionary says:
http://www.webster.com/dictionary/putsch
Main Entry: putsch
Pronunciation: \ˈpu̇ch\
Function: noun
Etymology: German
Date: 1920
: a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government
Similar to:
coup d’etat
Main Entry: coup d’état
Variant(s): or coup d’etat \ËŒkü-(ËŒ)dÄ-ˈtä, ˈkü-(ËŒ)dÄ-ËŒ, -dÉ™-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural coups d’état or coups d’etat \-ˈtä(z), -ËŒtä(z)\
Etymology: French, literally, stroke of state
Date: 1646
: a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics; especially : the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group
Shadow government using influence within agencies to obstruct the administration.
“Shadow government using influence within agencies to obstruct the administration.”
You got it and phrased it exactly right!
No reason to relax on Iran by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe.
NOW THAT the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear intentions has had a few days to cool off, how does it look? A few reflections:
1. Iran's nuclear program is alive and well. Yes, I know - the very first of the NIE's "key judgments," the one that launched a thousand headlines, is that "Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program" in the fall of 2003. But what that first sentence giveth, a footnote to that sentence taketh away: "By 'nuclear weapons program,' " explains footnote 1, "we mean Iran's nuclear weapon design and weaponization work. . . . we do not mean Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment."
But that's a distinction without a difference, since the accumulation of enriched uranium is by far the most important component in developing nuclear weapons. Iran's "civil" uranium enrichment - those 3,000 centrifuges spinning at Natanz - continues unabated, in defiance of Security Council resolutions ordering that it stop. Whether the nuclear-fuel program is labeled "civilian" or "military" is irrelevant. The more uranium the mullahs enrich, the closer they are to getting the bomb.
The NIE concludes that Iran suspended its "nuclear weapons program" - the actual designing of a nuclear warhead - due to international pressure. What if Iran halted the work because it has already come up with a satisfactory design, and now awaits only the enriched uranium to make a weapon? Just last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran possesses the engineering specs to shape uranium into the hemispheres needed for the core of a nuclear bomb. What other blueprints does Tehran already have?
More at above link.
In a sane world, it would be called treason and dealt with accordingly...
The bureaucracy appears to be filled with so many leftists, homosexuals and corrupt bastards it places the entire Republic at risk...
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