Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Did the CIA 'Cook the Books' on Iran? (It looks like somebody did for the 2007 NIE.)
American Thinker ^ | July 28, 2009 | Herbert E. Meyer

Posted on 07/29/2009 12:46:23 AM PDT by neverdem

Do you remember that 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate which concluded -- to virtually everyone's astonishment -- that four years earlier Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program?

Publication of that NIE cut the ground out from under the Bush administration's efforts to prevent Iran from getting its hands on a nuclear bomb.  After all, why pressure the mullahs in Teheran to stop a program they'd already abandoned?  And, of course, the NIE's conclusion was cited by President Bush's political enemies as (further) evidence that the President and his team were so driven by their hard-line ideology that they (as usual) ignored the evidence provided by our country's senior intelligence analysts.

Now, thanks to a brilliant piece of journalism by German investigative reporter Bruno Schirra published in the July 20 edition of The Wall Street Journal Europe, we have evidence to suggest that the 2007 NIE's conclusion about Iran's nuclear bomb program wasn't merely wrong, but corrupt.

Here's a summary of Schirra's explosive article:

Over in Germany the Federal Prosecutor had charged a German-Iranian businessman with brokering supplies for Iran's nuclear bomb program, thus violating the country's War Weapons Control Law and its Foreign Trade Act.  But a lower court in Frankfurt refused to try the case on grounds that at the time of the businessman's alleged activities, Iran didn't have a nuclear weapons program.  According to Shirra, the court actually cited the 2007 U.S. NIE as evidence of its conclusion.

But the Federal Prosecutor appealed the lower court's decision to Germany's Federal Supreme Court -- and that's when Germany's foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) stepped in by submitting what's called an "office testimony," which Schirra defines as "factual statements about the Iranian program that can be proved in a court of law."

According to Schirra:

The BND...has amassed evidence of a sophisticated Iranian nuclear weapons program that continued after 2003....In a 30-page legal opinion on March 26 and a May 27 press release in a case about possible illegal trading with Iran, a special national security panel of the Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe cites from a May 2008 BND report, saying the agency "showed comprehensively" that "development work on nuclear weapons can be observed in Iran even after 2003.

According to the judges, the BND supplemented its findings on August 28, 2008, showing "the development of a new missile launcher and the similarities between Iran's acquisition efforts and those of countries with already known nuclear weapons programs, such as Pakistan and North Korea".....In their May press release, the judges come out even more clear [sic], stating unequivocally that "Iran in 2007 worked on the development of nuclear weapons."

Simply put, while our country's intelligence service believed that Iran had abandoned its nuclear bomb program in 2003, Germany's intelligence service was amassing evidence that the Iranian bomb program was ongoing.

This raises three obvious and crucially important questions:


To answer these questions, you need a bit of background about how National Intelligence Estimates are produced, and of how our country's intelligence service works with our allies' intelligence services.  What follows is based on my own experience during the Reagan Administration, as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and then as Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

Our country's intelligence service is actually a collection of more than a dozen agencies including the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the intelligence services of each military service, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and a few others we won't talk about.  Even after all the reorganizations of the last few years -- it's now so screwed up that if my life depended on it I couldn't draw an accurate chart -- there's a unit that sits in the office of the Director of National Intelligence called the National Intelligence Council.  The NIC is comprised of the intelligence community's most senior analysts, and it's the NIC that produces the National Intelligence Estimates.

These NIEs reflect the overall, coordinated judgments and conclusions of all the various agencies and components of our country's intelligence service.  They include the evidence on which these key judgments are based, and when properly done they even include dissents by one or another agency, for instance if there's a disagreement about the evidence itself or about the meaning of the evidence.   All this explains why NIEs are so highly classified, and why they carry so much weight. And it explains why the release of an NIE's key judgments -- such as those of that 2007 Iran NIE -- is such a big deal.

In times of national emergency, the President can ask for a special NIE to be produced within days, or even overnight.  But as a general rule, it takes weeks or even months to produce an NIE -- to amass the evidence, sift through it, and to coordinate both the evidence and its implications with senior members of all the agencies and entities that comprise our country's intelligence service.  And the individuals who actually produce the NIEs -- the members and leaders of the National Intelligence Council -- can get their hands on anything our intelligence service knows.

Of course, we aren't the only country with an intelligence service.  Our allies also have services of their own, and some of them are very, very good.  That's why senior officials of our country's intelligence service stay in close touch with their counterparts in, say, London, Paris - and Berlin.

It is inconceivable to me that senior officials of our intelligence service were unaware of the BND's evidence and conclusions about Iran's nuclear bomb program.  Indeed, if the BND's officials withheld what they knew from our officials that constitutes an act of allied betrayal whose implications for US-German relations are, well, staggering.

On the other hand, if our intelligence officials were aware of the BND's evidence and conclusions, why did we reach the opposite conclusion?  Did our analysts judge the BND's evidence to be invalid?  Or did they just ignore the BND's evidence because they didn't like it and because our intelligence officials wanted to throw a banana peel under President Bush's feet?

I don't know the answers to these questions.  What I do know is that a nuclear-armed Iran threatens our national survival, and that to meet this threat President Obama and his advisers need the best possible intelligence.  Only the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees can get to the bottom of all this.  But right now leading members of these committees, and the Speaker of the House, are blathering on -- and on -- about the phony issue of whether former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to not testify about some program to wipe out the leaders of al Qaeda that never actually got off the ground.

This isn't politics; this is suicide.  God help us if our enemies conclude that the United States is no longer capable of being serious about intelligence.

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council.  He is widely credited with being the first senior U.S. intelligence official to forecast the Soviet Union's collapse, for which he later was awarded the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal.  He is author of
How to Analyze Information and The Cure for Poverty.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Germany
KEYWORDS: 2007; 2007nie; 2007review; fifthcolumn; hayden; herbertemeyer; herbmeyer; iran; irandeal; nationalsecurity; nie; roguecia; shadowgovernment
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

1 posted on 07/29/2009 12:46:23 AM PDT by neverdem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem

bookmark.


2 posted on 07/29/2009 12:59:28 AM PDT by IrishCatholic (No local Communist or Socialist Party Chapter? Join the Democrats, it's the same thing!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
The 2007 NIE report was part of a nefarious plan to make sure a democrat would be elected president in 2008. At that time they probably thought it would be Hillary since most of the senior analysts were Clintonistas and longed for the return on Bubba and his posse. But the chosen one started calling Bubba a racist and basically saying anyone who wont vote for me is a bigoted, red necked racist. Now these analysts are in it up to their necks. What will they do? Say that the 2007 NIE was incorrect. I don't think so.
3 posted on 07/29/2009 1:10:12 AM PDT by skimask
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
The evidence continues to accumulate that the CIA, and now the entire intelligence superstructure overlaid over the CIA, is infested with a fifth column, rabidly anti-Bush, committed against the war in Iraq, undoubtedly far leftists in origin, and of unknown (to the public at least) dimensions.

As the author points out, this corruption by the left of our intelligence system poses a real and direct threat to the security of the nation. Coming as it does at a time of war against international terrorism the corruption of the intelligence apparatus is especially dangerous because, ultimately, intelligence is our most indispensable weapon in that war for survival.

This case illustrates that we are dealing with the possibility of a nuclear attack in America and intelligence is our only real line of defense.

In a way, the flap between Nancy Pelosi and the CIA is very disquieting because it suggests that the rogue elements in the intelligence community are out of control of even an extreme leftist elitist in power like Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House. One can understand rogue elements operating in partisan service of the Speaker to damage Bush and get a Democrat into the White House. But her problem with the CIA suggests that something deeper and broader and more sinister might be going on.

Whatever is going on, it is absolutely vital that Republicans take over one house or the other of Congress in the next midterm election because there is no hope of any investigation under our current one-party rule. I believe that Obama is a Manchurian Marxist and a very, very dangerous man in a position which, if you were to act in league with rogue elements in the intelligence community, could do infinite damage.

I have posted many times my belief that if Barack Obama is challenged at the root of his power, he will not act like Jimmy Carter, he will act like any tyrant of the left and he certainly will not shrink from waging war to protect his power. Therefore, I believe that America is much more likely to get into a serious war under Barack Obama than is commonly assumed. The man is not a Jimmy Carter, he is a Hugo Chavez.


4 posted on 07/29/2009 1:19:07 AM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nathanbedford
The man is not a Jimmy Carter, he is a Hugo Chavez.

Excellent analysis, I could not agree more. I used this same line in attempts to get others to use their minds and not their emotions in voting. My efforts fell flat. Most have no knowledge of history.

A dumbed-down electorate is dangerous to liberty.

5 posted on 07/29/2009 1:32:24 AM PDT by Islander7 (If you want to anger conservatives, lie to them. If you want to anger liberals, tell them the truth.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Islander7
I share your frustration. During the election campaign I posted myself to the point of my wife's distraction.

[For the record, meine Frau is now picking herself up having FOTFLHAO]


6 posted on 07/29/2009 1:37:29 AM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: skimask
“Now these analysts are in it up to their necks. What will they do?”

I swear any more that the elites in this country are just gambling either that nothing will happen, or if it does, that they will be far enough from ground zero to survive. They no longer consider themselves part of the general population of the United States, and know that special priviledges will be reserved for them and their families.

7 posted on 07/29/2009 1:51:40 AM PDT by PLMerite (Speak Truth to Evil.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: wardaddy; Joe Brower; Cannoneer No. 4; Criminal Number 18F; Dan from Michigan; Eaker; Jeff Head; ...
Healthcare Policy, Social Justice and Thugs

Bigger Is Healthier - The problem with U.S. health care is its cost, not its size. The idiocy in NY, ugh!

Conrad Black: McNamara’s Folly - The road to failure in Vietnam.

The political alchemy of Birtherism I see no legs, IMHO.

Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

8 posted on 07/29/2009 1:52:36 AM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Something that I wondered about for a very long time was that how it was the media and President Bush's political opponents could scream about how our intelligence was so wrong about WMDs in Iraq (which I still doubt - I still believe that there WERE WMDs in Iraq, and they're now in Syria!) and yet in opposition to President Bush, site the self-same sources as evidence that Iran had no active nuclear weapons program... Simply put, the intel was completely wrong about Iraq, yet completely right about Iran...

Of course, these are also the same people who say, "we aren't doing anything about North Korea, so why are we bullying Iran?" Well, let me see... North Korea ALREADY HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!! Do these booger eating morons think that things are going so well with North Korea that we should encourage Iran to "join the club?" Sheesh!

Mark

9 posted on 07/29/2009 2:10:07 AM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

I knew this at the time. “Cook the book?, don’t you mean lying through their teeth for political reasons?

Well, now they have obamanation in the white house so they should feel very comfortable. A liar after their own black hearts.


10 posted on 07/29/2009 2:24:42 AM PDT by bareford101 (the obamanation is a COUNTERFEIT with a COUNTERFEIT birth cert. & 39 different ss cards)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MarkL

Something I have wondered about for a long time is why Porter Goss was let go as head of the CIA so quickly. It seemed that he was gaining ground.


11 posted on 07/29/2009 3:36:40 AM PDT by patj
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

tl;dr..iirc that nie came from State.


12 posted on 07/29/2009 3:59:51 AM PDT by happinesswithoutpeace (bah)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: happinesswithoutpeace

Or State had a big hand in it.


13 posted on 07/29/2009 4:00:59 AM PDT by happinesswithoutpeace (bah)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

These traitors are simply every day democrats working hard to destroy America. The sooner we come to realize who they really are and what they are really about the sooner we will get to resolving the core problem. Many democrats, especially those in power are not Americans, they don’t want to be Americans, they hate the very idea of America. There is no desire to coexist with Americans, they will not allow Americans to exist when they get their full power.


14 posted on 07/29/2009 4:32:57 AM PDT by Wpin (I do not regret my admiration for W)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nathanbedford

President Bush should have put John Bolton in charge of cleaning out the CIA nest.


15 posted on 07/29/2009 4:36:22 AM PDT by listenhillary (90% of our problems could be resolved with a government 10% of the size it is now.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem; SolidWood; nuconvert

The NIE is a consensus document, thus not very interesting.

Actually both the BND report and the NIE can be true despite that they are interpreted differently. The statement was “Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program years ago”. What is a nuclear weapons program, what about dual use? How many should be involved in such studies until it should be classified as a nuclear weapons program? Is it still a nuclear weapons program if some of the crucial steps in producing weapons are missing?

What is “Iran”, is it the government, a small private group or a group close to the big leader?

If you have a consensus paper the most likely statement is negative. The 2007 NIE had as well a political bias; “everybody” wanted to be able to talk to Tehran as an opportunity was missed after the invasion of Afghanistan.


16 posted on 07/29/2009 5:03:55 AM PDT by AdmSmith
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PLMerite
Liberalism is a mental illness and libs do not have the capablity of considering the consequences of actions.

The sad part of this we even have a plethora of Freepers who are still proud of not voting for McCain.

With all of MCain's faults he would not be putting our very existence at stake.

17 posted on 07/29/2009 5:07:24 AM PDT by Conservativegreatgrandma (Al Franken--the face of the third-party voters)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: AdmSmith; Berosus; bigheadfred; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; ...
Do you remember that 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate which concluded -- to virtually everyone's astonishment -- that four years earlier Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program? Publication of that NIE cut the ground out from under the Bush administration's efforts to prevent Iran from getting its hands on a nuclear bomb.
Thanks neverdem.
18 posted on 07/29/2009 5:27:46 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

read


19 posted on 07/29/2009 6:02:51 AM PDT by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
The CIA throughout the Dubya years was nothing more than an arm of the liberal cabal that would change America into something unrecognizable by our Founding Fathers. From the WMD flap surrounding the war in Iraq to PlameGate everything to come from there has been rotten to the core. As was and is the State Department and God knows how many other agencies that Dubya trusted in and depended on to inform him and carry out his directives.

The next time we change government, under Sarah Palin for instance, there absolutely MUST be a housecleaning the likes of which DC has not seen for years. And it needs to start with the 2010 congressional elections. Every member of the house and one third of the senate can be turned out on their ear! What a great down payment on the task of taking back our country under Sarah Palin. Get rid of the house and a third of the senate next year and finish the job in 2012 by keeping the house and sending another third of the senate packing. What a nice gift to give SarahCudda on inauguration day!

I know it's a big task, but I think with the right kind of national campaign it can be pulled off in the end.

20 posted on 07/29/2009 6:32:09 AM PDT by jwparkerjr (God Bless America!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson