British Intelligence have issued a stunning rebuke of the NIE: (h/t The Strata-Sphere)
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 security services in London want concrete evidence to allay
concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.~~~
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 defense 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.
It’s quickly becoming known that our intelligence agencies have become partisan hacks and are now the laughingstocks of the intel community. All of this is the result of rogue agents like Plame and high level managers who only want to damage Bush. But as many of us have suspected, much of the mid level players don’t agree with these people:
A US intelligence source has revealed that some American spies share
the concerns of the British and the Israelis. “Many middle- ranking CIA
veterans believe Iran is still committed to producing nuclear weapons
and are concerned that the agency lost a number of its best sources in
Iran in 2004,” the official said.
The CIA has become so politicized its now become a worthless entity, and an embarrassment. Think about this. Isn’t one of the complaints we hear from the Democrats (and Huckabee) is that we don’t listen and engage other countries? If so, and if every other country across Europe was telling you that your being foolish to put together this political NIE, they why did they release it?
I know, I know….we all know the answer to that one. But I’m just sayin….
Meanwhile, if this NIE is allowed to steer our policies against Iran we may soon watch one of the most dangerous tyrants to come around in a long time get a nuke. Israel understands the stakes:
It must be clear that if Iran does not cooperate with the West on the nuclear issue, military confrontation will be unavoidable, incoming Israeli ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, was quoted as saying Sunday.
Prosor, who served as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s senior adviser on Iran, told the Sunday Telegraph that Teheran could enrich enough uranium to make an atomic bomb by 2009.
“At the current rate of progress Iran will reach the technical threshold for producing fissile material by 2009,” he told the British newspaper. “This is a global threat and it requires a global response. It should be made clear that if Iran does not co-operate then military confrontation is inevitable. It is either co-operation or confrontation.”
Prosor went on to say that the Iranians would soon be able to fully control all the elements of enrichment and from that point on, it would only be a matter of time before they had a nuclear weapon.
A nuclear bomb based
on enriched uranium is a fairly simple device. So long as Iran is enriching uranium on a massive scale and has the material to make artillery shells, bomb casings, and the ability to shape the uranium then the notion that its stopped it nuke weapon program is ignorant, and dangerous.
UPDATE
John Bolton gets it right, as usual:
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.
See author page
There is also an excellent post on the NIE 180 over at American Thinker up last night and I am waiting to see what comes out of the meeting in Israel today to discuss the NIE and present intel data.
After all it wasn’t that long ago Israel had to slap everyone else’s head to get their attention about a facility in Syria that was above ground and out in the wide open all by itself.
Plus Iran may have shut down some of their stuff when we entered Iraq.
But then they partnered with North Korea to do work there and probably had a big hand in the little project in Syria that Israel took out.
“The CIA has become so politicized its now become a worthless entity, and an embarrassment”.
That’s what happens when the enemy of America (aka Democrats/traitiors) gets thousand of people in the CIA/NSA. They have the firm belief that they won’t be killed in a terrrorists attack, only republicans will be killed. The definition of democrat and stupid should be combined in the dictionary.
The NIE looks like an extremely effective strike from the inside (only from the inside?) against the security interests of the United States of America. The fifth column that claimed that the war in Iraq had been lost and agitated to turn their propaganda into reality has now delivered a paralyzing strike against the US ability to respond to the Iran threat. Well done, well done!
The NIE looks like an extremely effective strike from the inside (only from the inside?) against the security interests of the United States of America. The fifth column that claimed that the war in Iraq had been lost and agitated to turn their propaganda into reality has now delivered a paralyzing strike against the US ability to respond to the Iran threat. Well done, well done!
A 2003 NIE that claims Iran gave up its nuclear program…hmmm, how interesting?
“a nuclear-armed Iran is an unacceptable risk to us and our allies.”
-24 May, 2004
Democratic Presidential candidate,
member of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
person who (if attending intelligence briefings and doing his job) would have been presented the NIE
Sen. John Kerry DEMOCRAT
Better yet, read the 2004 Democratic Party Platform which advocated a policy towards Iran which had already been tried and failed, but still advocated it as a means of addressing the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran; ie, the entire Democratic Party officially, in their 2004 platform, ranted about Iran being a growing nuclear threat.
Now we know that not only did Dems blow off the 2002 NIE on Iraq, they blew off the 2003 NIE on Iran, and again the updated 2005 and 2006 NIE’s that they “demanded” on both the consequences of premature evacuation from Iraq as well as the Iranian nuclear threat.
One wonders…do Democrats participate in the war on terror other than ranting against it? Almost none of them read the NIEs. They scream about threats from Saddam and Iran without bothering to get intel from anyone beyond NYT and MoveOn.
Put simply, Dems read NYT not NIE unless a line can be distorted or misrepresented to suit their political marketing aimed at their political funding from their political action committees.
And what do you think of the very popular view by a leading Israeli analyst Obadiah Shoher? He argues (here, for example, www. samsonblinded.org/blog/america-arranges-a-peace-deal-with-iran.htm ) that the Bush Administration made a deal with Iran: nuclear program in exchange for curtailing the Iranian support for Iraqi terrorists. His story seems plausible, isn’t it?
How about this. For once, instead of being intimidated by the NeoConservatives, the intelligence agencies decided to prevent another bush administratin debacle (war with Iran).
I understand that the NeoCons, whose fondest desire is to see millions die in global war, are going to be dissapointed. They will just have to satisfy themselves watching the civil war in Iraq and pondering the totture of prisoners by Bush Administration functionaries.
You have to be one of the most retarded lefties to come around on this site….congratulations.
Philadelphia Steve,
Sad man….you only managed 4 talking points in that, completely ignored how W and his Haliburton cabal have destroyed the world with global warming, and I didn’t see anything about the Bilderbergers in there.
C’mon man, step up! In for a dime, in for a dollar.
btw, ever read the Clinton’s Democratic Leadership Council mideast and foreign policy positions? Please do, then tell us about neoconservative liberal democrats, and how that’s not an oxymoron.
rofl!