Most people are now well aware of the games the left is playing to stage media events like the NIE on Iran’s nuclear threat. The news is all about the first sentence (they stopped their weapons design program in 2003) as if Americans don’t go on to read the rest of it (they had a weapons program, they continue to process uranium, they may have started the weapons design up again – no one knows). But most of us are much smarter than the news media and the arrogant bureaucrats could even imagine. And it doesn’t take much extra reporting on all the facts surrounding this matter to figure out Iran is still an evolving nuclear threat.

For instance Israel, France and the IAEA are not buying the NIE. Two out of three did not buy the threat of Iraq under Hussein after 9-11 – so the only conclusion anyone can reasonably draw from this spectrum of views is Iran is still a threat. Americans can understand the weapons design program could have ended in 2003 while weapon production – specifically the uranium warhead – continues. In fact, if Americans knew the CIA under Clinton gave Iran the designs to build a nuclear trigger they would realize that Iran did not need that much ‘design’ anyway. They understand the program the NIE addresses is one to design a nuke to fit onto missiles. It is not to design a bomb that can fit in a car or truck and be driven into Jerusalem. That weapon design probably exists and may be impossible to trace back to Iran as the source of a suicide nuclear bomb.

Another reason the NIE is useless is it was a response to a very focused query initiated by the Democrat Congress – therefore it doesn’t address the probability that Syria took over the weapon design program Iran suspended. Israel took out nuclear weapons factory in Syria recently according to leading experts who have reviewed the incident (see photos here). The NIE doesn’t address how Syria and Iran could have divided up the weapons program to keep it from being discovered.

There was no international pressure on Iran to close down an unreported and unknown weapons program in 2003 after we invaded Iraq – which the NIE claims. That is just one of many inconsistencies and erroneous results the NIE claims. And these inconsistencies just make the results questionable. What about the smuggling effort uncovered in 2006 in the UK to send Iran weapons grade material? (For a more extensive post on many of the glaring problems with the NIE check out this previous post).

And both the NY Times and the Washington Post have confirmed this NIE was not a consensus conclusion and in fact there is evidence Iran has not stopped its weapons program. Moreover, we all know there is little distinction between a weapons program and a civilian power program – it all differs in the quality of the nuclear material and which machine it ends up in. The number of centrifuges Iran is building (54,000) is too many to fuel their puny reactors.

I could go on and on with the problems with the NIE (and these are not attacks my insecure friends on the left – they are reasonable observations). But the truth is we have seen the intel community misuse their position for political personal gain and it will be their undoing. The CIA is seen as a bunch of bumbling clowns – which is probably very unfair to all those working hard and doing their jobs. But the fact is the CIA and State Department have been trying to go beyond their legal mandates and duties for decades, and if this continues the only response Americans will be left with is to clean out the rot and start over.

This was clearly a media event because all the reporting discussed its impact on the Presidential race – with nothing on analyzing the NIE compared to previous reporting and pondering what kind of evidence could have come through to overturn the mountain of contradictory evidence already out there. Even now the SurrenderMedia is trying to show that the disintegration of the intelligence community into a policy-bickering, media-manipulating, power-hungry group who are not focused on defending America (their job and oath – for what that is worth these days) is somehow a decline in the Bush administration:

The fact is very few people are buying this staged event. The number of people buying this (18%) is about the same number of people who still support Congress in their historically low numbers. Two thirds of America is not buying it. So when the left says this is all about Bush’s decline they are not fooling America. It is about the decline of our intelligence capabilities due to their political games. They are distracted from their duties because they are hungry to play power games.

After 9-11 and other recent intelligence disasters we had good reason to say enough is enough and punish the intelligence bungling. We did not do that. We gave these people a chance because we realized ourselves that we all had overlooked the threat of al-Qaeda. But after 9-11 we have seen the intel on Iraq be wrong. We have seen the CIA try and affect a propaganda coup in the 2006 elections when they covertly joined to the Kerry campaign and leaked stories of the White House going to war on forged documents (all of which the players in this attempt to overthrow our democratic process admit they ‘got wrong’). We have had our most powerful intelligence programs exposed by these people trying to tarnish a GOP President (NSA-FISA, SWIFT). And now we have a cooked NIE no one is buying which was meant to affect the 2008 elections. Only now it has blown up and is undermining those trying to pressure Iran to come clean and let inspectors in to lose way too much ground.

I have a hint for Rudy Guiliani (who I prefer right now) but it is clearly open to all the GOP contenders. run on the promise to clean up and refocus our intelligence community. Promise to fix this and you will win in a landslide. And here is another big hint. The military is obligated to operate under civilian control as long as that civilian control doesn’t violate the law. The out of control civil servants are supposed to follow a similar chain of command but are clearly now incapable of doing so. The military also rotates people through positions instead of creating dead-wood for life who do nothing but collect power and hinder new ideas. It would be worth a look to restructure most of our intel under the military so that we can end this problem of rogue agencies and civil servants. If they cannot handle their responsibilities as given to them take them away and give them to someone who can. That is a winning platform plank – trust me.

Besides, when the others in the IC realize their jobs and careers are now being impacted by these rogues they may decide to stand up and help out as well.

Update: Someone else agrees with me it is time to demolish and rebuild our intelligence assets, and they have a good list of historic bungles by the CIA as well.