Dec 05 2007
It’s Official, Iran NIE Was Not A Consensus Finding
The Washington Post is out this morning with story quoting intel officials who admit that the conclusion that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is still suspended was not a consensus view (hence the low confidence it was given), but was in fact challenged by key elements of the intelligence community:
McConnell said his objective in preparing the Iran estimate was “to present the clinical evidence and let it stand on its own merits with its own qualification,” meaning that it would contain dissent. “There are always disagreements on every National Intelligence Estimate,” he said.
He and other officials jettisoned a requirement that each conclusion in an NIE reflect a consensus view of the intelligence community — a requirement that in the past yielded “lowest-common-denominator judgments,” said one senior intelligence official familiar with the reforms.
“We demolished democracy” by no longer reflecting just a majority opinion, “because we felt we should not be determining the credibility of analytic arguments by a raising of hands,” the official said. Some analysts, for example, were not “highly confident” that Iran has not restarted its nuclear program, a result reflected in the classified report. Other analysts said Iran was further away from attaining a nuclear weapons capability than the majority said.
In other words they don’t know (and that can be said with high confidence now) if Iran has their weapons program ongoing now or not – even if Iran claims they do! It looks like some decided to push their views over those of others and stage a media event.
And what did they base this reckless conclusion on which can mean life or death for thousands of people? Folks, you just are not going to believe this one:
In the case of Iran, critical information was gleaned from non-clandestine sources, such as news photographs taken in 2005 depicting the inner workings of one of Iran’s uranium enrichment plants, an official said.
Those photos helped persuade analysts that the Natanz plant was suited to making low-enriched uranium for nuclear energy but not the highly enriched uranium needed for bombs. “You go to wherever you think the answer might be,” the official said, “instead of waiting for it to trickle into your top-secret computer system.”
Media pictures from a guided (and therefore controlled) tour of the plant by the Iranians? Did anyone think Iran would be using the event to stage an impression? No wonder there are claims we are being duped! Can anyone say for sure the pictures cover the entire facility?
This stinks of a staged media event for political propaganda, something not easily done in today’s internet world with hundreds of fact checkers ready to analyze reports like this in a matter of minutes. If we find Congressional Democrat fingerprints on this circus there will be hell to pay. The excuse given for this travesty is the authors did not want to screw up like the intel community has many times before. But guess what? It seems they did.
I mean, isn’t cooking the intel what the Dems have been screaming about (without a shred of evidence) for years now? Now we have cooked intel, leaked to the liberal media, cooked by Clinton holdovers, and directed by Senate Democrats (Reid said the NIE was in response to his requests). If the Dems cooked intel for a Presidential campaign edge and tried to trick the country on a matter of a nuclear threat then they will be in serious, serious trouble. Legal and political.
Update: Mac Ranger notes the IAEA is not buying the NIE’s conclusion Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. Kurt Hoglund has a good description of the bureaucracy this report came out of, and it did not come out of the ‘intel community’ but a new oversight group. It is a good reference for how this oversight group co-opted the community.
Update: Ed Morrissey has a snippet from the WSJ that identifies the three anti-Bush authors of this NIE which was not a consensus but really a political bombshell:
Our own “confidence” is not heightened by the fact that the NIE’s main authors include three former State Department officials with previous reputations as “hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials,” according to an intelligence source. They are Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; Vann Van Diepen, the National Intelligence Officer for WMD; and Kenneth Brill, the former U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
I am pretty sure Fingar led INR when Valerie Plame led the Joint Task Force on Iraq and sent her husband to Niger in 1999 (see here and here). I find it hard to believe they did not know each other. I am not sure where Fingar was in 2002 when Plame sent Joe back to Niger to debunk forged documents the CIA supposedly did not have yet. But one gets the feeling this NIE has some serious issues.
Update: Ed Laskey at American Thinker has more on the NIE’s three authors who decided their views would supersede the views of the actual intel gathering agencies they purported to speak for.
It is clear we may have three rogue State Department officials using flimsy evidence to push their agendas – but the awkward and klutzy way in which they did it may have real serious dangers. Now some people are taking this NIE to mean there is no need to put any pressure on Iran and its nuclear program, and Iran is declaring victory (which I believe these instigators would not mind in the least):
Russia’s foreign minister, meanwhile, indicated that the U.S. report’s findings undermined Washington’s push for a new set of U.N. sanctions against Iran.
The U.S. intelligence report released Monday concluded that Iran had stopped its weapons program in late 2003 and shown no signs since of resuming it, representing a sharp turnaround from a previous intelligence assessment in 2005.
“This is a declaration of victory for the Iranian nation against the world powers over the nuclear issue,” Ahmadinejad told thousands of people during a visit to Ilam province in western Iran.
I seriously think these klutzes thought they could simply issue a report and little would come of it except Bush might have his hands tied if Iran was found making nukes. I mean there will be more intel and if these folks are wrong the intel will reverse the finding again (even though we now know from above there are those who believe they have intel NOW showing Iran restarted the nuke program). Were these officials just bunglers of the highest degree? But the truth is this finding is having very dangerous repercussions. If we lose the sanctions on Iran we may be heading for a very explosive showdown with Iran.
I’m sorry… but you guys are really grasping at straws here. Let’s say the NIE said that Iran was actively developing nuclear weapons. You bush babies would all be craping your pants running to and fro holding this NIE in your hands screaming about how we needed to bomb Iran right now. The WaPo article you cite simply shows that that instead of asserting findings as absolute facts, that dissenting views were taken in to account so that the report covered all the bases. This is a sensible way to go about producing these reports. As for the IAEA… It’s quite interesting that you only believe them when the view they espouse jives with yours – even though they still state they are “embracing” the finsdings of the NIE overall….
And if the report is sabotage as some here have suggested or, lol, fake, why does Bush not declare it as such?
Really folks this much hypocrisy is a lttle soul crushing don’t ya think?
Sqadan,
The WaPo said their were views (backed up with intel) Iran had stopped, had not stopped, could build quickly, could not build quickly.
The NIE claims confidence that out of all this contradictory intel Iran is being good.
LOL! Talk about grasping at straws – hello Kettle.
Again-
To my original point – if the report said otherwise, you would ignore any and all dissenting viewpoints or information and begin your flag-waving warmongering tirades about boming Iran, just like Bush did with the run up to Iraq. The same kind of this / or that info was presented to Bush prior to going to war in Iraq and he chose to ignore it. Also, I don’t hear anyone on the left saying it’s time to let down our guard… but the hysterics that got us to this point are the problem. Intelligence will never be perfect – no one is advocating that Iran is all of a sudden a peaceful friendly place… but we need to learn how to ratchet down the rhetoric so we don’t look like we are constantly, irrationally, looking for a fight. We also can’t treat every boogie man as the next Hitler either.
norm:
Do you have something against caps?
What do you mean they can not back it up? If we are to believe this report then they were actively working to build a nuke back in 2003. And they are still enriching uranium. They are still funding Hezbellah as well. They are still refusing to comply with the United Nations. These are not the actions of innocent harmless people.
Lieberman was enough of a Democrats 8 years ago to make him the VP. But when he failed to put party above country the partisans in the Democratic party betrayed him. Figures.
BTW, if the Iranians are such nice guys who have been so badly used and abused by the mean Bushies, why didn’t Clinton make any attempt to reestablish diplomatic relations with the mad mullahs?
We have not had diplomatic relations with them since 1979, it is not as if they were our best friends and then Bush came along and ruined it all.
I can remember a time when Democrats cared about things like the fact that the mullahs threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. They were concerned about the fact that Iran supported terrorists groups like Hezbellah. Now they are so busy demonizing their fellow Americans who happen to be Republicans that they can not be bothered to stand up to holocaust denying fascists anymore.
Pathetic.
Sqadan:
Once again, if the Clinton administration had resolved the situation with Saddam instead of aggravating it the whole thing would have been history by the time Bush left Texas.
The Democrats and the intel people they used and supported created the information Bush used. Clinton said Saddam had wmd. Zinni said Saddam was our number one threat and they were both saying these things when Bush was still the Governor of Texas. Where were those dissenting views then?
Good greif… It’s always back to blaming Clinton… When will you guys take responsibility for any of your own mistakes??? Notice that Clinton did not run in and attack Iraq. Bush and Clinton may have had the same intel – but they quite obviously came to different conclusions about what to do with it. I guess Iraq is a grand success – good ol Bush is really cleaning up Bill’s mess.
When in doubt – always blame some other president. I guess by that logic it’s really Reagan’s fault that 9/11 happened – after all – he trained Osama right?
Sqadan:
I am not blaming Clinton. I am just pointing out a simple fact that certain people keep overlooking, this is not just about Bush. Obviously, if the intel had been better to begin with a lot of problems could have been avoided. but Democrats only seem to care about things like that when they can beat some Republican over the head with it.
In truth the mullahs and Saddam could both have settled the issues confronting them just by cooperating. Such as Saddam could have restrained himself and not tried to kill a president, he could have avoided shooting at our planes, he could have lived up to his obligations under the cease fire agreement, he could have used the Food for oil program for food instead of weapons and palaces.
By the same token the mullahs could have avoided killing our Marines in Lebanon, trying to shut down the Gulf in 88, sending arms into Iraq to kill American soldiers and Iraqi civilians and actually working with the international community rather than acting like a bunch of messianic loons.
So I tend to blame them the most.
Sqadan:
And by the way Clinton did attack Iraq. Unless you think that bombing the capitol does not qualify as an attack. As far as that is concerned back in 1998 when Clinton made the Iraqi Liberation Act the law, he also guaranteed us that Saddam would use those weapons and he said that the only way to stop him was to remove him from power.
Now most people would consider all that kind of aggressive.
terrye…
i said iran is a very serious problem. i’m well aware they are funding hezzbollah. we absolutely need to deal with them. only we need to deal with them intelligently. like we should have dealt with iraq intelligently. perhaps it’s possible to act intelligently and fear-monger…but clearly bush can’t.
right after we attacked iraq we looked strong, and iran offered the u.s. broad dialogue including cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of israel and the termination of funding for hezzbollah. bush refused to talk to them and let the international community deal with them. now we are where we are. iraq is a mess and we look weak in the middle east. well played.
lieberman puts israel above all. what you consider partisan and what you consider good for the country is skewed by your partisan view. i consider liebermans support of an occupation that is strategically and economically harmful to the united states mis-guided. you consider the loss of 4000 troops and the borrowing of over two trillion dollars in order to create an iranian influenced iraq good for this country. i guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Norm says:
“…and lieberman is not a democrat…he is the senior senator from israel.”
Thanks Norm for letting us know what you’re really all about.
Norm says:
“right after we attacked iraq we looked strong, and iran offered the u.s. broad dialogue including cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of israel and the termination of funding for hezzbollah.”
BS Norm….Please provide a link to back-up your claim.
Sqadan says:
“…by that logic it’s really Reagan’s fault that 9/11 happened – after all – he trained Osama right?”
No, not right.
This is my first time commenting here…Does it usually take so long for the comment to appear?
Ringo,
Welcome to the Strata-Sphere. I had to moderate your first comment but from here on it should be OK unless you put lots of links in your comments or trip the span filter.
Cheers, AJStrata
gringo…
these seem to be two articles that a lot of other outlets source.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6274147.stm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700727.html
liebermans zealous support of israel tells you nothing about what i’m about.
There are so many inaccuracies and exaggerated claims in these post I don’t know where to start.
The NIE is the consensus view of all 16 intelligence agencies. The fact that some individual members in the intelligence community don’t agree with it does not mean that it is disputed or shouldn’t be relied on. The Washington Post article you cites quotes McConnell as saying that “There are always disagreements on every National Intelligence Estimate.” Under your logic, we should disregard every past and future NIE, or for that matter any intelligence report. That would be utterly stupid. Just because it doesn’t support your pre-conceived notion about Iran doesn’t mean that we should ignore it.
The NIE did not change based solely on the photos referenced in your article. You would know that if you actually read the NIE. It came from multiple sources, including, but not limited to, intercepted communications between Iranian officials. Why are you guys so afraid of the facts – simply because they don’t support your preconceived beliefs?
The IAEA did not disagree with the NIE or state that it is not as opptimistic. Take a look at their website – IAEA.org. The press release addressing the new NIE states as follows:
“IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei received with great interest the new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate about Iran´s nuclear program which concludes that there has been no on-going nuclear weapons program in Iran since the fall of 2003. He notes in particular that the Estimate tallies with the Agency´s consistent statements over the last few years that, although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the Agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran.”
Where is all the evidence that Iran has a active nuclear program? You guys repeatedly make that statement, but do not back it up with anything. If you intend to disregard the NIE and IAEA findings, you at least need to give some reason for doubting them. Simply saying “I don’t believe them” or “they could be wrong” does not equate to evidence and facts of a contrary conclusion. If you want to take this country to war, convince the rest of us to ignore the entire US and UN intelligence community.
The claim that Bush legitimately didn’t know about the new NIE conclsuions until last week is laughable. Do you guys honestly believe that the Director of the National Intelligence went into the President’s office in August, told him that the intelligence agencies had new information on Iran, but didn’t want to tell him because it wasn’t final? Why would he be concerned about disclosing the nature of the new information and simply caution the President that it was tentative? Why wouldn’t the President ask any questions about it? Especially when Iran is one of the key foreign policy issues we are dealing with. Bush’s story is so blatantly a lie that I can’t believe you guys would actually believe it (especially with all of the other lies that we have discovered). Why do you guys accept obviously false claims by government officials regardless of their political affilitation – I thought true conservatives were suspicious of the government?
You guys keep putting up straw man arguments because you no longer can support your war monger position. There are not only two choices – bomb Iran or give up and let them develop nuclear weapons. None of the Democrats are proposing that we simply give up. The debate is whether we continue pressing for diplomatic solutions or pursue military options. At a minimum, the new NIE indicates that we have time to continue pressing for diplomatic solutions. It also demonstrates that we can accomplish our objectives through diplomacy – Iran stopped its weapons program in 2003 after negotiations with the EU. The US didn’t even agree to participate in discussions with Iran until 2005, then we refused to talk to them directly until they agreed to cease uranium production – the whole purpose for the negotiations in the first place. That is not a true diplomatic effort. If Bush was willing to negotiate with and arm the Sunni insurgents who were killing our soldiers for 4 years in Iraq, why is he afraid to talk directly with the Iranians?
The central question is whether or not the risk Iran poses now and in the near future warrant a military strike. A military strike will have consequences, including further straining our military capability, strikes against our forces in Iraq, huge spikes in oil costs that could seriously damage our fragile economy. Iran is certainly a problem country we need to contain, but it is not the boggeyman that you have all been lead to believe. You judge them on their public rhetoric rather than there actions. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has not attacked Isreal or the US – what makes you think they will launch a nuclear attack ensuring their own destruction when they have thus far been too afraid to launch a conventional attack? The new NIE concluded that Iran made its decision to stop the weapons program based on a rationale cost-benefits analysis, suggesting that they are not the religious zealots you all assert.
I know it is hard for you guys right now. Your champion Bush looks more stupid and weaker every day. The Republican party is in shambles because the majority of the country finally figured out after 4 years of Republican control over the Presidency and Congress that they are corrupt, fraudulent and liars. Your whole ideological world is crumbling on top of you. But that doesn’t mean that you should drag the rest of us down with you.
AJStrata,
Thanks…I’ll check in from time to time.
AJ Strata,
I sent you a response a few hours ago refuting many of your statements and theories. It still has not been posted. What is wrong – are you afraid of the truth?
Hey guys, breaking news! It turns out that Vice President Cheney is a closet liberal and is now working in coordination with the three rogue officials that wrote the NIE. Here is how Cheney responded today in an interview with Politico:
“I don’t have any reason to question what the [intelligence] community has produced,†he said. “Now, there are things they don’t know. There’s always the possibility that circumstances will change. But I think they’ve done the best job they can with the intelligence that’s available.â€
Check the Politico website to verify. That jihatisit traitor!!!!
Conman,
Grow up dude. I was at dinner with my family. Your first post requires I moderate. You can babble on now all you want.
BTW, this was not a consensus – as the WaPo reported. Did you take the time to read the posts or are you just reciting talking points????