The W.H. Versus the U.S. On Iran

[Nbadan]

In yet another surreal moment....

US Officials: Iran has nuke capability By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press


WASHINGTON - Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure but is continuing to enrich uranium, which means it may still be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015, senior intelligence officials said Monday.

That finding is a change from two years ago, when U.S. intelligence agencies believed Iran was determined to develop a nuclear capability and was continuing its weapons development program. It suggests that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic pressure, the official said.

"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," states the unclassified summary of the secret report, released Monday.

Officials said the new findings suggest that diplomacy was effective in containing Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Yahoo (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071203/ap_on_go_ot/iran_nuclear_2)

Iran halted it's nuclear weapons program in 2003...

....however, the White House says...

"But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem."

[JohnnyMarzetti]

Dickhead Cheney already knew this.

[xrayzebra]

Those damn Republicans, you know they always lie. Irans
are good people and would never lie.

[boutons_]

The Exec bullshit about Iran nukes is the same bullshit about Iraq nukes. HIGHLY creative.

Iran will remain in dickhead's crosshairs for the establishment of American hegemony in the M/E to control the oil, not any "very serious (potential) problem" about Iran's hypothetical nukes.

Scott Ridder thinks dickhead will strike Iran in April. As good a guess as anybody's, and once again, like the March 2003 strike, it's influenced by the election timing.

[Nbadan]

Stupid Americans...


http://www.offrampbums.com/nosoup.jpg

[Nbadan]

Here is the official WH statement


Here is the text of a statement issued today by Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, concerning the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The intelligence estimate says that, contrary to previous assessments, Iran halted the program in 2003 in response to international pressure and has probably not restarted it since then, though it has the capacity to do so.

Today’s National Intelligence Estimate offers some positive news. It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons. It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen.

But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem. The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically — without the use of force — as the Administration has been trying to do. And it suggests that the President has the right strategy: intensified international pressure along with a willingness to negotiate a solution that serves Iranian interests while ensuring that the world will never have to face a nuclear armed Iran.

The bottom line is this: for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran — with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions, and with other financial pressure — and Iran has to decide it wants to negotiate a solution.

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/world/04irantext.html)

So the WH wants Iran to not do what inspectors say they are not doing.....

[Nbadan]

This NIE was apparently finished a year ago, and its basic parameters were almost certainly common knowledge in the White House well before that. This means that all the leaks, all the World War III stuff, all the blustering about the IAEA — all of it was approved for public consumption after Cheney/Bush/Rice/etc. knew perfectly well it was mostly baseless.

....

Why were the key judgments finally released? Cheney didn't want them released, Bush surely didn't want them released, and DNI Mike McConnell told Congress a few weeks ago that he didn't want them released. So who did?

Washington Monthly (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_12/012623.php)

[Wild Cobra]

Dan, I wish you would parse the words carefully and compare them with know facts before quoting such idiotic articles.

[Nbadan]

Parse this: The main points of the NIE:


“We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program…”

“We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.”

“We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely…”

“We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.”

“We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.”

Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/03/5590)

[boutons_]

WC bitch-slapped yet again.

As with Iraq, the almost total absence of RELIABLE, VERIFIABLE intel means one tries all other means, including "kicking the can down the road", and DON'T start a fucking goddamn war because there is an IGNORANT consensus, aka "group think", biased by suppressing non-supportive intel, and hyping to hell supportive intel, which is how the Repug WH bullied and lied to Congress and the media pre-Iraq.

Then the WH says (as they had planned to do all along):

"oops, sorry, no slam-dunk WMD, not our fault. It was bad intel."

... which proves they didn't give a fuck about intel +/-. Iraq was exclusively about the oil.

The huge question is how this NIE on Iran got into the public finally.
Apparently the WH absolutely didn't want it out, so who gave the OK to out it?

[George Gervin's Afro]

This whole thing stinks.

[NASCARdad]

This is proof that President Bush's plan is working and keeping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. Damn I wish there were no term limits.

[boutons_]

Danny, you left out a key NIE statement:

“This NIE does not (italics in original) assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons.”

If the NIE doesn't make this assumption, who else could be possibly making this assumption?

Sounds to me that the intel community is taking a stronger stand after they got abused to create and then blamed for bad Iraq intel. Bureaucratic CYA.

Also, the intel community's warnings, which were correct, validated warnings, were IGNORED by dubya/dickhead in the months before 9/11. THAT story, how the Repug WH allowed 9/11 to occur on the Reug watch, has been been hermetically sealed up by the WH and the compromised 9/11 Commission.

Will dubya/dickhead/neo-cunts wave this Iran NIE as "bad intel", as they did about the Iraq WMD intel?

Where else does the WH get its "good intel"? From the PNAC/oilcos/AEI? :lol

For dubya/dickhead/neo-cunts, the M/E isn't about US security or WMD, it's only about grabbing the oil.

If one has "bad intel", ie NSA/FBI/CIA intel is seen as not trustable/verifiable, does one start a war anyway?

YES, when the intel is irrelevant to the real objective of oil grabbing and establishing regional military hegemony.

[Extra Stout]

I notice nobody in the White House is clamoring about attacking Syria, even though they actually got far enough along with their WMD facility that Israel went ahead and bombed it.

I can't imagine why.

Oil reserves, billions of barrels
Syria: 2.5
Iran: 89.7

[101A]

I notice nobody in the White House is clamoring about attacking Syria, even though they actually got far enough along with their WMD facility that Israel went ahead and bombed it.

I can't imagine why.

Oil reserves, billions of barrels
Syria: 2.5
Iran: 89.7Could someone point out where a White House official "clamored" about attacking Iran?

I have read, over the past couple of years, about Democrats thinking that was what was going on, but I haven't seen the actual clamoring myself.

What I have seen is a potential Nuclear Weapons program halted without a shot fired.

[DarkReign]

What I have seen is a potential Nuclear Weapons program halted without a shot fired.

Thats the same thing we all see......except the important warmongers, of course.

WH still insists that Iran is enriching uranium. All evidence points to the contrary, but you know Bush...he's kinda stubborn that way. Prideful man, even.

[boutons_]

'White House official "clamored" about attacking Iran?"

quibbling over a word? yep

how about dubya's WWIII or WWIV reference?

or declaring the Iran Guard as terrorists?

or blaming Iran for supporting violence in Iraq (while the WH claimed the surge was working and violence was down)

etc, etc, the war-on-Iran drumbeat has been incessant.

And the WH knew the contents of this no-nukes-in-Iran NIE all the time the WH also saying Iran was developing nukes. fucking liars, yawn.

And what about the US moving Navy ships and ship fuel in large quantities recently into the Hormuz area?

Paranoid about this WH attacking Iran? Of course, after "once bitten" on the bogus Iraq war, "twice shy" about Iraq.

Here's Ritter on the WH drumbeat towards attacking Iran:

On the Eve of Destruction

By Scott Ritter
Truthdig.com

Monday 22 October 2007

Don't worry, the White House is telling us. The world's most powerful leader was simply making a rhetorical point. At a White House press conference last week, just in case you haven't heard, President Bush informed the American people that he had told world leaders "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." World War III. That is certainly some rhetorical point, especially coming from the man singularly most capable of making such an event reality.

Pundits have raised their eyebrows and comics are busy writing jokes, but the president's reference to Armageddon, no matter how cavalierly uttered and subsequently brushed away, suggests an alarming context. Some might note that the comment was simply an offhand response to a reporter's question, the kind of free-thinking scenario that baffles Bush so. In a way, this makes what the president said even more disturbing, since we now have an insight into the vision, and related terminology, which hovers just below the horizon in the brain of George W. Bush.

When I was a weapons inspector with the United Nations, there was a jostling that took place at the end of each day, when decisions needed to be made and authorization documents needed to be signed. In an environment of competing agendas, each of us who championed a position sought to be the "last man in," namely the person who got to imprint the executive chairman (our decision maker) with the final point of view for the day. Failure to do so could find an inspection or point of investigation sidetracked for days or weeks after the executive chairman became distracted by a competing vision. I understand the concept of "imprinting," and have seen it in action. What is clear from the president's remarks is that, far from an innocent rhetorical fumble, his words, and the context in which he employed them, are a clear indication of the imprinting which is taking place behind the scenes at the White House. If the president mentions World War III in the context of Iran's nuclear program, one can be certain that this is the very sort of discussion that is taking place in the Oval Office.

A critical question, therefore, is who was the last person to "imprint" the president prior to his public allusion to World War III? During his press conference, Bush noted that he awaited the opportunity to confer with his defense secretary, Robert Gates, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice following their recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. So clearly the president hadn't been imprinted recently by either of the principle players in the formulation of defense and foreign policy. The suspects, then, are quickly whittled down to three: National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Vice President Dick Cheney, and God.

Hadley is a long-established neoconservative thinker who has for the most part operated "in the shadows" when it comes to the formulation of Iran policy in the Bush administration. In 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Hadley (then the deputy national security adviser) instituted what has been referred to as the "Hadley Rules," a corollary of which is that no move will be made which alters the ideological positioning of Iran as a mortal enemy of the United States. These "rules" shut down every effort undertaken by Iran to seek a moderation of relations between it and the United States, and prohibited American policymakers from responding favorably to Iranian offers to assist with the fight against al-Qaida; they also blocked the grand offer of May 2003 in which Iran outlined a dramatic diplomatic initiative, including a normalization of relations with Israel. The Hadley Rules are at play today, in an even more nefarious manner, with the National Security Council becoming involved in the muzzling of former Bush administration officials who are speaking out on the issue of Iran. Hadley is blocking Flynt Leverett, formerly of the National Security Council, from publishing an Op-Ed piece critical of the Bush administration on the grounds that any insight into the machinations of policymaking (or lack thereof) somehow strengthens Iran's hand. Leverett's article would simply underscore the fact that the Bush administration has spurned every opportunity to improve relations with Iran while deliberately exaggerating the threat to U.S. interests posed by the Iranian theocracy.

The silencing of informed critics is in keeping with Hadley's deliberate policy obfuscation. There is still no official policy in place within the administration concerning Iran. While a more sober-minded national security bureaucracy works to marginalize the hawkish posturing of the neocons, the administration has decided that the best policy is in fact no policy, which is a policy decision in its own right. Hadley has forgone the normal procedures of governance, in which decisions impacting the nation are written down, using official channels, and made subject to review and oversight by those legally and constitutionally mandated and obligated to do so. A policy of no policy results in secret policy, which means, according to Hadley himself, the Bush administration simply does whatever it wants to, regardless. In the case of Iran, this means pushing for regime change in Tehran at any cost, even if it means World War III.

But Hadley is simply a facilitator, bureaucratic "grease" to ease policy formulated elsewhere down the gullet of a national security infrastructure increasingly kept in the dark about the true intent of the Bush administration when it comes to Iran. With the Department of State and the Pentagon now considered unfriendly ground by the remaining hard-core neoconservative thinkers still in power, policy formulation is more and more concentrated in the person of Vice President Cheney and the constitutionally nebulous "Office of the Vice President."

Cheney and his cohorts have constructed a never-never land of oversight deniability, claiming immunity from both executive and legislative checks and balances. With an unchallenged ability to classify anything and everything as secret, and then claim that there is no authority inherent in government to oversee that which has been thus classified, the Office of the Vice President has transformed itself into a free republic's worst nightmare, assuming Caesar-like dictatorial authority over almost every aspect of American national security policy at home and abroad. From torture to illegal wiretapping, to arms control (or lack of it) to Iran, Dick Cheney is the undisputed center of policy power in America today. While there are some who will claim that in this time of post-9/11 crisis such a process of bureaucratic streamlining is essential for the common good, the reality is far different.

It is said that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and this has never been truer than in the case of Cheney. What Cheney is doing behind his shield of secrecy can be simply defined: planning and implementing a preemptive war of aggression. During the Nuremberg tribunal in the aftermath of World War II, the chief American prosecutor, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, stated, "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." Today, we have a vice president who articulates publicly about global conflict, and who speaks in not-so-veiled language about a looming Armageddon. If there is such a future for America and the world, let one thing be certain; World War III, as postulated by Dick Cheney, would be an elective war, and not a conflict of tragic necessity. This makes the crime even greater.

Sadly, Judge Jackson's words are but an empty shell. The global community lacks a legally binding definition of what constitutes a war of aggression, or even an act of aggression. But that isn't the point. America should never find itself in a position where it is being judged by the global community regarding the legality of its actions. Judge Jackson established a precedent of jurisprudence concerning aggression based upon American principles and values, something the international community endorsed. The fact that current American indifference to the rule of law prevents the international community from certifying a definition of criminality when it comes to aggression, whether it be parsed as "war" or simply an "act," does not change the fact that the Bush administration, in the person of Dick Cheney, is actively engaged in the committing of the "supreme [war] crime," which makes Cheney the supreme war criminal. If the world is not empowered to judge him as such, then let the mantle of judgment fall to the American people. Through their elected representatives in Congress, they should not only bring this reign of unrestrained abuse of power to an end, but ensure that such abuse never again is attempted by an American official by holding to account, to the full extent of the law, those who have trampled on the Constitution of the United States and the ideals and principles it enshrines.

But what use is the rule of law, even if fairly and properly implemented, if in the end he who is entrusted with executive power takes his instructions from an even higher authority? President Bush's relationship with "God" (or that which he refers to as God) is a matter of public record. The president himself has stated that "God speaks through me" (he acknowledged this before a group of Amish in Pennsylvania in the summer of 2004). Exactly how God speaks through him, and what precisely God says, is not a matter of speculation. According to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, President Bush told him and others that "God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did." As such, at least in the president's mind, God has ordered Bush to transform himself into a modern incarnation of St. Michael, smiting all that is evil before him. "We are in a conflict between good and evil. And America will call evil by its name," the president told West Point cadets in a speech in 2002.

The matter of how and when an individual chooses to practice his faith, or lack thereof, is a deeply personal matter, one which should be kept from public discourse. For a president to so openly impose his personal religious beliefs, as Bush has done, on American policy formulation and implementation represents a fundamental departure from not only constitutional intent concerning the separation of church and state but also constitutional mandate concerning the imposition of checks and balances required by the American system of governance. The increasing embrace by this president of the notion of a unitary executive takes on an even more sinister aspect when one realizes that not only does the Bush administration seek to nullify the will of the people through the shackling of the people's representatives in Congress, but that the president has forgone even the appearance of constitutional constraint by evoking the word of his personal deity, as expressed through his person, as the highest form of consultation on a matter as serious as war. As such, the president has made his faith, and how he practices it, a subject not only of public curiosity but of national survival.

That George W. Bush is a born-again Christian is not a national secret. Neither is the fact that his brand of Christianity, evangelicalism, embraces the notion of the "end of days," the coming of the Apocalypse as foretold (so they say) in the Book of Revelations and elsewhere in the Bible. President Bush's frequent reference to "the evil one" suggests that he not only believes in the Antichrist but actively proselytizes on the Antichrist's physical presence on Earth at this time. If one takes in the writing and speeches of those in the evangelical community today concerning the "rapture," the numerous references to the current situation in the Middle East, especially on the events unfolding around Iran and its nuclear program, make it very clear that, at least in the minds of these evangelicals, there is a clear link between the "end of days" prophesy and U.S.-Iran policy. That James Dobson, one of the most powerful and influential evangelical voices in America today, would be invited to the White House with like-minded clergy to discuss President Bush's Iran policy is absurd unless one makes the link between Bush's personal faith, the extreme religious beliefs of Dobson and the potential of Armageddon-like conflict (World War III). At this point, the absurd becomes unthinkable, except it is all too real.

Thomas Jefferson, one of our nation's greatest founders, made the separation of church and state an underlying principle upon which the United States was built. This separation was all-inclusive, meaning that not only should government stay out of religion, but likewise religion should be excluded from government. "I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself," Jefferson wrote in a letter to Francis Hopkinson in 1789. "Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent." If only President Bush would abide by such wisdom, avoiding the addictive narcotic of religious fervor when carrying out the people's business. Instead, he chooses as his drug one which threatens to destroy us all in a conflagration derived not from celestial intervention but individual ignorance and arrogance. Again Jefferson, in a letter written in 1825: "It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams."

Nightmares, more aptly, unless something can be done to change the direction Bush and Dobson are taking us. The problem is that far too many Americans openly espouse not only the faith of George W. Bush but also the underlying philosophy which permits this faith to be intertwined with the governance of the land. "God bless America" has become a rallying cry for this crowd, and those too ignorant and/or afraid to speak out in opposition. If this statement has merit, what does it say for the 6.8 billion others in the world today who are not Americans? That God condemns them? The American embrace of divine destiny is not unique in history (one only has to recall that the belt buckles of the German army during World War II read "God is with us"). But for a nation born of the age of reason to collectively fall victim to the most base of fear-induced theology is a clear indication that America currently fails to live up to its founding principles. Rather than turning to Dobson and his ilk for guidance in these troubled times, Americans would be well served to reflect on President Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, delivered in the middle of a horrific civil war which makes all of the conflict America finds itself in today pale in comparison:

"Both [North and South] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.... The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.... [T]hat He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?"

God is not on our side, or the side of any single nation or people. To believe such is the ultimate expression of national hubris. To invoke such, if one is a true believer, is to embrace sacrilege and heresy. This, of course, is an individual right, granted as an extension of religious freedom. But it is not a collective right, nor is it a right born of governance, especially in a land protected by the separation of church and state.

The issue of Iran is a national problem which requires a collective debate, discussion and dialogue inclusive of all the facts, and stripped of all ideology and theocracy which would seek to deny reasoned thought conducted within a framework of accepted laws and ideals. It is grossly irresponsible of an American president to invoke the imagery of World War III without first sharing with the American people the framework of thought that produced such a comparison. Such openness will not be forthcoming from this administration or president. Not in the form of Stephen Hadley's policy of no policy, designed with intent to avoid and subvert both bureaucratic and legislative process and oversight, or Dick Cheney's secret government within a government, operating above and beyond the law and in a manner which violates both legal and moral norms and values, and certainly not in the president's own private conversations with "God," either directly or through the medium of lunatic evangelicals who embrace the termination of all we stand for, and especially the future of our next generation, in a fiery holocaust born from the fraudulent writings of centuries past. The processes which compelled George W. Bush to speak of a World War III are intentionally not transparent to the American people. The president has much to explain, and it would be incumbent upon every venue of civic and public pressure to demand that such an explanation be forthcoming in the near future. The stakes regarding Iran have always been high, but never more so than when a nation's leader invokes the end of days as a solution.

--------

A former Marine Corps intelligence officer, Scott Ritter was a chief inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq from 1991 until 1998. He is the author of several books; "Target Iran," with a new afterword by the author, was recently released in paperback by Nation Books.

==========

yeah, yeah, attack Ritter personally as a traitor, as a terrorist-lover, because he dissents from the neo-cunt Dr Strangeloves, but can any right-wing dumbfuck here refute Ritter's case?

[Extra Stout]

Could someone point out where a White House official "clamored" about attacking Iran?

I have read, over the past couple of years, about Democrats thinking that was what was going on, but I haven't seen the actual clamoring myself.

What I have seen is a potential Nuclear Weapons program halted without a shot fired.
Dick Cheney, though obviously not on the official record.

To be clear, George W. Bush has not agreed with the calls for war with Iran, preferring instead the diplomatic path laid out by Rice, but it has been no secret that Cheney wanted war, and I'm saying that's because Cheney wants to get his hands on Iran's oil reserves, because he thinks it's cool to invade countries for "resource security."

The public disclosure of this NIE is devastating to Cheney's position. It has gone from unlikely to nearly impossible that he would be able to execute his "end-run" around the President now. Bush's diplomatic course appears to have carried the day, as you say, without a shot fired.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Bush = zero credibility

[JoeChalupa]

This administration never ceases to amaze me.

[Wild Cobra]

Parse this: The main points of the NIE:
Leave it to Common Dream readers to have their IQ drop... One day, maybe you will learn that they print any lies of any journalist that supports their agenda. Here are their quotes, and the real quotes:



“We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program…”
We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.
Now this statement has a footnote:


For the purposes of this Estimate, by “nuclear weapons program” we mean Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work; we do not mean Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.

OK, You consider High Confidence the same as they absolutely did. Right? There is High, Moderate and Low on the scale the NIE is using, about thirds and the affirmative side of yes or no. I guess you are one to play Russian Roulette with a rounds chambered then, right?

Same odds, isn't it?

Now about the footnote. See what it said about undeclared covert sites... Recent news is that they are refusing all attempts to verify!



“We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.”
We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.
Only moderate confidence... I do like more absolute statements myself.




“We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely…”
We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs its options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt it to restart the program.

Suggestion….

Always, without fail, verify what Common Dream’s articles say. Only fools believe their articles.

Other quotes from the NIE report:


We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.



We assess centrifuge enrichment is how Iran probably could first produce enough fissile material for a weapon, if it decides to do so. Iran resumed its declared centrifuge enrichment activities in January 2006, despite the continued halt in the nuclear weapons program. Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz, but we judge with moderate confidence it still faces significant technical problems operating them.




Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so. For example, Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. We also assess with high confidence that since fall 2003, Iran has been conducting research and development projects with commercial and conventional military applications—some of which would also be of limited use for nuclear weapons.




We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage many within the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran’s key national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran’s considerable effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons. In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision is inherently reversible.




We assess with moderate confidence that Iran probably would use covert facilities— rather than its declared nuclear sites—for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon. A growing amount of intelligence indicates Iran was engaged in covert uranium conversion and uranium enrichment activity, but we judge that these efforts probably were halted in response to the fall 2003 halt, and that these efforts probably had not been restarted through at least mid-2007.




We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.

[Wild Cobra]

WH still insists that Iran is enriching uranium. All evidence points to the contrary, but you know Bush...he's kinda stubborn that way. Prideful man, even.
Do a little more reading. They are enriching uranium. The question is as to if it is for reactor use, or weapons use. This is what we don't know with any certainty.

[Wild Cobra]

Could someone point out where a White House official "clamored" about attacking Iran?

I have read, over the past couple of years, about Democrats thinking that was what was going on, but I haven't seen the actual clamoring myself.

What I have seen is a potential Nuclear Weapons program halted without a shot fired.
They are making it up, just like the dems saying Bush was going to institute a draft that was sponsored by Rangle.

It's just for the consumptions of these lemmings here. They believe it, but we know better.

[PixelPusher]

If I were to, for arguments sake, assume that Bush is telling us the truth that he didn't know about this year old NIE report until just last week...is that supposed to make us feel better? Wouldn't you think this report might warrant a look see if Bush really believed in all of that Iran = World War III crap? A crib notes version, perhaps? Hell, how 'bout having one of his staffers give him a brief verbal summary?

[Nbadan]

For the purposes of this Estimate, by “nuclear weapons program” we mean Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work; we do not mean Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.

So? they are opening up a nuclear power plant for energy, so of course they are going to have some uranium conversion and enrichment, this is why the IAEA is monitoring Iran's nuclear program in the first place, or else there would be no nuclear program and no need for monitoring....doesn't mean that they are weaponizing the uranium.....

[Nbadan]

Only moderate confidence... I do like more absolute statements myself.

There are very few absolutes in life, besides this administrations seems more prone to reacting with 'going with what they got at the time'....and what they got right now is this intelligence estimate...bravo move by Reid and the Demos for getting this out in the open

[Nbadan]

The Nation gets it right....don't look for the Iranian intelligence estimates to lower the threat level coming from Republicans - this is their single biggest issue for 08.....


The essential reality of 2008 is this: The Republicans will have to have a national-security touchstone to pull their base together in 2008. That touchstone has to be a "threat," however manufactured. And Iran remains the threat of choice for the Bush-Cheney administration -- which has enough skeletons in its closet to be highly motivated to use what remains of its smoke-and-mirrors operation to help a Republican, any Republican, prevail.

This issue is not going away. George Bush and Dick Cheney know that needy Republicans, spineless Democrats and a gullible media will provide them with an opening to stoke the fear anew. And they will do so. Believe the president, when he says that his determination to make a big deal of the supposed danger posed by a supposedly nuclear Iran "hasn't changed."

The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=256903)

[boutons_]

http://rawstory.com/images/other/rawsmaller2.gif (http://rawstory.com/)

CNN: Seymour Hersh 'vindicated' by new Iran intel estimate

12/05/2007 @ 7:42 am

Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane

http://www.rawstory.com/images/new/irannuclear.jpg

Reporter believes Cheney 'kept his foot on the neck of' report
http://www.burstnet.com/cgi-bin/ads/sk10674c.cgi/ns/v=2.0S/sz=120x600A%7C160x600A/ (http://www.burstnet.com/ads/sk10674c-map.cgi/ns/v=2.0S/sz=120x600A%7C160x600A/)
A new National Intelligence Estimate (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071203/ts_nm/iran_usa_dc;_ylt=Aou9o1tPqOoUnCc3FbdKu7us0NUE) released on Monday indicates that 16 US intelligence agencies have concluded with a high level of confidence that Iran has not had an active nuclear weapons program since 2003 and that even if it resumed weapons development, it would be unlikely to obtain a nuclear bomb in less than 5 to 10 years.

The NIE apparently came as a surprise to President Bush, who insisted (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20071204-0927-bush-text.html) at a news conference the next day that "I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was, John – Mike McConnell – came in and said, 'We have some new information.' He didn't tell me what the information was. He did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze."

However, the NIE was no surprise to veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who has been writing about it since November 2006. Hersh told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday that he believes the White House deliberately kept the NIE bottled up for over a year because the vice president was dissatisfied with its conclusions.

"At the time I wrote that, there was a tremendous fight about it because Cheney ... did not want to hear this," Hersh recalled. "I think the vice-president has kept his foot on the neck of that report. ... The intelligence we learned about yesterday has been circulating inside this government at the highest levels for the last year -- and probably longer."

As early as July 2006, Hersh had reported (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/10/060710fa_fact) that the US military was resisting administration pressure for a bombing campaign in Iran, because "American and European intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine activities or hidden facilities."

By November 2006, Hersh's sources had told him (http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/66/23964) of "a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A.," which concluded that satellite monitoring and sophisticated radiation-detection devices planted near Iranian facilities had turned up absolutely no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. However, Bush and Cheney were expected to try to keep those conclusions out of the forthcoming NIE on Iran's nuclear capabilities.

As Hersh explained to (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/hersh-iran-agent/) Wolf Blitzer at the time, the White House was attempting to counter the CIA assessment with an Israeli claim, based on a "reliable agent," that Iran was working on a trigger for a nuclear device. "The CIA isn’t getting a good look at the Israeli intelligence." Hersh explained. "It’s the old word, stovepiping. It’s the President and the Vice President, it’s pretty much being kept in the White House."

RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna further reported (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Intelligence_officials_believe_White_House_chose_0 108.html) in January 2007 that the NIE on Iran was intended to be released later that month, but that John Negroponte's was being replaced as Director of National Intelligence because he had refused to tailor the NIE to Vice President Cheney's specificiations.

Despite feeling vindicated by the latest developments, Hersh warned Blitzer that the White House push for war with Iran is "still not over. ... There's always Israel." He explained that "the Israelis were very upset about the report. They think we're naive."

( b: the Israelis can attack Iran if they have such non-naive intelligence )

However, Hersh was confident that there was very little chance the NIE could be mistaken, because "It's been four years since we've had any positive evidence of a parallel secret program to build a bomb -- and we've been all over the country."

Hersh and Blitzer then recalled Hersh's past appearances on CNN -- including several long interviews discussing the Abu Ghraib scandal -- and how the White House would regularly accuse him of using "anonymous sorces" or just "throwing crap against the wall."

Hersh concluded by emphasizing what a serious problem the NIE poses for Bush. "It's a lose-lose for them," he stated. "The fight I'm talking about began last year. ... This is going to pose a serious credibility problem. ... That's not what we pay the guy to do."

However, Hersh's sources tell him that despite the NIE, Bush's negotiating position is still that the Iranians "have to stop everything ... destroy it. ... Inspectors have to come in that we pick. ... He's not saying that publicly, but that's the private standard."


This video is from CNN's Situation Room, broadcast on December 4, 2007.

==========

dubya and dickhead and their accomplies have told way too many lies, wasted American blood and treasure, for the oil grab.

We can only hope that these venal, lying Strangelovian assholes leave the Whitehouse with only the Iraq and Afghanistan disasters on their bloody hands. 9/11 happened on the Repug watch, 9/11 is their infamous baby.

[Wild Cobra]

I'm not going to bother quoting any of this article. I just ask that everyone following this thread read and rather than be narrow minded with only the leftist media sources:

NIE Report is Propoganda Victory for Iran (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/12/nie_report_is_propoganda_victo.html)

[Nbadan]

During those four years, Iran has provided political and military support to both Sunni and Shiite insurgents in Iraq

There goes this dude's credibility..the Iraqi Sunni and Iran are not friends, quite the contrary...

[boutons_]

"NIE Report is Propoganda Victory for Iran"

total spin BS. If Iran had published the NIE, it might have been propanda, but it would have been the truth from Iran vs the lies of dubya/dickhead/neo-cunts.

That's right, the WH has been lying, while Iran has been telling the truth.

Can Iranian and terrorists exploit this situation by propagandda? Sure, but it was dubya and dickhead who created the situation and lied about Iran, including BS propaganda about WWIII, etc.

iow, the WH has been spewing pro-war, elective-war propaganda about Iran, and it got fucked over by its own propaganda.

dubya is saying Iran must "come clean" while dubya himself is stinking filthy with his own lies, starting with the hermetic cover-up of the WH inaction prior to 9/11.

==================

December 6, 2007

Details in Military Notes Led to Shift on Iran, U.S. Says

By DAVID E. SANGER and STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 — American intelligence agencies reversed their view about the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program after they obtained notes last summer from the deliberations of Iranian military officials involved in the weapons development program, senior intelligence and government officials said on Wednesday.

The notes included conversations and deliberations in which some of the military officials complained bitterly about what they termed a decision by their superiors in late 2003 to shut down a complex engineering effort to design nuclear weapons, including a warhead that could fit atop Iranian missiles.

The newly obtained notes contradicted public assertions by American intelligence officials that the nuclear weapons design effort was still active. But according to the intelligence and government officials, they give no hint of why Iran’s leadership decided to halt the covert effort.

Ultimately, the notes and deliberations were corroborated by other intelligence, the officials said, including intercepted conversations among Iranian officials, collected in recent months. It is not clear if those conversations involved the same officers and others whose deliberations were recounted in the notes, or if they included their superiors.

The American officials who described the highly classified operation, which led to one of the biggest reversals in the history of American nuclear intelligence, declined to describe how the notes were obtained.

( so somehow this operation was successful, but the same kind of operation was successful or even attempted against Saddam? Even if the WH had the intel about no WMD in Iraq, it would have mattered because the WH was going to invade Iraq for the oil, not becaus of any WMD threat )

But they said that the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies had organized a “red team” to determine if the new information might have been part of an elaborate disinformation campaign mounted by Iran to derail the effort to impose sanctions against it.

In the end, American intelligence officials rejected that theory, though they were challenged to defend that conclusion in a meeting two weeks ago in the White House situation room, in which the notes and deliberations were described to the most senior members of President Bush’s national security team, including Vice President Dick Cheney.

“It was a pretty vivid exchange,” said one participant in the conversation.

( sounds like the intel people refused to be railroaded and compromised by dickhead and the neo-cunts like they were pre-Iraq, and then get smeared by the WH for "bad intel")

The officials said they were confident that the notes confirmed the existence, up to 2003, of a weapons programs that American officials first learned about from a laptop computer, belonging to an Iranian engineer, that came into the hands of the C.I.A. in 2004.

Ever since the major findings of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program were made public on Monday, the White House has refused to discuss details of what President Bush, in a news conference on Tuesday, termed a “great discovery” that led to the reversal.

Some of Mr. Bush’s critics have questioned why he did not adjust his rhetoric about Iran after the intelligence agencies began to question their earlier findings.

In a statement late Wednesday, the White House revised its account of what Mr. Bush was told in August and acknowledged that Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had informed him new information might show that “Iran does in fact have a covert weapons program, but it may be suspended.”

( iow, the WH was caught lying and had to "revise" )

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said Mr. McConnell had warned the president that “the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran’s covert nuclear program, but the intelligence community was not prepared to draw any conclusions at that point in time, and it wouldn’t be right to speculate until they had time to examine and analyze the new data.”

A senior intelligence official and a senior White House official said that Mr. McConnell had been cautious in his presentation to Mr. Bush in an attempt to avoid a mistake made in the months leading to the Iraq war, in which raw intelligence was shared with the White House before it had been tested and analyzed.

“There was a big lesson learned in 2002,” the senior intelligence official said. “You can make enough mistakes in this business even if you don’t rush things.”

In fact, some in the intelligence agencies appear to be not fully convinced that the notes of the deliberations indicated that all aspects of the weapons program had been shut down.

The crucial judgments released on Monday said that while “we judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years,” it also included the warning that “intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate” led both the Department of Energy and the National Intelligence Council “to assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.”

The account is the most detailed explanation provided by American officials about how they came to contradict an assertion, spelled out in a 2005 National Intelligence Estimate and repeated by Mr. Bush, that Iran had an active weapons program.

Several news organizations have reported that the reversal was prompted in part by intercepts of conversations involving Iranian officials. In an article published on Wednesday, The Los Angeles Times said another main ingredient in the reversal was what it called a journal from an Iranian source that documented decisions to shut down the nuclear program.

The senior intelligence and government officials said a more precise description of that intelligence would be exchanges among members of a large group, one responsible for both designing weapons and integrating them into delivery vehicles.

The discovery led officials to revisit intelligence mined in 2004 and 2005 from the laptop obtained from the Iranian engineer. The documents on that laptop described two programs, termed L-101 and L-102 by the Iranians, describing designs and computer simulations that appeared to be related to weapons work.

Information from the laptop became one of the chief pieces of evidence cited in the 2005 intelligence estimate that concluded, “Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons.”

The newly obtained notes of the deliberations did not precisely match up with the programs described in the laptop, according to officials who have examined both sets of data, but they said they were closely related.

On Wednesday President Bush repeated his demand that Iran “come clean” and disclose details of the covert weapons program that American intelligence agencies said operated from the 1980s until the fall of 2003.

Iran’s government, Mr. Bush said, “has more to explain about its nuclear intentions and past actions, especially the covert nuclear weapons program pursued until the fall of 2003, which the Iranian regime has yet to acknowledge.”

( hey, dubya YOU have much more explaining to do WHY you invaded Iraq and why you are so intent on attackig Iran. "COME CLEAN", you lying asshole )

Mr. Bush spoke at Eppley Airfield near Omaha, where a visit intended to showcase health care and to raise money for a Senate race was overshadowed by the furor caused by the National Intelligence Estimate and Iran’s taunting reaction to it.

He faced calls from across the political spectrum for the United States to make a more concerted effort to negotiate with Iran, offering a package of incentives that could persuade it to suspend its uranium enrichment program and clear up concerns that it is building a civilian energy program to develop the expertise for a covert military program.

“Bush has made a big mistake, and he’s not responding in a way that gives confidence that he’s on top of this,” said David Albright, a former weapons inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency and president of the Institute for Science and International Security. “He isn’t able to respond because he’s not able to say he’s wrong.”

Mr. Bush, though, made it clear that there would be no immediate change in the United States’ approach, saying that the administration had already offered to talk, though on the condition that Iran suspend its current enrichment program first, as called for in two United Nations Security Council resolutions. Administration officials have said that they would continue to advocate tougher sanctions, which seems increasingly unlikely.

================

So dubya and dickhead's lies have been exposed before the world by their own intel people.

Just more to the case that the WH was lying about Saddam/Iraq/WMD, and about pre-9/11. It's amazing hubris, born of their privileged Masters of the Universe bubble, that they thought they could grab the Iraq/Iran oil behind a Bodygurad of Lies.

And dubya says his elective Iraq/Iran aggression policies are not going to change ... the oil is still there.

[Wild Cobra]

There goes this dude's credibility..the Iraqi Sunni and Iran are not friends, quite the contrary...
Have any evidence to the contrary? Doesn't it make sense to support such a plan if the goal is to help remove the protection from the USA? We (the USA) have often helped governments we were not friends, why wouldn't they when the potential benefits of their agenda can be achieved?

[Wild Cobra]

Bouton's, I don't know where to start. Some of what you highlight is a lie. Have you compared the sections you highlighted with the NIE report? Your quoted article contradicts the report, but this liberal NY Times contributer knows that lemmings like you believe what they say without fail, or verification.

"The newly obtained notes contradicted public assertions by American intelligence officials that the nuclear weapons design effort was still active."

The NIE report does not say weapons design efforts are not active. Only a high confidence that they halted manufacturing.

What gets me is that Sanger implies some things contray in an article a few days before:

How Did a 2005 Estimate Go Awry? (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/washington/04policy.html)

[boutons_]

"a high confidence that they halted manufacturing."

Mission Accomplished? fuck no, dubya and dickhead still want to "regime change" Iran to get at the oil.

Tiny, puny Iran is no threat to USA, as was Iran wasn't. neo-cons want the oil.

All of this Iran nuke bulshit is pure smokescreen.

[Nbadan]

It now appears that Dubya knew about the Iranian NIE last winter, before his WW3 speech...

POLITICS-US: Did Bush Get New Iran Intel Last Winter?
Analysis by Gareth Porter*


WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (IPS) - White House officials have now admitted that George W. Bush was told that the intelligence assessment on a covert Iranian nuclear programme might change last August, but they have avoided answering the question of when the president was first informed about the new intelligence that led to that revised assessment.

That evasion is necessary, it now appears, to conceal the fact that Bush likely knew about that intelligence as early as February or March 2007.

The White House evasions began on the day the "key judgments" in the Iran National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) were released. At his Dec. 3 press conference, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was asked, "So was it recent weeks that this intelligence came in?" Hadley answered, "What the intelligence community has said is in the last few months."

In fact, no intelligence official had commented on when the crucial intelligence had been first obtained.

Then a journalist asked, "Steve, when was the first time the president was given the inkling of something? ...Was this months ago, when the first information started to become available to intelligence agencies?" This time Hadley responded, "You ought to go back to the intelligence community."

The evidence now available strongly suggests, however, that Hadley dodged the question not because he did not know the answer, but because he did not wish to reveal that Bush had been informed about the new intelligence months before the August meeting with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.

The key development that altered the course of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, according to intelligence sources, was the defection of a senior official of the Iranian Ministry of Defence, Ali Reza Asgari, on a visit to Turkey last February, as widely reported in international news media in subsequent weeks. The Washington Post's Dafna Linzer, citing a "senior U.S. official", reported on Mar. 8 that Asgari, who had been deputy minister of defence for eight years under the reformist President Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005, was already providing information to U.S. intelligence.

ISP (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40503)

It now appears that “Bush likely knew about that intelligence as early as February or March 2007...months before the White House has conceded.

[clambake]

it's possible Dan. but it's also possible that Bush can't absorb a paragraph.