How they fail us again!

[Nbadan]

..the M$M that is....

Debunking Iran's Nuclear Program: Another 'Intelligence Failure' -- On the Part of the Press?
Iraqi WMD redux: The release of the NIE throwing cold water on oft-repeated claims of a rampant Iranian nuclear weapons program has chastened public officials and policymakers who have promoted this line for years. But many in the media have made these same claims, often extravagantly.
By Greg Mitchell


NEW YORK (December 04, 2007) -- Press reports so far have suggested that the belated release of the National Intelligence Estimate yesterday throwing cold water on oft-repeated claims of a rampant Iranian nuclear weapons program has deeply embarrassed, or at least chastened, public officials and policymakers who have promoted this line for years. Gaining little attention so far: Many in the media have made these same claims, often extravagantly, which promoted (deliberately or not) the tubthumping for striking Iran.

Surely you remember Sen. John McCain's inspired Beach Boys' parody, a YouTube favorite, "Bomb-bomb-bomb, Bomb-bomb Iran"? That was the least of it. You could dance to it and it had a good beat. Not so for so much of the press and punditry surrounding the bomb. Who can forget Norman Podhoretz's call for an immediate attack on Iran, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal last May, as he argued that "the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force -- any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938."

As I've warned in this space for years, too many in the media seemed to fail to learn the lessons of the Iraqi WMD intelligence failure -- and White House propaganda effort -- and instead, were repeating it, re: Iran. This time, perhaps, we may have averted war, with little help from most of the media. In this case, it appears, the NIE people managed to resist several months of efforts by the administration to change their assessment. If only they had stiffened their backbones concerning Iraq in 2002.

For the rest of today and this week, media critics will be offering up all sorts of reminders of the near-fatal claims by many in the press relating to Iranian nukes. Sure to get attention are the scare stories in the summer of 2005 after "proof" of an Iranian nuke program somehow surfaced on a certain laptop, proudly unveiled by offiicials and bought by many in the media then as firm evidence (and now debunked, like much of the "proof" of Iraqi WMD provided by defectors a few years back).

Without much effort, I've already found this beauty from David Brooks of The New York Times from Jan. 22, 2006, when he declared that "despite administration hopes, there is scant reason to believe that imagined Iranian cosmopolitans would shut down the nuclear program, or could if they wanted to, or could do it in time - before Israel forced the issue to a crisis point. This is going to be a lengthy and tortured debate, dividing both parties. We'll probably be engaged in it up to the moment the Iranian bombs are built and fully functioning."

As recently as this past June, Thomas Friedman of The Times wrote: "Iran is about to go nuclear."

Even more recently, on October 23, 2007, Richard Cohen (like Brooks and Friedman, a big backer of the attack on Iraq) of The Washington Post, wrote: "Sadly, it is simply not possible to dismiss the Iranian threat. Not only is Iran proceeding with a nuclear program, but it projects a pugnacious, somewhat nutty, profile to the world."

More in this vein is sure to come: I found those three quotes without even breaking a sweat. At least Friedman, Brooks and Cohen back some kind of diplomacy in regard to Iran, unlike many of their brethren.

Another Post columnist, Jim Hoagland, exactly one month ago summarized his year-long travels and study surrounding this issue, declaring "unmistakable effort by Iran to develop nuclear weapons....That Iran has gone to great, secretive lengths to create and push forward a bomb-building capability is not a Bush delusion." He added the warning that "time is running out on the diplomatic track."

One week before that, reporting on his trip to Moscow, Hoagland noted Putin's doubts that Tehran will be able to turn enriched uranium into a usable weapon -- but called that failure "implausible."

We'd be remiss if we left out William Kristol, the hawk's hawk on Iran, who for the July 14, 2006 issue of The Weekly Standard called for a "military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement."

As often the case, Salon.com's popular blogger, Glenn Greenwald, may have gotten there first. A longtime critic of The Washington Post editorial page and its editor, Fred Hiatt, he has already happily reprinted a few choice passages from the past.

Here is the latest, from a Sept. 26, 2007 editorial in the Post, which flatly denounced Iran's "race for a bomb":

"As France's new foreign minister has recognized, the danger is growing that the United States and its allies could face a choice between allowing Iran to acquire the capacity to build a nuclear weapon and going to war to prevent it.

"The only way to avoid facing that terrible decision is effective diplomacy -- that is, a mix of sanctions and incentives that will induce Mr. Ahmadinejad's superiors to suspend their race for a bomb. ...

Even if Tehran provides satisfactory answers, its uranium enrichment -- and thus its progress toward a bomb -- will continue. That doesn't trouble Mr. ElBaradei, who hasn't hidden his view that the world should stop trying to prevent Iran from enriching uranium and should concentrate instead on blocking U.S. military action ...

"European diplomats say they are worried that escalating tensions between the United States and Iran, if fueled by more sanctions, could lead to war. What they don't make clear is how the government Mr. Ahmadinejad represents will be induced to change its policy if it has nothing to fear from the West."

Greenwald also resurrects Post editorial quotes in this vein going back to 2005, along with this choice snippet from a September online interview with Kenneth Pollack, whose complete wrongheadedness on Iraqi WMD somehow has not kept him from remaining a darling of the press as an expert on Iran's nukes and other Middle East issues:

"Q. How compelling is the evidence that Iranians are developing a nuclear weapons program?

"POLLACK: Obviously, the evidence is circumstantial, but it is quite strong."

I'll provide other examples of pundit malfeasance as they surface.


Editor and Publisher (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=10036807 66)

May I recommend: Buying the War (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html)

In the run-up to the Iraqi war, skepticism was a rarity among journalists inside the Beltway. Journalist Bob Simon of 60 MINUTES, who was based in the Middle East, questioned the reporting he was seeing and reading. "I mean we knew things or suspected things that perhaps the Washington press corps could not suspect. For example, the absurdity of putting up a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda," he tells Moyers. "Saddam...was a total control freak. To introduce a wild card like Al Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do. So I just didn't believe it for an instant." The program analyzes the stream of unchecked information from administration sources and Iraqi defectors to the mainstream print and broadcast press, which was then seized upon and amplified by an army of pundits. While almost all the claims would eventually prove to be false, the drumbeat of misinformation about WMDs went virtually unchallenged by the media. THE NEW YORK TIMES reported on Iraq's "worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb," but according to Landay, claims by the administration about the possibility of nuclear weapons were highly questionable. Yet, his story citing the "lack of hard evidence of Iraqi weapons" got little play. In fact, throughout the media landscape, stories challenging the official view were often pushed aside while the administration's claims were given prominence. "From August 2002 until the war was launched in March of 2003 there were about 140 front page pieces in THE WASHINGTON POST making the administration's case for war," says Howard Kurtz, the POST's media critic. "But there was only a handful of stories that ran on the front page that made the opposite case. Or, if not making the opposite case, raised questions."

"Buying the War" examines the press coverage in the lead-up to the war as evidence of a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in democracy and asks, four years after the invasion, what's changed? "More and more the media become, I think, common carriers of administration statements and critics of the administration," says THE WASHINGTON POST's Walter Pincus. "We've sort of given up being independent on our own."

[boutons_]

Lessons of Iraq Aided Intelligence On Iran

Officials Cite New Caution And a Surge in Spying

By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 5, 2007; A01

The starkly different view of Iran's nuclear program that emerged from U.S. spy agencies this week was the product of a surge in clandestine intelligence-gathering in Iran as well as radical changes in the way the intelligence community analyzes information.

Drawing lessons from the intelligence debacle over supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell required agencies to consult more sources and to say to a larger intelligence community audience precisely what they know and how they know it -- and to acknowledge, to a degree previously unheard of, what they do not know.

" 'Do not know' is a new technical term for an NIE," said a senior official who was involved in preparation of the report, known as a National Intelligence Estimate.

While intelligence officials say the new conclusion about the Iranian program proved that the reforms were sound, the wide gap between Monday's report and previous assessments also left the agencies vulnerable to accusations that officials had failed for too long to grasp a fundamental change in course by Iran's leaders.

( Repugs have been telling us for years that only the Repugs can be trusted with NatSec. 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Repug-managed NatSec apparatus have proved the opposite, inarguably )
The new report upended years of previous assessments by asserting that the Islamic republic halted the weapons side of its nuclear program in 2003. The report, while expressing concern about Iran's rapidly growing civilian nuclear energy program, contradicted assertions by top Bush administration officials and previous intelligence assessments that Iran has been bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.

"The new report brings the U.S. intelligence community in line with what the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and several European governments were saying years ago," http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif said David Albright, a former United Nations weapons inspector and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

In 2005, a National Intelligence Estimate had said Iran was "determined" to acquire nuclear weapons, a view that meshed with the foreign policy of an administration that in 2002 declared Iran to be part of an "axis of evil." But former and current U.S. intelligence officials said the flaws in that report reflected only the extreme difficulty of penetrating Iran's nuclear program.

"It's the hardest damn target out there -- harder than North Korea," said an intelligence official who contributed to the report. "This is a program they tried very hard to hide from us, and it was hard even to fathom who was in charge."

The 2005 report's assertions that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons turned out to be accurate, but dated. Ellen Laipson, former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, said the earlier judgment was based on credible information that may have been the best available at the time.

"It's not getting it wrong, it's that [the intelligence] collection may have been insufficient," said Laipson, now president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a defense think tank. "It takes years to know the truth."

( but it only takes only a couple minutes to bomb a country. Looks like Condi's "mushroom" cloud was a decade+ premature, at least. In the case of Iraq, even longer. )

A pivotal moment occurred in early summer 2005, when President Bush
discussed the new Iran NIE with advisers during a routine intelligence briefing. Why, he asked, was it so hard to get information about Iran's nuclear program?

( if only dubya had been so demanding AND RESPONSIVE in the summer of 2001. dubya and dickhead were intentionally asleep at the wheel. )

The exchange, described by a senior U.S. official who witnessed it, helped instigate the intelligence community's most aggressive attempt to penetrate Iran's highly secretive nuclear program. Over the coming months, the CIA established a new Iran Operations Division that brought analysts and clandestine collectors together to search for hard evidence.

Communications intercepts of Iranian nuclear officials and a stolen Iranian laptop containing diagrams related to the development of a nuclear warhead for missiles both yielded valuable evidence about Iran's nuclear past as well as its decision in 2003 to suspend the weapons side of its program.

But there was no "eureka" moment, according to senior officials who helped supervise the collection efforts. The surge in intelligence-gathering http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif helped convince analysts that Iran had made a "course correction" in 2003, halting the weapons work while proceeding with the civilian nuclear energy program.

The result, ironically, was a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that reached conclusions far different from what many intelligence officials expected.

"One reason this is actually an intelligence success is that when we got additional information that could lead to a different conclusion, we had an ability to move in that direction," said a senior intelligence official involved in the drafting process.

Former and current intelligence officials say the new NIE reflects new analytical methods ordered by McConnell -- who took the DNI job in January -- and his deputies, including Thomas Fingar, a former head of the State Department's intelligence agency, and Donald M. Kerr, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and an expert on nuclear weapons technology.

Besides requiring greater transparency about the sources of intelligence, McConnell and his colleagues have compelled analysts working on major estimates to challenge existing assumptions when new information does not fit, according to former and current U.S. officials familiar with the policies.

( wow, fucking rocket science, huh? http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )

The report also reflects what several officials described yesterday as a new willingness by the intelligence community to analyze intentions in addition to capabilities. While Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to make nuclear weapons, including knowledge of how to enrich uranium to a level usable in bombs, the new intelligence collected through intercepted communications raised doubts about Iran's intended use of the technology.

As McConnell said in a Nov. 14 speech, it "inserted some new questions" that made the community go back and review the conventional wisdom about Iran. It also shed light on Iran's susceptibility to international diplomatic pressure -- a large factor in Tehran's decision to cut off research on building a bomb, analysts concluded.

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.

( in the run up to Iraq, the WH suppressed/classified all NatSec dissenters, while cherry picking the career-padding assenters )

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.

DNI officials also pressed for a broader array of intelligence sources, including news accounts and other "open sources" that traditionally had carried little weight inside intelligence agencies. 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."

( so for $50B/year, the spooks get their intel from reading Iranian press releases? http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )

Several top officials said McConnell and others were determined to avoid a repetition of the intelligence community's very public failures in assessing Iraq's weapons programs. Not only were its analytical judgments wrong -- U.S. forces in Iraq never found the chemical or biological weapons that the CIA said they would -- but the agency relied on sources known to be suspect or even discredited.

( for dubya+dickhead, the intel, right or wrong, was totally beside the point, which was to invade Iraq no matter what, for the oil.

Note that dubya is now saying this NIE is irrelevant to his objective of attacking Iran for regime change to get at their oil and to establish eternal US hegemony over M/E )

For instance, U.S. claims that Iraq had built mobile biological weapons laboratories were based on more than 100 reports from a single source, an Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball" whom U.S. officials never interviewed in person. After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, investigators concluded that Curveball's stories were fabrications.

Then-CIA director George J. Tenet initiated some of the reforms in the wake of the Curveball debacle, but Fingar and McConnell added to them and spread them across the intelligence community, officials said.

Staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/04/AR2007120402408_pf.html

[George Gervin's Afro]

Does anyone wonder if there were any NIE reports that contained similar information on Iraq? A report that directly refuted what the Whitehouse was relaying to it's allies and opponents? I have always felt that Bush and his crew left out certain tidbits of information when they presented their case for war to the public and the Congress. Oh well, history will tell us.

[clambake]

Does anyone wonder if there were any NIE reports that contained similar information on Iraq? A report that directly refuted what the Whitehouse was realying to it's allies and oppenents? I have always felt that Bush and his crew left out certain tidbits of information when they presented their case for war to the public and Congress. Oh well, history will tell us.
the story about Niger was a complete hoax, along with other WMD fairy-tales. i suspect any earlier NIE reports were manufactured by this administration.

[xrayzebra]

Oh yeah, it once again is all Bush's fault. I have just one question.


Is Iran still enriching uranium? And what can you do with enriched
uranium? Make bombs you say. No kidding.

That damn Bush, he will say anything to get re-elected. Oh,
he isn't running. Well who is?

[boutons_]

"history will tell us."

don't need history.

We know that dickhead went to NSA/CIA many times seeking more evidence of Iraqi WMD, because he was cherry picking the evidence and suppressing/classifying dissenting opinions and hiding it all from Congress.

We know the Rummy and Feith setup their own intel operation at Dod to go around the NSA/CIA and criticize the NSA/CIA doubts about Iraq WMD.

we know that there were NSA/CIA people who had serious doubts about Iraqi WMD.

We know that Powell was sent to the UN with bullshit mobile weapons labs to obtain the UN vote, with many intel people knowing the labs were bulshit.

btw, these NIE side stories are ALL BULLSHIT and smokescreen.

dubya and dickhead / neo-cunts were going to invade Iraq no matter what, occupy Iraq for decades (Rummy lied when he said occupation was not the objective), to grab the oil.

As we see this week with Iran, dubya is basically saying "the intel, nuke or no nukes, doesn't matter", because he still sees Iran oil and M/E hegemony as his objective, Iran nukes or none.

Why do you think Afghanistan and the war on terror have been completely off the radar, and the war on terror falsely placed in Iraq? It's all about the oil.

Oil explains everything, don't get fogged over by all the other Repug/neo-cunt bullshit.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Oh yeah, it once again is all Bush's fault. I have just one question.


Is Iran still enriching uranium? And what can you do with enriched
uranium? Make bombs you say. No kidding.

That damn Bush, he will say anything to get re-elected. Oh,
he isn't running. Well who is?


Well actually ray it is Bush's fault. he is President isn't he? The buck stops with him right?

[xrayzebra]

Well actually ray it is Bush's fault. he is President isn't he? The buck stops with him right?

Well I haven't heard him duck that responsibility yet. Have
you?

But I think his actual fault lies in letting the Clinton
administration people stay on the job instead of getting
rid of them. Clinton and the dimms have gutted our intel
and military to the point of injury to our country.

But what the hay, Bill was a good old boy who like the
girls, no biggie, right?

Oh, and I forgot, you didn't answer the question. Are
they still enriching uranium?

[George Gervin's Afro]

Prediction: 11:31 am

ray will come back and tell everyone that those at State Dept are actually Clinton holdovers who are undermining Bush because they hate him.. they are invested in defeat....


more to come.

[xrayzebra]

Prediction: 11:31 am

ray will come back and tell everyone that those at State Dept are actually Clinton holdovers who are undermining Bush because they hate him.. they are invested in defeat....


more to come.


Well actually it is 12:01. But yes you are correct. They
are career employees from State.

But I have another question, since you wont answer my
first one.

Does it bother you that our Intel people are now telling
us something different?

Does it bother you that the dimms have jumped on this
like it is gospel, when they say Bush tweaked the intel from
these same people game him on Iraq.

You know I think I have a new name for the dimm-o-crap
party. They aren't the party of defeat, they are the
party of treason. Yeah, I mean treason in the true sense
of the word. They will put this country down the drain
to further there own cause.

This country is in serious, serious trouble. God help us
all. We have a bunch of politicians who are more
concerned with killing babies and giving a bunch of sexual
deviates some kind of civil rights than they are for the
own safety of our country.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Well actually it is 12:01. But yes you are correct. They
are career employees from State.

But I have another question, since you wont answer my
first one.

Does it bother you that our Intel people are now telling
us something different?

Does it bother you that the dimms have jumped on this
like it is gospel, when they say Bush tweaked the intel from
these same people game him on Iraq.



This country is in serious, serious trouble. God help us
all. We have a bunch of politicians who are more
concerned with killing babies and giving a bunch of sexual
deviates some kind of civil rights than they are for the
own safety of our country.[/QUOTE]


Gloom and Doom.. you must be falling for the M$M propoganda.. why do your posts regarding treason always end up with us discussing homosexuals?

You ask me if it bothers me that some dems have jumped on this? shouldn't they?



[QUOTE]You know I think I have a new name for the dimm-o-crap
party. They aren't the party of defeat, they are the
party of treason. Yeah, I mean treason in the true sense
of the word. They will put this country down the drain
to further there own cause.

We get it ray..not agreeing with bush = treacherous pigs.. got it.

[xrayzebra]

^^You haven't got anything but one liners.

[JoeChalupa]

^^You haven't got anything but one liners.

One liners like "Mission Accomplished" or "Bring 'em on" or "axis of evil" or "imminent threat" or "nucular danger"?

[xrayzebra]

One liners like "Mission Accomplished" or "Bring 'em on" or "axis of evil" or "imminent threat" or "nucular danger"?

Damn, Joe, you are reaching, aren't you. Which of those
were incorrect?

We accomplished the defeat of the Iraqi Army.
"Bring'em on" hits the nail on the head
"axis of evil" Which country wasn't?
"imminent threat" Which NIE do you "trust"?

[clambake]

We accomplished the defeat of the Iraqi Army.
actually, we couldn't really find it.

"Bring'em on" hits the nail on the head
and increases their ability to recruit....oops, another bush blunder

"axis of evil" Which country wasn't?
the world has now included the US in this list.

"imminent threat" Which NIE do you "trust"?
I get it ray. you're happay as long as they're lying to you....sleep tight

[JoeChalupa]

Damn, Joe, you are reaching, aren't you. Which of those
were incorrect?

We accomplished the defeat of the Iraqi Army.
"Bring'em on" hits the nail on the head
"axis of evil" Which country wasn't?
"imminent threat" Which NIE do you "trust"?

Reaching is when you won't acknowledge the fact that Bush simply isn't telling the truth. For me his credibility, if there ever was any, has gone down the tubes. I have no problems with admitting that Clinton lied..why is it so hard for repugnants to admit that their beloved leader stretches the truth to fit his own agenda? Come on now.
The Mission Accomplished show was a farce and you know it.
I thought you were a little open minded but I see you are actually small minded.

The NIE I can trust....GWB I cannot.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Reaching is when you won't acknowledge the fact that Bush simply isn't telling the truth. For me his credibility, if there ever was any, has gone down the tubes. I have no problems with admitting that Clinton lied..why is it so hard for repugnants to admit that their beloved leader stretches the truth to fit his own agenda? Come on now.
The Mission Accomplished show was a farce and you know it.
I thought you were a little open minded but I see you are actually small minded.

The NIE I can trust....GWB I cannot.


Well Bush was right about wmds... uh never mind
Bush was right when he said mission accomplished.... oh wait...
Bush was telling the truth when he said Iraq posed an imminent threat to the USA.. er huh....


On a serious note I pleaded with the Kerry campaign (through numerous emails) that they should frame the election around Bush's credibility... It's his credibility stupid...

They could have ads with Bush making one claim prior to the war and then making a completely different claim during the post war years..
His statements justifying the need to rush to war followed up with statements radically different following the war...

[JoeChalupa]

Well Bush was right about wmds... uh never mind
Bush was right when he said mission accomplished.... oh wait...
Bush was telling the truth when he said Iraq posed an imminent threat to the USA.. er huh....


On a serious note I pleaded with the Kerry campaign (through numerous emails) that they should frame the election around Bush's credibility... It's his credibility stupid...

They could have ads with Bush making one claim prior to the war and then making a completely different claim during the post war years..
His statements justifying the need to rush to war followed up with statements radically different following the war...

I concur.

[xrayzebra]

The NIE I can trust....GWB I cannot.

Which NIE report do you trust. The one in 2005 where
they say they are making the bomb? Or the one just
recently released where they say they quit trying in
2003?

Pay your money and take your choice.

[JoeChalupa]

Which NIE report do you trust. The one in 2005 where
they say they are making the bomb? Or the one just
recently released where they say they quit trying in
2003?

Pay your money and take your choice.

I believe we are paying the price for Bush's inability to listen to the facts and stop his war rhetoric. As Pat Buchanan says Joe Biden needs to get back to Washington and HOLD HEARINGS on who knew what, and when. He actually called on Biden to haul Condi Rice and Stephen Hadley before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ask them if they knew about the NIE report, and if they had ever told Bush.

What I don't trust is what comes out of Bush's mouth.

[clambake]

What I don't trust is what comes out of Bush's mouth.
you and the rest of the world. Bush has nukes and he's running around the world like a wild animal.

if you were the leadership of other countries, you'd be a fool not to at least try to develop nukes. Bush is the pitbull that's trying to get through the fence of your backyard.

there's no mystery here. Bush is the worlds menace.

[George Gervin's Afro]

you and the rest of the world. Bush has nukes and he's running around the world like a wild animal.

if you were the leadership of other countries, you'd be a fool not to at least try to develop nukes. Bush is the pitbull that's trying to get through the fence of your backyard.

there's no mystery here. Bush is the worlds menace.



you do such a disservice to wild animals everywhere...

[xrayzebra]

Well Joe, GGA and Clam. I can see that in your eyes Bush is
the enemy and the rest of the world is nice guys. Yeah, you
all have it down pat. The mean old USA with Bush as
President is the bad guy and if we just had Kerry as Prez
all would be right with the world and we would be living in
paradise with our seventy virgins and saying prayers everyother
hour. Ahhhhh yezzzzzzzzz!!!!!!! What a world you folks live
in.

[clambake]

Well Joe, GGA and Clam. I can see that in your eyes Bush is
the enemy and the rest of the world is nice guys. Yeah, you
all have it down pat. The mean old USA with Bush as
President is the bad guy and if we just had Kerry as Prez
all would be right with the world and we would be living in
paradise with our seventy virgins and saying prayers everyother
hour. Ahhhhh yezzzzzzzzz!!!!!!! What a world you folks live
in.

overdose?

[xrayzebra]

I believe we are paying the price for Bush's inability to listen to the facts and stop his war rhetoric. As Pat Buchanan says Joe Biden needs to get back to Washington and HOLD HEARINGS on who knew what, and when. He actually called on Biden to haul Condi Rice and Stephen Hadley before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ask them if they knew about the NIE report, and if they had ever told Bush.

What I don't trust is what comes out of Bush's mouth.

Yep, old Joe Biden, now there is a guy you can trust.
Now calling Rice and Hadley before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee to ask them when they knew of
the of the NIE, that would be down right good. Since
there exist two of them as stated before. One issued
in 2005 that said they were building the bomb, and one
just issued which said they stopped trying in 2003,
strangely this last one said they stopped two years before
they issued the former in 2005 saying they were trying
to build one. How bout he call the authors of the the
reports before the committee and ask them a few pointed
questions. Like what was their agenda in issuing
such contradictory reports. Would you like that?
Oh, they may want to call members of the Senate
Intelligence Committe before them to ask when they
knew of the NIE and why none of the question them.
You think that might be a good idea, since they are
briefed by the groups as the President.

[xrayzebra]

overdose?

Yep you have on the crap put out by the MSM and
dimms.

[clambake]

Yep you have on the crap put out by the MSM and
dimms.
what?

from what I've seen the msm is trying to mask his lies. a really pathetic attempt, too.

wow, how embarrassing it must be to be him.

[01Snake]

NIE: An Abrupt About-Face
As many recognize, the latest NIE on Iran’s nuclear weapons program directly contradicts what the U.S. Intelligence Community was saying just two years previously. And it appears that this about-face was very recent. How recent?

Consider that on July 11, 2007, roughly four or so months prior to the most recent NIE’s publication, Deputy Director of Analysis Thomas Fingar gave the following testimony before the House Armed Services Committee (emphasis added):


Iran and North Korea are the states of most concern to us. The United States’ concerns about Iran are shared by many nations, including many of Iran’s neighbors. Iran is continuing to pursue uranium enrichment and has shown more interest in protracting negotiations and working to delay and diminish the impact of UNSC sanctions than in reaching an acceptable diplomatic solution. We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons--despite its international obligations and international pressure. This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.

This paragraph appeared under the subheading: "Iran Assessed As Determined to Develop Nuclear Weapons." And the entirety of Fingar’s 22-page testimony was labeled "Information as of July 11, 2007." No part of it is consistent with the latest NIE, in which our spooks tell us Iran suspended its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003 "primarily in response to international pressure" and they "do not know whether (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."

The inconsistencies are more troubling when we realize that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Fingar is one of the three officials who were responsible for crafting the latest NIE. The Journal cites "an intelligence source" as describing Fingar and his two colleagues as "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials." (The New York Sun drew attention to one of Fingar’s colleagues yesterday.)

So, if it is true that Dr. Fingar played a leading role in crafting this latest NIE, then we are left with serious questions:

Why did your opinion change so drastically in just four months time?
Is the new intelligence or analysis really that good? Is it good enough to overturn your previous assessments? Or, has it never really been good enough to make a definitive assessment at all?
Did your political or ideological leanings, or your policy preferences, or those of your colleagues, influence your opinion in any way?
Many in the mainstream press have been willing to cite this latest NIE unquestioningly. Perhaps they should start asking some pointed questions. (Don’t hold your breath.)

[clambake]

thompson thinks iran is responsible for the report. repubs are idiots

[JoeChalupa]

Yep you have on the crap put out by the MSM and
dimms.

You've overdosed on Bush and are so high you can't see straight. The NIE report was not put out by democrats. Can't you repugnants get that fact straight?

[JoeChalupa]

thompson thinks iran is responsible for the report. repubs are idiots

Xray's posts are proof of that.

[xrayzebra]

Joe how come you don't answer my post #26, this thread.
How come the second NIE report is accurate but the first
NIE report is junk. How come one of the authors, Fingar,
was talking about them building a bomb in July of this year
just four months ago (post #29) but now help say that they quit in
2003. Bush didn't write these reports. These are suppose
to help our government make decisions. I see how you
react, if it hurts Bush, good report. If it helps Bush, bad report. And
you have the Gaul to accuse me of being closed minded.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Yep, old Joe Biden, now there is a guy you can trust.
Now calling Rice and Hadley before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee to ask them when they knew of
the of the NIE, that would be down right good. Since
there exist two of them as stated before. One issued
in 2005 that said they were building the bomb, and one
just issued which said they stopped trying in 2003,
strangely this last one said they stopped two years before
they issued the former in 2005 saying they were trying
to build one. How bout he call the authors of the the
reports before the committee and ask them a few pointed
questions. Like what was their agenda in issuing
such contradictory reports. Would you like that?
Oh, they may want to call members of the Senate
Intelligence Committe before them to ask when they
knew of the NIE and why none of the question them.
You think that might be a good idea, since they are
briefed by the groups as the President.


If there was an agenda of the writers why wouldn't someone in the Bush administration say something about it?


This notion that these people were 'out to get bush' is preposterous. IF that were the case these people deserved to be fired and publicly admonished. I can live with questioning the accuracy of the report because we honestly don't know 100% for sure either way. but to dismiss the NIE outright because you think there has got to an agenda is stupid... you don't like what it says so let's attack the messenger..!

[George Gervin's Afro]

NIE: An Abrupt About-Face
As many recognize, the latest NIE on Iran’s nuclear weapons program directly contradicts what the U.S. Intelligence Community was saying just two years previously. And it appears that this about-face was very recent. How recent?

Consider that on July 11, 2007, roughly four or so months prior to the most recent NIE’s publication, Deputy Director of Analysis Thomas Fingar gave the following testimony before the House Armed Services Committee (emphasis added):


Iran and North Korea are the states of most concern to us. The United States’ concerns about Iran are shared by many nations, including many of Iran’s neighbors. Iran is continuing to pursue uranium enrichment and has shown more interest in protracting negotiations and working to delay and diminish the impact of UNSC sanctions than in reaching an acceptable diplomatic solution. We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons--despite its international obligations and international pressure. This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.

This paragraph appeared under the subheading: "Iran Assessed As Determined to Develop Nuclear Weapons." And the entirety of Fingar’s 22-page testimony was labeled "Information as of July 11, 2007." No part of it is consistent with the latest NIE, in which our spooks tell us Iran suspended its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003 "primarily in response to international pressure" and they "do not know whether (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."

The inconsistencies are more troubling when we realize that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Fingar is one of the three officials who were responsible for crafting the latest NIE. The Journal cites "an intelligence source" as describing Fingar and his two colleagues as "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials." (The New York Sun drew attention to one of Fingar’s colleagues yesterday.)

So, if it is true that Dr. Fingar played a leading role in crafting this latest NIE, then we are left with serious questions:

Why did your opinion change so drastically in just four months time?
Is the new intelligence or analysis really that good? Is it good enough to overturn your previous assessments? Or, has it never really been good enough to make a definitive assessment at all?
Did your political or ideological leanings, or your policy preferences, or those of your colleagues, influence your opinion in any way?
Many in the mainstream press have been willing to cite this latest NIE unquestioningly. Perhaps they should start asking some pointed questions. (Don’t hold your breath.)


your right this all a conspiracy to get bush.. if we only had done what you have suggested before we started the unecessary war.. oh well at least now the resident war whores are questioning the intel..

if only the awar whores would have asked some pointed questions before starting a war...

so now the war whores are flip flopping on NIEs.. they like them..then they don't like them... intel doesn't need to questioned.. now pointed questions are needed on intel.. it's hard to keep up with you guys..

[JoeChalupa]

Joe how come you don't answer my post #26, this thread.
How come the second NIE report is accurate but the first
NIE report is junk. How come one of the authors, Fingar,
was talking about them building a bomb in July of this year
just four months ago (post #29) but now help say that they quit in
2003. Bush didn't write these reports. These are suppose
to help our government make decisions. I see how you
react, if it hurts Bush, good report. If it helps Bush, bad report. And
you have the Gaul to accuse me of being closed minded.

I never said the first NIE report was junk did I? What I'm saying is Bush's war rhetoric never changes no matter what the evidence shows.
You react the same way. If it help Bush you like it if it hurts him you don't. Works both ways right? Bush has been proven wrong so many times. NO WMD. And Cheney still believes Iraq was responsible for 911.
How you can put credibility into what Bush said is beyond me...and many others for that matter. Even Newt says Bush's credibility has been damaged.

[xrayzebra]

I never said the first NIE report was junk did I? What I'm saying is Bush's war rhetoric never changes no matter what the evidence shows.
You react the same way. If it help Bush you like it if it hurts him you don't. Works both ways right? Bush has been proven wrong so many times. NO WMD. And Cheney still believes Iraq was responsible for 911.
How you can put credibility into what Bush said is beyond me...and many others for that matter. Even Newt says Bush's credibility has been damaged.

Now Bush is wrong for being consistent? He should
be more like Kerry, I vote for it, before I voted against it.
Or Billary, I was tricked into voting for going to war.

And Joe, they did, and I have said this many times,
have WMD, they used it numerous times. The question
is what did they do with it? Where did it go. Why did
he still "pretend" that he had WMD.

Bush nor Cheny did not start the Iraq war on their own,
Congress voted TWICE for the war. They demanded to
be in on the choice, or do you remember that?

Bush depended on an NIE to go to war and they were
wrong (Intel). The missed on Libya trying for the bomb,
they missed on Syra going for the bomb and missed
on North Korea. No I have good reason to have my
doubts about anything they push one way or the other.

[JoeChalupa]

I disagree. And why is being consistent such a great thing? In some instances it is but when the evidence proves otherwise I feel it take a better man to admit he was wrong and change his mind. I've done it myself quite a few times.
Are you saying that changing one's opinion is a bad thing?
To me, that is Bush's problem. He is too hard headed to change and change can be a very good thing.
I know Iraq DID have WMD but they were NOT an immediate danger to the US at the time Bush and Cheney were pushing the war. Those simply were not the facts. I also feel that there was Intel that was correct but Cheney, who I feel was the true architect of the Iraq war didn't want to hear or see it.

[Extra Stout]

How come the second NIE report is accurate but the first
NIE report is junk.
The article says why.

The first NIE assumed the worst.

Bush was annoyed with the lack of hard intelligence.

The CIA got more hard intelligence.

So the second report is better.

Bush is better-informed; Rice is vindicated; Cheney is frustrated.

[xrayzebra]

The article says why.

The first NIE assumed the worst.

Bush was annoyed with the lack of hard intelligence.

The CIA got more hard intelligence.

So the second report is better.

Bush is better-informed; Rice is vindicated; Cheney is frustrated.

I didn't know that.

[boutons_]

Here's Bolton, having smeared the intel community yesterday, pointing out the flaws in the 2007 NIE:

The Flaws In the Iran Report

By John R. Bolton
Thursday, December 6, 2007; A29

Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the "intelligence community" on issues such as Iraq's weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.

All this shows that we not only have a problem interpreting what the mullahs in Tehran are up to, but also a more fundamental problem: Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than "intelligence" analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it. President Bush may not be able to repair his Iran policy (which was not rigorous enough to begin with) in his last year, but he would leave a lasting legacy by returning the intelligence world to its proper function.

Consider these flaws in the NIE's "key judgments," which were made public even though approximately 140 pages of analysis, and reams of underlying intelligence, remain classified.

First, the headline finding -- that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 -- is written in a way that guarantees the totality of the conclusions will be misread. In fact, there is little substantive difference between the conclusions of the 2005 NIE on Iran's nuclear capabilities and the 2007 NIE. Moreover, the distinction between "military" and "civilian" programs is highly artificial, since the enrichment of uranium, which all agree Iran is continuing, is critical to civilian and military uses. Indeed, it has always been Iran's "civilian" program that posed the main risk of a nuclear "breakout."

The real differences between the NIEs are not in the hard data but in the psychological assessment of the mullahs' motives and objectives. The current NIE freely admits to having only moderate confidence that the suspension continues and says that there are significant gaps in our intelligence and that our analysts dissent from their initial judgment on suspension. This alone should give us considerable pause.

Second, the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux. As undersecretary of state for arms control in 2003, I know we were nowhere near exerting any significant diplomatic pressure on Iran. Nowhere does the NIE explain its logic on this critical point. Moreover, the risks and returns of pursuing a diplomatic strategy are policy calculations, not intelligence judgments. The very public rollout in the NIE of a diplomatic strategy exposes the biases at work behind the Potemkin village of "intelligence."

Third, the risks of disinformation by Iran are real. We have lost many fruitful sources inside Iraq in recent years because of increased security and intelligence tradecraft by Iran. The sudden appearance of new sources should be taken with more than a little skepticism. In a background briefing, intelligence officials said they had concluded it was "possible" but not "likely" that the new information they were relying on was deception. These are hardly hard scientific conclusions. One contrary opinion came from -- of all places -- an unnamed International Atomic Energy Agency official, quoted in the New York Times, saying that "we are more skeptical. We don't buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran." When the IAEA is tougher than our analysts, you can bet the farm that someone is pursuing a policy agenda.

Fourth, the NIE suffers from a common problem in government: the overvaluation of the most recent piece of data. In the bureaucracy, where access to information is a source of rank and prestige, ramming home policy changes with the latest hot tidbit is commonplace, and very deleterious. It is a rare piece of intelligence that is so important it can conclusively or even significantly alter the body of already known information. Yet the bias toward the new appears to have exerted a disproportionate effect on intelligence analysis.

Fifth, many involved in drafting and approving the NIE were not intelligence professionals but refugees from the State Department, brought into the new central bureaucracy of the director of national intelligence. These officials had relatively benign views of Iran's nuclear intentions five and six years ago; now they are writing those views as if they were received wisdom from on high. In fact, these are precisely the policy biases they had before, recycled as "intelligence judgments."

That such a flawed product could emerge after a drawn-out bureaucratic struggle is extremely troubling. While the president and others argue that we need to maintain pressure on Iran, this "intelligence" torpedo has all but sunk those efforts, inadequate as they were. Ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions in an essentially unmolested fashion, to the detriment of us all.

John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad." He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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

Believing this NIE after the totally wrong NIE about Saddam having WMD is difficult. The Iraq NIE was wrong and this 2007 Iran NIE is right?

With spooks and a WH that is a bunch of venal, lying assholes, it's almost impossible to know what the "reality" is.

Iran having nuclear bombs AND considering them a threat to use them.

hmm, why would Iran use nukes and risk total destruction by retaliation from US and Israel when Russia, which had many nukes AND the ICBM's to deliver them to the USA, sat on their nukes in a stand-off of MAD/Mutually Assured Destruction?

I hear the "balance of power between USA and Iran" thrown around. What balance of power? Iran has nowhere near the military and industry power that the USA has. How are they so powerful, even with a few nukes in a few years, that Iran's power has to be countervailed by USA' power?

[Nbadan]

Fourth, the NIE suffers from a common problem in government: the overvaluation of the most recent piece of data

The report is over a year old...Bolton is delusional....

[Nbadan]

...back to the original topic...

What's Really Wrong With the M$M?
Eric Alterman


Of course, far more is wrong with the mainstream media than can be described, or even enumerated, in one column. But let's give it a shot, using only items that have come up since my last column, all of which speak to the issue of why its members have forfeited our collective trust.

1. Its members consistently defer to conservative Republican Presidents with a history of deliberate deception, allowing them to define their terms. "One of the reasons for not was, you know, honestly, a concern that because the White House has contended that this is not a civil war, that using the phrase amounted to a kind of unnecessary political statement."--Bill Keller, executive editor, New York Times.

2. Its members invite Republican Congressmen, known to be not merely unreliable but delusional, to lie about Democratic Congressmen. When challenged, they reply that they cannot be bothered to discern the truth: Time's Joe Klein, a pundit who terms the Democratic Party "a party with absolutely no redeeming social value," one whose members "make fools of themselves even when they speak the truth," recently informed the magazine's readers that "tone-deaf" Democrats in the House had passed legislation that "would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only," and thereby "give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans." The liberal blogosphere, led by Salon's Glenn Greenwald, demonstrated that this statement was categorically false, as the bill reads: "A court order is not required for electronic surveillance directed at the acquisition of the contents of any communication between persons that are not known to be United States persons and are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States." Time eventually printed a correction but refused to adjudicate between truth and falsehood, claiming merely that Democrats and Republicans interpret the bill differently. Klein shrugged off criticism by saying, "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right." Later Republican Peter Hoekstra, who is also on record insisting that the United States had discovered a WMD program in Iraq but that the CIA had conspired to cover it up, revealed that he had been a key source for Klein's reporting.

3. Its members invite conservative Republican individuals known to be insane, unbalanced and unconcerned with the truth to lie about Democratic presidential candidates on the front page of their newspapers and when confronted respond that it is not their job to determine the truth. The Washington Post's Perry Bacon published a recent front-page article giving voice to right-wing paranoids, racists and assorted hatemongers who insist that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim. Sources included the Moonie-financed Insight online magazine, Human Events (home to Ann Coulter), demagogues Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh, and some guy who posted on the Internet somewhere. Beyond the Obama campaign's denials, nowhere in the piece did Bacon inform readers that these allegations are demonstrably false. In an online chat, the paper's Lois Romano explicitly defended the practice, claiming that "airing some of this and giving a chance to deny its accuracy could be viewed as setting the record straight." ......(more)

The Nation gets it (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/alterman)