[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

In France, young women are starting to buy pet pigs to avoid being harassed by Muslim men

Elderly Veteran kills 3 Home Invaders

Number One Longevity Food

Inflation Highest In Democrat States, Lowest In Republican Deep South

TikToker admits to being paid $150 a day to protest Trump’s deportation policies in LA

A GREAT update on the Trump fraud case ($454.2 million judgment) at the appellate court.

Mexican Senate President Revives Territorial Claims Amid Los Angeles Civil Unrest

Rooftop Korean' issues chilling threat about LA's future 30 years after Rodney King riots

Bystanders jump in front of ICE vehicles with arrested migrants inside

Israeli companies struggling to find customers amid Gaza genocide:

Farmers are being pressured to sell their land to this. Not good!

Palantir EXPOSED: The New Deep State

Military Overview: Ukrainian Fronts Crumble Under Multi-Axis Assault

ICE prepares full assault on five Democrat cities as LA goes into lockdown amid immigration riots

Invisible Missile Triggers MILITARY PANIC! (This is the Russian Zircon)

Mass arrests as defiant immigration protesters ignore lockdown orders in LA

Visit California: It's America's Future

FBI Director Kash Patel sues MSNBC columnist Frank Figliuzzi

The Ukraine war did not "bleed out" Russia. It bled US taxpayers

America Is Full. Time To Close The Door.

Golden Dome Idiocy

Israeli Media: Trump Told Netanyahu To Permanently End War in Gaza

21 days left till BASEL III is implemented. VIDEO EXPLANATION

China’s bottom half holds twice the wealth of America’s.

China’s extreme weather is leaving devastation across multiple provinces

Salton Sea is emitting foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide gas

Will Treasury Secretary Bessent's Past (Soros) Come Back To Haunt Him Today?

BBC Under Fire for CENSORING Gaza Medic Documentary

US is Agreement Incapable

Blow to Israeli Intelligence. taping Israelis in bathrooms


Neocon Nuttery
See other Neocon Nuttery Articles

Title: Norman Podhoretz: Dark Suspicions about the NIE
Source: Commentary Magazine
URL Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/podhoretz/1474
Published: Dec 4, 2007
Author: Norman Podhoretz
Post Date: 2007-12-04 11:59:27 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 263
Comments: 5

A new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” has just dealt a serious blow to the argument some of us have been making that Iran is intent on building nuclear weapons and that neither diplomacy nor sanctions can prevent it from succeeding. Thus, this latest NIE “judges with high confidence that in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program”; it “judges with high confidence that the halt was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work”; it “assesses with moderate confidence that Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007”; it assesses, also with only “moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program”; but even if not, it judges “with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.”

These findings are startling, not least because in key respects they represent a 180-degree turn from the conclusions of the last NIE on Iran’s nuclear program. For that one, issued in May 2005, assessed “with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons” and to press on “despite its international obligations and international pressure.”

In other words, a full two years after Iran supposedly called a halt to its nuclear program, the intelligence community was still as sure as it ever is about anything that Iran was determined to build a nuclear arsenal. Why then should we believe it when it now tells us, and with the same “high confidence,” that Iran had already called a halt to its nuclear-weapons program in 2003? Similarly with the intelligence community’s reversal on the effectiveness of international pressure. In 2005, the NIE was highly confident that international pressure had not lessened Iran’s determination to develop nuclear weapons, and yet now, in 2007, the intelligence community is just as confident that international pressure had already done the trick by 2003.

It is worth remembering that in 2002, one of the conclusions offered by the NIE, also with “high confidence,” was that “Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.” And another conclusion, offered with high confidence too, was that “Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.”

I must confess to suspecting that the intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view (including as is evident from the 2005 NIE, within the intelligence community itself) that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons. I also suspect that, having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal.

But I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations. As the intelligence community must know, if he were to do so, it would be as a last resort, only after it had become undeniable that neither negotiations nor sanctions could prevent Iran from getting the bomb, and only after being convinced that it was very close to succeeding. How better, then, to stop Bush in his tracks than by telling him and the world that such pressures have already been effective and that keeping them up could well bring about “a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program”—especially if the negotiations and sanctions were combined with a goodly dose of appeasement or, in the NIE’s own euphemistic formulation, “with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways.”

If this is what lies behind the release of the new NIE, its authors can take satisfaction in the response it has elicited from the White House. Quoth Stephen Hadley, George W. Bush’s National Security Adviser: “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.”

I should add that I offer these assessments and judgments with no more than “moderate confidence.”

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: Brian S (#0)

It's OK Norman, Smirk hasn't changed his mind about Iran. Calm down.

freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/re...gi?ArtNum=67723&Disp

Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today!

robin  posted on  2007-12-04   12:04:57 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Brian S (#0)

I must confess to suspecting that the intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view (including as is evident from the 2005 NIE, within the intelligence community itself) that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons. I also suspect that, having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal.

Universal belief? That's not the impression I got from reading the books on Iran by Scott Ritter and Trita Parsi, or from the statements made by Mohammed El-Baradei.

I thought these neocons ridiculed conspiracy theories, by the way.

To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.

aristeides  posted on  2007-12-04   12:07:56 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: aristeides (#2)

I thought these neocons ridiculed conspiracy theories, by the way

If neocons and their agenda are implicated, it's a "tinfoil hat conspiracy theory." When they tell tall tales about the Arab or Iranian bogey man, things suddenly change.

Seriously though, with this senile, Zionist nutcase as chief foreign policy guru to Giuliani, a Rudy Presidency will make Bush look like Ron Paul.

Rupert_Pupkin  posted on  2007-12-04   12:21:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: Brian S (#0)

one factor could be that the bush loyalists are bailing. we hear about the high level ones but I'm guessing there are many others. and cheney's been under the weather and possibly less heavy handed.

to dismiss anything that doesn't support bush's positions, which even he admits are based on feelings more than facts, as attempts to undermine bush is ridiculous and worthy of multiple threads on free republic but not of intelligent public debate.

but what am I saying? intelligent public debate? here? it doesn't happen...

(and by here I mean in america, not 4um)

kiki  posted on  2007-12-04   13:43:24 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Brian S (#0)

Why then should we believe it when it now tells us, and with the same “high confidence,” that Iran had already called a halt to its nuclear-weapons program in 2003?

For one thing- no one in DC stands to make any money from this NIE. And if they thought they could get away with lying their way into another war- that is what governments do- they lie about starting wars. They generally don't lie about trying to avoid them. What we can safely say- is that if anything this NIE understates the lack of a desire on the part of Iran to get nukes as that is again- another trait of government- when they have to own up to something- it is safe to assume you are only getting half the truth and a lot of bullcrap excuses. And we can also safely assume that the 2005 NIE was one lie to the next and it wasn't brooking any water with anyone- espeically foreign allies and other powers.

The Daily Burkeman1

Burkeman1  posted on  2007-12-04   15:22:37 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest


[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]