Assessing Intelligence on Iran's Military Nuclear Program

Canadian Centre for Policy Studies ^ | 5 December 2007 | Joe Varner

[Footguard]

Assessing the intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons program

Written by Joseph B. Varner Wednesday, 05 December 2007

There’s an old saying in politics that strategy is something you do, not something you talk about – not publicly at least – which is why the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of Iran’s military nuclear program has left so many us scratching our heads.

[Footguard]

Varner, is dead on, the Bush Administration has 'shot itself in the foot' and it is a bad time of the year to have to wear scandals.

If the site in Syria was linked to North korea's nuclear program then what does that say about their negotiations with the U.S. now. No wonder the North Koreans are refusing to account for certain components of their nuclear program.

[Don Corleone]

Want to know whats really going on in Iran? Ask Israel!!!

[ravingnutter]

You and he apparently both need to read this article by John Bolton. One of the important points:

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."

The only mistake Bush made was not kicking all these partisan hacks to the curb when he got into office.