On the subject of enriched uranium and Iran’s intentions, here’s a “not so” hypothetical:
If you were a nuclear-ambitious country (like Iran), what would you want to possess, (1) a fully optimized set drawings and no enriched uranium or (2) a ready supply of weapons grade enriched uranium and not so well optimized drawings?
Yep, a 50th percentile fifth grader would get that answer right. But not the State Department of the United States of America. And apparently not Thomas Fingar.
Behind the Iran-Intelligence Reversal
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By NICK TIMIRAOS
December 8, 2007; Page A9
A new U.S. intelligence report concluded that Iran abandoned its nuclear-weapons program in 2003 -- a reversal of findings issued two years ago -- and underscored the challenges facing the intelligence community.
The surprise assessment followed intelligence-community changes triggered by faulty intelligence reports on Iraq that fueled the run-up to war, by asserting that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons.
The new estimate could decelerate already-sluggish diplomatic efforts to suspend Iran's uranium-enrichment program by the United Nations Security Council, and calls into question Washington's increasingly hawkish rhetoric toward Tehran. Here's a closer look:
How definitive are National Intelligence Estimates? The estimates reflect the consensus opinion of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, and while they provide a snapshot of current judgments about future events, estimates don't always deliver the final word on a subject. The conclusions of a 2002 Iraq estimate were wrong in part because analysts, according to a Senate investigation, were led to "ignore or minimize" evidence that Iraq didn't have an active program to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Some conservative critics received the new Iran estimate skeptically, and Republican senators called for a review of the contradictory conclusions.
What prompted the new conclusions? Officials said a combination of new intelligence and a review of old evidence, not a "smoking gun" or single piece of evidence, prompted the new assessment.