Bolton was the victim of a RINO. -Tom
Posted on 01/21/2008 8:18:46 AM PST by SJackson
The 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate, as well as the skewed reporting around it, is a sign of the "illegitimate politicization" of the American intelligence establishment, according to former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.
The document reportedly said Iran stopped its nuclear weapons production program in 2003.
While "Iran's nuclear program is continuing and expanding," Bolton told The Jerusalem Post at a book-signing in a Tel Aviv Steimatzky on Sunday, "the NIE has had a devastating impact on our global efforts to try and constrain Iran."
"I know the people who wrote this intelligence estimate," Bolton continued. "They are not from our intelligence community. They're from our State Department. It was a highly politicized document written by people who had a very clear policy objective."
The former ambassador decried the lack of separation between "intelligence and policy."
"Generating intelligence should be separated from policy-makers, but it should also be separated from intelligence analysts who impose their own policy views on the intelligence they generate," insisted Bolton, who is in the country to attend the Herzliya Conference this week.
Furthermore, said Bolton, the NIE "doesn't say what you probably think it says. Once you get past the first sentence or two, it doesn't come out that different from the 2005 NIE. All of the attention was focused on the one finding that [Iran halted the weapons-building] aspect of the weapons program, even though later they say that they only have 'moderate confidence' that this suspension has continued. That's a polite way of saying they don't have a clue what the situation is."
The document also defines the weapons program as "actual weaponization, that is, fabrication - only a tiny sliver of the total activity required for a country to have a nuclear weapons program. It still remains entirely within Iran's discretion when and under what circumstances it proceeds to a nuclear weapons capability."
The release of such a politicized report by those responsible for American intelligence analysis was possible, Bolton believes, because "there is still no effective supervision over the intelligence community. It's been a problem for a long time. The [newly-established] director of national intelligence position didn't solve it. So it remains and will be a significant challenge for the next president to get under control."
Bolton calls the NIE "a quasi-coup by the intelligence services," which was "intended to have a political and policy effect. I think that's illegitimate [for] the bureaucracy [to have done]. In our system, constitutional legitimacy flows from the president, who was elected, through his officials. It's not like a European system, where the foreign policy establishment really does develop foreign policy. Too much policy is developed by the bureaucracy independent of political control. It's a longstanding cultural problem, and it will take a long time to fix it."
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where have all the good men gone...
this country is just getting worse.
Odd ‘duh’ comment from John Bolten.
Bolton stepping down was a huge loss.
Facts depend on , " What the definition of 'IS', is."
The CIA is controlled by Clinton Appointed 5th columnists.
Remedy: Disband the CIA, and expand NSA.
Langley is a den of traitors.
My thoughts exactly.
How about a treason trial or two for tampering with inteligence?
How about ending this BS job security for political operatives.
The Clintons admittedly salted all our government departments with their (leftists) operatives, moving them from political appointment jobs to regular ones protected by Civil Service, meaning they can’t easily be fired.
Bush had his chance after 911. He should have fired the head of the CIA and FBI and all their minions. He would have overwhelming public support and congress could not have said a word. Instead, he let the CIA and FBI moles write the history and influence the future.
Bolton for Sec. of State if we ever win the White House again.
Bolton is exactly correct.
This politicization of intelligence is not a small transformation of what out government is supposed to be doing.
Not only the collection of intelligence, but EVERY aspect of life today, as expressed through the functions of government, has become a political football, to be change abruptly and sometimes catastrophically at every turnover of office. There are few, if any, agreed basics in the art of governance in this land any more.
For less than this, the rebellion that created the United States of America, and later led to the short-lived existence of the Confederacy. sought to create a smaller and more manageable units of government.
Today’s government entities have become far too centralized. But that is no new observation.
Bolton was the victim of a RINO. -Tom
Trust me - you ain't seen nothin' yet:
IQ and the Wealth of Nations
Those are both eye-opening references. I’m familiar with the first (IQ and the Wealth of Nations), but hadn’t seen the second. I don’t think there is a single spot on the fertility list where the country fertility rate exceeds the world average where I’d like to visit or could imagine myself living.
The two lists are almost perfectly inverted.
For instance, Hong Kong, with the world's highest median IQ of 107, also has the world's lowest TFR, at 0.98.
Which means that the population of Hong Kong is effectively halving about every 35 years.
We haven't seen such a world-wide collapse in intelligence, and explosion in stupidity, since circa 450AD, at the dawn of the first Dark Age.
The sorts of social upheavels which "alloysteel" was talking about in #13 are peanuts compared to the collapse of civilization which we will witness over the remainder of our lives.
If what he is saying is really true that the NIE was written by the State Department and not by the intelligence community, that borders on a criminal act from the bureaucracy, in my opinion.
The truth bears repeating. There are obviously a couple of hundred million Americans that would have no idea of the importance of what Bolton is saying unless he repeated it ad nausium.
The only thing odd about John is his intelligence and patriotism, and the guts to speak straight from the shoulder.
Which is more than I can say for our candidates for President (except for Fred)
Bolton is one of my heroes.
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