Gates: Intelligence Estimate Shows Need to Keep Up Pressure on Iran

American Forces Press Service ^ | Donna Miles

[SandRat]

KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 4, 2007 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today pointed to the new national intelligence estimate as evidence that non-military means are the best way for the United States to deal with Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

Responding to a reporter’s query during a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai here, Gates said the estimate, released yesterday, also underscores the need for the international community to continue pressuring Iran not to restart its nuclear weapons program.

“If anything, the new national estimate validates the administration’s strategy of bringing diplomatic and economic pressures to bear on the Iranian government to change its policies,” Gates told reporters.

The report finds that the intelligence community “has high confidence that Iran halted its covert nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003 and they have moderate confidence that they have not restarted that program as of mid-2007,” national security advisor Stephen Hadley said in a Washington news briefing yesterday.

The estimate concludes that international scrutiny and pressure probably led Iran to halt work involving uranium enrichment that had previous gone undeclared.

Gates said the NIE gives the U.S. intelligence community “more confidence than ever before” that Iran had, in fact, had a nuclear weapons program before suspending it.

The secretary said the report underscores the role international pressure played in forcing that action, but expressed concern that Iran continues to “keep its options open.”

“As long as they continue with their enrichment activities, then the opportunity to resume that nuclear weapons program is always present,” he said.

Gates said the estimate demonstrates the need for the international community to keep up its pressure on Iran so it doesn’t restart the program. He urged nations of the world “to join the United States in bringing pressure to bear on the Iranian government.”

This, he said, will help “ensure that what apparently was a suspension in 2003 becomes a policy of the Iranian government and that they agree to the requirements of the international community in terms of their enrichment program.”

Biographies:
Robert M. Gates

Related Sites:
Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities
Special Report: Travels With Gates

Related Articles:
Bush Says Iran Still Poses Threat
Intel Community Reports on Iran’s Nuclear Program
Gates Lauds Progress in Afghanistan’s Khowst Province

[SandRat]

FR WAR NEWS!

WAR News at Home and Abroad You'll Hear Nowhere Else!

All the News the MSM refuses to use!

Or if they do report it, without the anti-War Agenda Spin!

Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.

[do the dhue]

bump

[Paleo Conservative]

I think we need to overpressure Iran.

[familyop]

Foxtrot to Golf, Foxtrot to Golf...you’re breakin’ up. ...must be our Administration’s terminal NIE interference.

[TomasUSMC]

however, DOE and the NIC
assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt
to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.)

We continue to assess with low confidence that Iran probably has imported at least
some weapons-usable fissile material, but still judge with moderate-to-high confidence it
has not obtained enough for a nuclear weapon. We cannot rule out that Iran has acquired
from abroad—or will acquire in the future—a nuclear weapon or enough fissile material
for a weapon.
We assess with moderate confidence that Iran probably would use covert facilities—
rather than its declared nuclear sites—for the production of highly enriched uranium for a
weapon. A growing amount of intelligence indicates Iran was engaged in covert uranium
conversion and uranium enrichment activity, but we judge that these efforts probably
were halted in response to the fall 2003 halt, and that these efforts probably had not been
restarted through at least mid-2007.

Plenty of reasons to hit Iran.

I think that Bush is facing a mutiny, he has decided to hit Iran and the traitors are trying to stop him.

[FMBass]

There will be one definitive way of knowing when Iraq has acquired a nuclear weapon. You will see a big mushroom cloud at the location it was being stored and an Israeli jet streaking away.

The US has to deal with politics. The Israeli’s have to deal with survival.

[familyop]

"I think that Bush is facing a mutiny, he has decided to hit Iran and the traitors are trying to stop him."

If so, he should be telling us about it, firing them, and hiring new staff from willing, combat branches--preferably those who've had some time in enlisted ranks.

IMO, even if he's not with the decision to retreat from the Iranians, he's seen a lot of pressure from most of his highest contributing constituents. We don't have a Party. The most visible candidates are all more loyal to the import lobby than to defense.

[SandRat]

There will be one definitive way of knowing when Iraq Iran has acquired a nuclear weapon.

[FMBass]

Thanks, yes I meant Iran.

[humint]

“If anything, the new national estimate validates the administration’s strategy of bringing diplomatic and economic pressures to bear on the Iranian government to change its policies,” Gates told reporters.

The NIE is a tiny island of good news surrounded by an ocean of bad. Iran's ambitions are crystal clear. They've always been focussed on terror ops more so than WMD. In that context, the NIE is a major distraction from the threat Iran poses to the stability of the Middle East. Either way you look at it though, Gates is right. For the minority of us who read the fine print, it looks like the pressure was working. Unfortunately, the disingenuous headlines generated by the NIE have done far more harm to American interests in the Middle East than the important information contained in the NIE's fine print. Now, it will be far more difficult to generate the kind of pressure that was working before the NIE was released...

[Praxeologue]

Domestic U.S. politics wants peace in our time.

This wouldn't have been released unless the Executive had approved.