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2007 National Intelligence Estimate–You Lie!!!!

By: quill67 (Diary)  |  September 25th, 2009 at 10:06 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I wish I had thought of this myself–blame my catching the flu (yes H1N1) but Thomas Joscelyn of The Weekly Standard made a very keen observation given the announcement today that Iran has been working on a secret underground nuclear facility. http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/09/about_that_2007_national_intel.asp

According to senior administration officials, U.S. intelligence has known about this facility for several years, and yet the 2007 National intelligence report stated “We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

This shows that the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate was a lie. We were aware that Iran was building this facility for several years. The construction of such a facility would show that Iran’s nuclear program was continuing. As Thomas Joscelyn writes:

There were always good reasons to think that the 2007 NIE was more of a policy-prescription than a rigorous intelligence analysis. It is well-known that its authors have their own views of Iran’s nuclear program and how (not) to deal with it. As the Wall Street Journal wrote at the time, the NIE’s three chief authors were “hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials” with their own distinct policy preferences. In all likelihood, they wanted to make sure that the Iranian nuclear program wasn’t considered a particularly worrisome threat requiring action. There is ample room for public debate about how to deal with Iran’s burgeoning nukes, but the NIE’s authors apparently wanted to short-circuit such discussion. The NIE achieved that goal, by clearly having a “cooling effect” on such talks.

…
In fact, the Democrats seized upon the NIE to justify their own policy preferences. The leading Democratic presidential candidates at the time were quick to cite the NIE as justification for their pursuit of engagement with Iran.

“It is absolutely clear that this administration and President Bush continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology,” then Senator Obama said of the NIE. “They need, now, to aggressively move on the diplomatic front.”

At the time, Democrats charged that intelligence reports that lead up to the Iraq war were politically motivated and demanded investigations into how intelligence was gathered. It now appears that the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate was politicially motivated. We need to investigate how the 2007 Estimate got things so wrong.

COMMENTS

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  • quill67

    Caspar Weinberger’s Six points:
    1) Either the United States’ or its close allies’ vital national interests had to be at risk;
    2) The war had to be fought “wholeheartedly, with the clear intention of winning”;
    3)We should employ decisive force in the pursuit of clearly defined political and military objectives;
    4)We must constantly reassess whether the use of force is necessary and appropriate;
    5)There must be a “reasonable assurance” of Congressional and public support;
    6)Force should be used only as a last resort

    Excerpt from Middle East Quarterly interview with Caspar Weinberger:

    Military Capabilities
    MEQ: You have said that “The U.S. force that defeated Saddam Husayn no longer exists. What we have today is a military that is a shadow of its former self.”2 Do you worry that the drawdown of U.S. military forces has left the military unprepared for conflict?

    Weinberger: Oh yes, very, very much so. I disagree strongly with the reassuring words from the Joint Chiefs to the president and the Congress that we can fight and win two major regional conflicts fought simultaneously. In fact, we would have trouble winning one; Kosovo is at the moment not even a major conflict?and we’re having enough trouble there. We’ve got a third of our airforce committed there now and have stripped the carriers out of the Pacific to the point that we have none left there at all. This encourages people like Saddam Husayn, who probably keeps a close eye on these things, to believe he can get away with what Slobodan Milosevic is doing, and without punishment.

    We no longer have the air and sea lift to mount an operation such as the Gulf War, thanks to a roughly three-year procurement holiday during which we have not added new planes, ships, artillery pieces, or tanks. Nor are things getting better; headlines you see about increased military spending by $7 billion are not so. None of it will be used to strengthen the forces, only to make up for the constant drain that the enormously heavy operational tempo in the Balkans is causing; maintenance and operation costs are very, very, high.

    We do not have the size force that is needed. Instead of eighteen army divisions, we have ten divisions, and even they are not filled out but require a mobilization of the National Guard and the Reserve.

    http://www.meforum.org/484/caspar-weinberger-let-a-muslim-army-occupy-iraq

  • ntrepid

    There is no ?now appears? about it, the 2007 NIE was known to be a lie from the start?for the gory details, see the above subject book:

    Chapter 1: Three Blind Mice ? The Untold Story of Bureaucratic Betrayal on Iran

    ?and the guilty parties are Vann Van Diepen, Thomas Fingar, and Kenneth Brill. No doubt they are all drawing even bigger government paychecks under the current administration?probably Czars of something or another.

    Shameless Ntrepid plug: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2009/01/03/january-presidential-to-do-list-pardon-van-diepen-fingar-and-brill%e2%80%a6then-fire-them/

    Ntrepid
    Proud Member for 5 Years and 1 Month

  • rbdwiggins

    Back in the day of Redstate platforms since replaced, I cited several pieces by Thomas Joscelyn while engaged in similar discussions regarding our national security and Iran.

    One in particular pre-dates the 2007 NIE, and it’s a wealth of background information. I think you’ll find it beneficial.

    Iran?s Proxy War Against America (pdf)

    Note: Neither Iran, nor Russia have even the slightest intention to halt Iran’s nuclear weapon programs and delivery capabilities.

  • quill67

    Thank you for the link. I agree with his point that U.S. Intelligence is mistaken to think that just because terrorist groups are from different sects that they will not work together to harm the U.S. (Look at how Iraq in the first gulf war hid their most advanced aircraft in Iran. Their sworn mortal enenmy to who the Iranians lost almost a million lives)

    I also agree with his conclussion that we should try to contain Iran because we lack the political will to take out the regime. I believe even if stronger evidence is shown of Iran’s involvement in 9/11 that it will not be enough. Too many Americans would believe that it was “manufactured” to justify a war. He may be right that it if another 9/11 type attack occurs that all bets are off if an Iran connection can be found.

  • Achance

    They can get a bunch of fanatics to do what they were almost willing to do in ’73 and with no risk of US nukes raining on their pretty heads. Few realize just how close we came in the Yom Kippur War.

  • rbdwiggins

    but I agree with Joscelyn’s overarching point of the essay.

    Admitted, or not, we have been at war with Iran since 1979, and in particular, the Islamic terrorist’s war against America since the mid-1990s.

    This single statement pretty much sums up our response.

    When confronted with evidence of Tehran?s support for anti-American violence, the reaction of America?s diplomatic establishment is to search for excuses.

  • GregInFla

    Come on, doing this NIE is a farce. Anyone who thinks that all of our intelligence needs to be made public is a joke. And anyone who relies on a public document to contain all that we know is a joke. This, Obama was (and is) a joke. I am waiting for apologies to the Bush adminstration from all the leftists who criticized back in 2007. Anyone with half a working brain knew Iran active.

    I guess the key word is ‘Estimate”.

  • rbdwiggins

    and has openly contracted with Iran to provide air defense systems to protect the nuclear sites. They seem to be a bit more emboldened, think Georgia, than in the recent past.

    We may not have the option to abstain this time around. Israel’s window of opportunity is growing shorter by the day.

  • quill67

    Iran is a very large country and until we entered Iraq and Afghanistan we did not have a foothold in the region upon which to launch attacks. I believe that the Bush administration thought that if we surrounded Iran that they would feel pressured to mend their ways. However, the first rule of trying to use military pressure is that the threat must be credible.

    Our military threat has not be credible. Iran knows that to effectively eliminate them as a threat would take ground troops–troops that we just do not have (or do not want to devote such a large percentage to one part of the world) Thanks to the cuts to our troops levels at the “end of the cold war” and Donald Rumsfeld’s view of a “small, light, and mobile army”, our small army was not a credible threat to Iran.

    And now Iran tests our will and the will of the free world.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    We don’t have to occupy the country to destroy its capability to create nuclear weapons.

  • DONTTREADONME

    your second paragraph, ground troops from Iran would be a quick war, its not the traditional warfare that we are not prepared to fight it is a large asymetrical warfare with us fighting using NATO ROEs and TTPs.

    Lastly, our small fast military can take out the Iranian army in a blink of the eye with unrestricted rules of engagement. Allow the forces to fight WAR, we would roll over Iran in 10 days. Sorry, it is our Governments civilian policy that losing this not the strategy and capability of the armed forces even with 10,000 Marines and proper air and artillery support, we could destroy an army as large as North Korea in 10-15 days if they chose to fight.

  • mbecker908

    we don’t have to commit even a platoon of Marines to bring Iran to it’s knees. They basically have no refining capacity and we could take out their energy – read fuel for their military – in a coordinated air strike in about an hour. A naval blockade wouldn’t be all that difficult – yeah, it would probably be messy as hell, but in the world of “difficult”, not very – and they would starve.

    The issue isn’t the size of our armed forces. It’s the size of the testicles attached – or not – to our civilian leadership. And frankly, Bush wasn’t much better than the current occupant of the WH.

  • ocleverone
  • Richard Mullins

    Quick and nimble works out well when fighting this kind of Army. Yeah, a quick response will out well against the Iranians. We do have have the equipment to do what we want, the only thing that stops us, is the chance to get see that it’s not coming at all. Besides, Rumsfeld had things right as far as fighting this and the only thing that he didn’t get right was holding on to a country as long as we have.

  • DONTTREADONME

    do I need to come over there and straighten things out? /my threadjack over

  • DONTTREADONME
  • Richard Mullins

    the strait of hormuz. I mean just block the ports and you have a recipe to get them to collapse. The old Naval blockade does work well ever time.

  • mbecker908

    Yes Iran is a big country. So what. Here’s a population density map of the “big country”.

    And, since I won’t be able to edit this comment if the image doesn’t show up, the link to the appropriate page is here.

  • Achance

    The gig is to keep it open in the face of an Iranian threat; that’s their real weapon. Every ally we have, except, somewhat, GB, pees their pants at the thought of Hormuz being threatened. Wanna see $500/bbl. oil?

    A Country like Iran has to be decapitated; blind their air defense, cut off their communications, freeze all their assets and fund transfers, and use SF to kill some important guys. Their hearts and minds will follow.

  • mbecker908

    the fund transfer/asset part. The Euroweenies would last about an hour at that one. The Russians and Chinese wouldn’t even start. And then there’s the Chicago banks…

  • Achance

    and blaming me when they didn’t get what they wanted. I know ALL about political authority!