On the Iran NIE, comments from the reality based community and the distraught RW

Kevin suggests Democratic Senators, incensed at being briefed on a classified NIE that was 180 degrees opposed to what Bush, Cheney et al have been saying even after they must have known it's primary findings. However, if I were a betting man, my money would be on Bob Gates.

link

From the department of "old news is good news" - The walrus-faced one, John Bolton, still wants to bomb Iran yesterday, and Bob Gates is still saying no.

link

First, Do No Harm

By Josh Marshall

I haven't had a chance yet to weigh in on today's news about the IC's apparent conclusion that the Iranians shuttered their nuclear program in 2003. But it's awfully big news. There's a secondary, though still very interesting question, of just why the NIE findings were released at all, and what intra-administration in-fighting might be behind it. But it shows us once again, for anyone who needed showing, that everything this administration says on national security matters should be considered presumptively not only false, but actually the opposite of what is in fact true, until clear evidence to the contrary becomes available. They're big liars. And actually being serious about the country's security means doing everything possible to limit the amount of damage they can do over the next fourteen months while they still control the US military and the rest of the nation's foreign policy apparatus.

TUESDAY DECEMBER 4, 2007 03:59 EST

Our serious foreign policy geniuses strike again

(updated below - Update II - Update III)

Over the past year, the rhetoric from our Serious Foreign Policy establishment regarding the supposed threat posed by Iran's active pursuit of nuclear weapons has severely escalated both in terms of shrillness and threats. Opposition to this building hysteria has been led by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who -- exactly as he did prior to the invasion of Iraq -- has been relentlessly warning that there is no real evidence to support these war-fueling allegations.

Because of that, he has been relentlessly attacked and smeared by our Serious Foreign Policy elite -- yet again. And yet again, ElBaradei has been completely vindicated, and our Serious Foriegn Policy Experts exposed as serial fabricators, fear-mongerers and hysterics.

In 2005, the Bush administration vigorously (though unsuccessfully) sought to block ElBaradei's re-election as IAEA head on the ground that he was right about Iraq's non-existent weapons stockpiles:



The administration went so far as to tape record ElBaradei's conversations with Iranian officials in order to prove he was in league with them, all "in search of ammunition to oust him as director general." As The Washington Post reported, even back then (2005), administration officials "with access to the intercepts" were accusing ElBaradei of being "way too soft on the Iranians." According to the Post: "Some U.S. officials accused ElBaradei of purposely concealing damning details of Iran's (nuclear) program from the IAEA board."

Less than three months ago, the Very Serious Foreign Policy Expert Fred Hiatt published a scathing Washington Post Editorial attacking ElBaradei for warning of the dangers of an unnecessary war with Iran and pointing out that the evidence is non-existent that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Hiatt's Editorial accused ElBaradei of being a "Rogue Regulator" right in the headline.
more

* The Manchurian CIA: This approach, embraced by Rudy Giuliani’s chief national security advisor Norman Podhoretz, argues that the NIE is not only wrong about the Iranian threat, but is actually part of a massive deception, launched by the Central Intelligence Agency to protect Iran.

<...>

* Blame Iranian “disinformation”: OK, so the collective assessment of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies agree that Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons program more than four years ago, but maybe that’s because Iran wants us to think that and leaked bogus intel to throw us off track.

Bush threw cold water on this argument this morning.

<…>

Remember Iraq: Fine. The CIA probably isn’t secretly working for Iran, and the intelligence probably isn’t the result of an Iranian disinformation campaign. But can we really trust intelligence agencies to get Iran right after they screwed up Iraq? The WaPo’s Howard Kurtz offered this argument yesterday.


There are quite a few problems with this approach. First, I wouldn’t say the intelligence community was “flat wrong” about Iraq; I’d say the IC offered the Bush White House plenty of warnings and caveats, and the Bush gang cherry picked the information it liked best.

Second, it’s one thing to treat the NIE with some skepticism, but dismissing it like this is foolish. As Ezra noted, “Anyone can be wrong. The first page of the estimate explains the various probabilities attached to the various predictions, and all of them leave open a window (or a door, or a planet) of doubt. Does Kurtz have any reason to think that the NIE is wrong?”

<…>

Sorry, conservatives, the NIE is right. Try not to look too disappointed by the good news.