{"id":27728,"date":"2007-12-06T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T04:35:11","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T04:35:11","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T04:35:11","slug":"dubious_iran_nie_full_of_holes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2007\/12\/06\/dubious_iran_nie_full_of_holes\/","title":{"rendered":"Dubious Iran NIE Full of Holes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

John Bolton today has a great op-ed in the Washington Post. He basically makes the observation here that this NIE that was released on Monday, the key judgment, is essentially rolling out a diplomatic — oh! Oh! Wait, wait. Before, before that, folks, oh, there\u2019s something even more important than that. Remember yesterday we had the report that the three primary authors of the NIE key judgment were State Department officials, and one of them disgruntled with apparently some kind of grudge specific to our Iran policy? I think the Wall Street Journal and the New York Sun both had editorials on this. Today in the Weekly Standard — actually yesterday afternoon right after the program ended, just the middle of the afternoon yesterday: ‘As many recognize, the latest NIE on Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons program directly contradicts what the US Intelligence Community was saying just two years previously. And it appears that this about-face was very recent. How recent? Consider that on July 11, 2007, roughly four or so months prior to the most recent NIE\u2019s publication, Deputy Director of Analysis Thomas Fingar,\u2019 one of the three authors of the NIE, ‘gave the following testimony before the House Armed Services Committee: ‘Iran and North Korea are the states of most concern to us. The United States\u2019 concerns about Iran are shared by many nations, including many of Iran\u2019s neighbors. Iran is continuing to pursue uranium enrichment and has shown more interest in protracting negotiations and working to delay and diminish the impact of UNSC sanctions than in reaching an acceptable diplomatic solution. We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons — despite its international obligations and international pressure. This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.”<\/p>\n

Folks, this is back in July. Back in July, one of the lead authors of the NIE on Monday who said they suspended their nuclear program in 2003, told the House Armed Services Committee that they\u2019re still procuring nuclear weapons. This paragraph appeared under the subheading: ‘Iran Assessed As Determined to Develop Nuclear Weapons.\u2019 And the entirety of Fingar\u2019s 22-page testimony was labeled ‘Information as of July 11, 2007.\u2019 No part of it is consistent with the latest NIE, in which our spooks tell us Iran suspended its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003 ‘primarily in response to international pressure\u2019 and they ‘do not know whether (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.\u2019 The inconsistencies are more troubling when we realize that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Fingar is one of the three officials who were responsible for crafting the latest NIE. The Journal cites ‘an intelligence source\u2019 as describing Fingar and his two colleagues as ‘hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials.” That\u2019s in the New York Sun yesterday. ‘So, if it is true that Dr. Fingar played a leading role in crafting this latest NIE, then we are left with serious questions: Why did your opinion change so drastically in just four months time? Is the new intelligence or analysis really that good? Is it good enough to overturn your previous assessments [from July]? Or, has it never really been good enough to make a definitive assessment at all? Did your political or ideological leanings, or your policy preferences, or those of your colleagues, influence your opinion in any way?\u2019<\/p>\n

As you know, the Drive-Bys have been assessing this unquestioningly, without any doubt whatsoever, because when the intelligence fits their worldview, ‘Why, it\u2019s right on the money.\u2019 When the intelligence doesn\u2019t fit their worldview, ‘Why, it\u2019s flawed, it\u2019s doctored, and it\u2019s been cooked,\u2019 or what have you. This is serious, serious stuff, as I attempted to make clear yesterday. Now, back to John Bolton. ‘The Flaws in the Iran Report… The NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein…\u2019 There wasn\u2019t any diplomatic pressure unless you consider shock and awe, or being labeled as one of the three members of the axis of evil. ‘As undersecretary of state for arms control in 2003, I [John Bolton] know we were nowhere near exerting any significant diplomatic pressure on Iran. <\/p>\n

‘Nowhere does the NIE explain its logic on this critical point. Moreover, the risks and returns of pursuing a diplomatic strategy are policy calculations, not intelligence judgments. The very public rollout in the NIE of a diplomatic strategy exposes the biases at work behind the Potemkin village of ‘intelligence.” He is right on the money. We had this great caller, Jennifer, yesterday from California, and she was very clear. Look, they\u2019ve gone way beyond the scope of what an intelligence report is. They\u2019re philosophizing, and they\u2019re advocating, and they\u2019re suggesting certain things like diplomacy. Don\u2019t forget, we had this poll, just discovered this poll, the Zogby poll yesterday from October 30th: 52% of the American people support an invasion of Iran. Don\u2019t think these clowns didn\u2019t know that, and don\u2019t think they didn\u2019t see it. There\u2019s so much contradictory here, and there\u2019s so much predictable, based on what we know, that common sense, responsibility, would require an open mind to be skeptical of this whole NIE. The Los Angeles Times today has a story that essentially says that the world is puzzled by the NIE reports, the substance, the timing and so forth.<\/p>\n

Should we believe this report? ‘[M]any observers were still struggling to understand what the intelligence assessments portend. Particularly in Moscow and Beijing, analysts were incredulous that the intelligence agencies would take a stance undercutting the president, and theorized that the report might herald a shift in Bush administration strategy. ‘We wonder, not only China but the rest of the world: Should we believe this report, why now, what\u2019s behind it, is this political maneuvering or some sort of power struggle inside the White House,\u2019 said Chu Shulong, professor and director of the Institute of Strategic Studies at Beijing\u2019s Qinghua University,\u2019 and there are countless other stories here. In fact, the New York Times has a couple today that are just unbelievable. One, a story reported by David Sanger and Steven Lee Myers that essentially says, ‘Details in Military Notes Led to Shift on Iran, US Says.\u2019 So what\u2019s happening here the New York Times is being leaked to. There\u2019s a little controversy over this now, so people behind this, the NIE, are now leaking to favored reporters in the New York Times to sort of explain this away. But in the process of doing so, the Times reports that some agencies of the 16 in the NIE report are not convinced that Iran stopped the nuclear program. <\/p>\n

They have only moderate confidence. I asked the intelligence expert in the last hour of the program yesterday who called: ‘Is it possible when this thing comes out in full, when somebody sees it in full, that we\u2019re going to find out that not all 16 agencies are on board?\u2019 Yes, it\u2019s entirely possible. It wasn\u2019t Jennifer, it was the previous guy. I think it was the caller from Texas, to whom I asked that question. And then there is the op-ed in the New York Times today by Valerie Lincy and Gary Milhollin. You gotta wonder what got into the New York Times today. Two stories. This one is an op-ed: ‘In Iran We Trust.\u2019 They basically say that if Iran has stopped its nuke program, what\u2019s with 3,000 gas centrifuges or heavy water reactors that use plutonium? And, by the way, yesterday, folks, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the Islamic republic, the Iranians, ‘will seek at least 50,000 uranium enriching centrifuges in order to provide fuel for its nuclear power plants in the future. <\/p>\n

‘He said, ‘We need at least 50,000 centrifuges in order to realize our aim of producing our own nuclear fuel.” He made this speech yesterday in public after the NIE has come out on Monday, and there\u2019s, you know, hell freezing over in this country about it. So these people said Iran — the two authors in the New York Times — if they\u2019ve stopped their nuke program, what\u2019s with 3,000 gas centrifuges or heavy water reactors? They ‘note also that the NIE calls for more international pressure to contain Iran, but this report kills those chances.\u2019 Listen to this. ‘This situation is made all the more absurd by the report\u2019s suggestion that international pressure offers the only hope of containing Iran. The report is now made much and such pressure nearly impossible to obtain. It\u2019s hardly surprising that China, which last week seemed ready to approve the next round of economic sanctions against Tehran has now had a change of heart. Its ambassador to the UN said yesterday that we all start from the presumption that now things have changed.\u2019 No sanctions. No diplomatic tightening. Nothing! It\u2019s been shut down by virtue of this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Bolton today has a great op-ed in the Washington Post. He basically makes the observation here that this NIE that was released on Monday, the key judgment, is essentially rolling out a diplomatic — oh! Oh! Wait, wait. Before, before that, folks, oh, there\u2019s something even more important than that. Remember yesterday we had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nDubious Iran NIE Full of Holes - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2007\/12\/06\/dubious_iran_nie_full_of_holes\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Dubious Iran NIE Full of Holes - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"John Bolton today has a great op-ed in the Washington Post. 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