The NIE told us Saddam had WMDs, should we believe them this time?

Question

Those lively minds over at the (always capitalized) Intelligence Community have given us yet another of their entertaining Estimates, this time about the Iranian nuclear-weapons program. You know, the one the Iranians stoutly deny exists, the one they refuse to let inspectors examine, and the one they sometimes acknowledge when on or another of their leaders has a slip of the tongue. They now favor us with slightly more than two pages of “Key Judgments” on this important subject.

Two years ago, the IC — the same IC that claimed to have detailed information about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, that famously missed the boat on al-Qaeda, and that has had at least two spy networks inside Iran rolled up in the past couple of decades — told us it was all but certain that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons.”

Yesterday it reversed field. It said that in fact, two years before the 2005 report, the Iranians had “halted its (covert) nuclear weapons program,” and that the “halt lasted at least several years” and (although the IC is less certain about this) is still in force. There is some disagreement within the IC on this point, however. The Energy Department and the National Intelligence Council apparently agree that something was stopped, but have at least some doubt as to whether the “halt” encompasses Iran’s “entire nuclear weapons program.”

In short, some IC analysts think there is no covert nuclear-arms program at all, while others aren’t so sure. In a moment of candor at a briefing Monday, these gentlemen stressed that Iran has a “latent goal” to develop a nuclear weapon, that “gaps remain” in our information, and that Iran is “probably the hardest intelligence target there is.” And they warn us, in one of their Key Judgments, that the odds are that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. Parse this: “only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons — and such a decision is inherently reversible.” This seems to imply that the “halt” was a tactical move, not a strategic decision.

You certainly can’t criticize them for failing to cover their derrieres.

Nonetheless, despite the “gaps in intelligence,” and despite the Islamic Republic’s well-earned reputation for being one of the most deceptive on earth, the IC goes right ahead and predicts that Iran is quite a long way away from being able to field nukes. The earliest possible — albeit “highly unlikely” — date at which Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon is late 2009, but it’s more reasonable to look to the 2010-2015 timeframe. Interestingly enough, this pretty much corresponds to their 2005 forecast, when they said that if Iran’s technical progress increased, they might have enough weapons-grade uranium “by the end of this decade.” And the IC stresses that Iran has “the scientific, technical and industrial capacity...to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.

All this deals with the Iranians’ ability to enrich uranium on their own. Of course, they could have obtained some from abroad, and the IC admits that they cannot rule out the possibility that Iran has obtained an actual weapon “or enough fissile material for a weapon.”

More derriere protection. And there is still more. After all, the Iranians excel at deception, and we’ve been fooled about the nuclear programs of countries from the Soviet Union to India and Pakistan. Maybe we’ve been fooled again. The IC doesn’t think so, although, in its usual “on the one hand yes, on the other hand maybe” routine, the officials responded to the question in yesterday’s press briefing by reassuring the press that “We gamed more than half a dozen such scenarios,” ...But the analysts reached the conclusion such a scenario was “plausible but not likely.”

Tom Joscelyn has wisely warned us to be skeptical about anything that comes from the IC, and he rightly asks about the sources for the new conclusion. There is no point guessing about this, and without such knowledge it’s very difficult to assess the quality of the analysis. But whatever the spooks think they know has to be evaluated in the light of common sense, the views of other countries, and the history of nuclear proliferation. WMD programs are easier to hide than one imagines. After the First Gulf War we were astonished to discover how far Saddam’s Iraq had advanced, for example. To claim we “know” that Iran no longer has a covert nuclear-weapons program is quite a statement. (Remember how we used to say that you can’t prove a negative? The IC seems to know better.)

Moreover, there’s the old smell test. We went from zero to bomb in four years leading up to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at a time when nobody even knew if the thing was doable. On the IC’s account, the Iranians have been at this since “at least the late 1980’s.” (I actually think it didn’t get into gear until 1991, but let’s not quibble.) During that time, almost everything was for sale (and Iran has lots of money), A.Q. Khan was running his bazaar, Soviet nuclear physicists were hired by Tehran, and the Iranians themselves are very smart. Is it likely, that Iran hasn’t been able to build nukes in two decades? No way.

If this NIE is true, the evidence would have to be awfully good. And evidence of that quality has been in famously short supply. These are the same guys who have been telling us for years that Sunnis and Shiites can’t work together, when they should have known that Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Shiites) were trained in the early 1970s by Yasser Arafat’s al Fatah (Sunnis).

Color me an unbeliever.

Answer 1

At that time, the IC included a little group called the Office of Special Plans, and their job was to fabricate and stovepipe intelligence that made an invasion of Iraq look acceptable.

Answer 2

In that case, why don't we just bomb Iran and see what happens? Mmm?

Let me also point out that a lot of Iran's technological know-how on uranium-enrichment (low-grade) didn't come from within itself, but from countries like Russia and Pakistan since the 1980s.

And so did their weapons' technology (with a little help from Reagan--after the hostage crisis).

In fact, Iraq and Iran are basically cut from the same cloth--in terms of modern technology and modern warefare: They couldn't have developed this stuff without outside assistance from the West and other more developed nations.

So the idea that Iraq and Iran could develop bombs within 5 years or 10 years (without outside help) is pure FANTASY.

These nations are so structurally deficient and technologically incapable, that they have no MEANS of making an atomic bomb on their own independently.

But the one thing they both have is OIL.

And that's what the US desperately wants and wishes to control.

Hence the WMD lies about Saddam, hence the current lies about Iran's nuclear program.

Answer 3

Was there a question there somewhere?

Oh yeah, I remember now. Given how the NIE was tailored prior to the invasion of Iraq to justify said invasion, we now know the NIE can be mainipulated for political purposes. Has this one been altered for political reasons? Or were previous ones altered, but not this one?

My guess is the intelligence community doesn't know the status of Iran's nuclear program(s). For a change, the people who doubt a robust WMD program got more sway in writing the NIE.

Answer 4

It's this administration and the way they distribute information that I don't believe. There were people in the intelligence community who disagreed with an invasion of Iraq because they thought the intelligence was faulty, they were ignored. Saddam was a threat to America and the world? We kicked the crap out of his military during desert storm and I'm sure we knew he had no real military before we invaded. I don't know what the real reasons we went to Iraq, but to liberate the country from Saddam is ludicrous. Do you work for our government? You sound like you do.

Answer 5

On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

On April 23, 2006,Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller. "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."

This intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

Answer 6

I have faith Hans Blix and Scott Ritter. the two considered one of them suggested Iraq had no WMD's and that they have got been shown suitable. And, a 12 months in the past, they the two suggested that Iran had no nukes. i've got faith they're suitable returned. i think of the CIA found out their lesson from the 1st time with Iraq on letting Cheney have get entry to to the intelligence comments in the previous they bypass out to the congress, senate and the media.

Answer 7

I don't think anyone but the Iranians know if their program is active or not. Based on past beliefs, I have to say the NIE has missed the baot again.

Answer 8

Everyone forgets it was the Intelligence agencies, and I use the word loosely, that told us the Saddam had all those WMDs. Everyone just thinks that Bush lied. I'm with you, I have absolutely no faith in the Intelligence Community at this time. And where are all of these leaks coming from that stem from this so secretive community?

Answer 9

Not true. Cheney steered US Intelligence agencies in the direction he wanted. He even orchestrated the exposure of a CIA agent for not playing ball.

The INTERNATIONAL inspectors accounted for over 90% of the WMDs and requested another six months to account for the rest. Bush said no. the Bush admin cherry picked NIE Intel to sell their war to the nation.

Almost every Bush claim in the drum up to war has been accounted for and refuted. In essence, Bush lied. Of course war mongers will ignore whatever reality they choose and charge full steam ahead into oblivion.


edit: I have always linked to resources in the past. Whomever doesn't know by now will never accept ANY resource that disputes their info. So I rarely waste time posting links that will always be ignored.

Answer 10

I believe this is why it is an estimate, that gives them an oppertunity to be wrong