kermitthefrayer
12-04-2007, 04:26 PM
US spies give shock verdict on Iran threat!!
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Monday December 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2221408,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12 US intelligence agencies undercut the White House today by disclosing for the first time that Iran has not been pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme for the last four years. The disclosure makes it harder for President George Bush and the vice-president, Dick Cheney, to make a case for a military strike against Iran next year. It also makes it more difficult to persuade countries such as Russia and China to join the US, Britain and France in imposing a new round of sanctions on Tehran. The national security estimate, which pulls together the work of the 16 US intelligence agencies, today published a declassified report revising previous assessments of Iran's weapons programme. "Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," it said. Bush and Cheney have been claiming that Tehran is bent on achieving a nuclear weapon. The British government, which is planning to discuss the report with its US counterparts over the next few days, has also repeatedly said it suspects Iran of seeking a nuclear weapons capability.
The Iranian government insists it is only pursuing a civilian nuclear programme. The US national security estimate disclosed that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 and had not restarted it. Two years ago, the national security estimate reached a different conclusion, saying Iran was still developing its nuclear weapons programme. The White House continued to claim today that Iran remains a threat to the region and the world as a whole. Although a halt to nuclear weapons development is significant, the national security estimate is far from a clean bill of health for Iran. The country is pushing ahead with its uranium enrichment programme, which has only limited civilian use and could be quickly converted to nuclear military use. The national intelligence estimate warned that Iran could secure a nuclear weapon by 2010. The US state department's intelligence and research office says the more likely timescale would be 2013. All the agencies concede that Iran may not have enough enriched uranium until after 2015. Referring to Iran's decision to halt the military programme in the autumn of 2003, Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, said today: "Today's national intelligence estimate offers some positive news. It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons. It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen.
"But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem. The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically, without the use of force, as the administration has been trying to do." Hadley said the White House would continue to try to intensify international pressure on Iran. Russia and China, two of the permanent members of the UN security council, have scuppered attempts by the US over the last six months to impose tough new sanctions on Iran. Bush and Cheney stepped up rhetoric against Iran this year. Bush said in October: "If you're interested in avoiding world war III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." Cheney warned of "serious consequences" if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear programme. The decision to publish the national intelligence estimate is aimed at trying to recover the public credibility lost when the agencies wrongly claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in the years running up to 2003. A US official said this time "there was a very rigorous scrub using all the trade craft available, using the lessons of 2002". Mitch McConnell, the director of national intelligence, last month decided that its reports would not longer be released automatically. But an exception is being made in this case because the new conclusion contradicts the 2005 findings. In a separate statement accompanying the report, the deputy director, Donald Kerr, said that given the new conclusions, it was important to release the report publicly "to ensure that an accurate presentation is available".
The national intelligence report says that Iran would have to go flat out to secure enough highly enriched uranium by 2010. The state department's intelligence and research office says that the more likely timescale would be 2013. All the agencies concede that Iran may not have enough enriched uranium until after 2015. The report says that ultimately Iran has the technical and industrial capability to build a bomb "if it decides to do so" but it Iran may be amenable to pressure. Tehran's "decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs." It adds: "Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might - if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible - prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons programme."
Another one
US: Iran Halted Weapons Program in 2003
By PAMELA HESS
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-12-03-13-17-17
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new U.S. intelligence report concludes that Iran's nuclear weapons development program has been halted since the fall of 2003 because of international pressure - a stark contrast to the conclusions U.S. spy agencies drew just two years ago.
The finding is part of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that also cautions that Tehran continues to enrich uranium and still could develop a bomb between 2010 and 2015 if it decided to do so.
The conclusion that Iran's weapons program was still frozen, through at least mid-2007, represents a sharp turnaround from the previous intelligence assessment in 2005. Then, U.S. intelligence agencies believed Tehran was determined to develop a nuclear weapons capability and was continuing its weapons development program. The new report concludes that Iran's decisions are rational and pragmatic, and that Tehran is more susceptible to diplomatic and financial pressure than previously thought.
"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," says the unclassified summary of the secret report.
The findings come at a time of escalating tensions between the United States and Iran, which President Bush has labeled part of an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea. At an Oct. 17 news conference, Bush said, "If you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
Rand Beers, who resigned from Bush's National Security Council just before the Iraq war, said the report should derail any appetite for war on the administration's part, and should reinvigorate regional diplomacy. "The new NIE throws cold water on the efforts of those urging military confrontation with Iran," he said.
A spokesman for Iran's U.N. mission declined to comment.
Senior intelligence officials said Monday they failed to detect Iran's fall 2003 halt in nuclear weapons development in time to reflect it in the 2005 estimate.
One of the officials said Iran is the most challenging country to spy on - harder even than North Korea, a notoriously closed society. "We put a lot more collection assets against this," the official said, "but gaps remain." The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Some of the changes in the new report reflect the use of "open source" intelligence - public information from sources such as the news media and international organizations. An official said, for example, that photos taken at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility during U.N. inspections in 2002 were particularly useful in assessing the capabilities of the civilian uranium enrichment program.
U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, said the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains "a serious problem." The estimate suggests Bush "has the right strategy: intensified international pressure along with a willingness to negotiate a solution that serves Iranian interests, while ensuring the world will never have to face a nuclear armed Iran," Hadley said. He was less interested in what the 2005 assessment missed than what it got right: that Iran had a covert nuclear program.
Bush was briefed on the 100-page document on Nov. 28. National Intelligence Estimates represent the most authoritative written judgments of all 16 U.S. spy agencies. Congress and other executive agencies were briefed Monday, and foreign governments will be briefed beginning Tuesday, the officials said.
Despite the suspension of its weapons program, it may be difficult to ultimately dissuade Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb because Iran believes such a weapon would give it international prestige and leverage to achieve its national security and foreign policy goals, the assessment concluded.
"The bottom line is this: For that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions, and with other financial pressure and Iran has to decide it wants to negotiate a solution," Hadley said.
The intelligence officials said they do not know all the reasons why Iran halted its weapons program, or what might trigger its resumption. They said they are confident that diplomatic and political pressure played a key role, but said the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Libya's termination of its nuclear program and the implosion of the illegal nuclear smuggling network run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan might also have influenced Tehran.
To develop a nuclear weapon, Iran needs to design and engineer a warhead, obtain enough fissile material, and build a delivery vehicle such as a missile. The intelligence agencies now believe Iran halted warhead engineering four years ago and as of mid-2007 had not restarted it.
But Iran is still enriching uranium for its civilian nuclear reactors that produce electricity. That leaves open the possibility that fissile material could be diverted to covert nuclear sites to produce highly enriched uranium for a warhead. Engineers have known the design for a nuclear weapon for 60 years. The countdown to a nuclear weapon is determined more by the availability of fissile material than anything else, the officials said.
Even if the country went all out with present enrichment capability, it is unlikely to have enough until late 2009 or 2010 at the earliest, the officials said. The State Department's Intelligence and Research office believes the earliest likely time it would have enough highly enriched uranium would be 2013. But all agencies concede Iran may not have sufficient enriched uranium until after 2015.
Iran would not be able to technically produce and reprocess enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015, the report says. But ultimately it has the technical and industrial capacity to build a bomb, "if it decides to do so," the intelligence agencies found. They said Iran's immediate intentions are a mystery.
"We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs its options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt it to restart its program," the report says.
This national intelligence estimate was originally due in the spring of 2007 but was delayed because the agencies wanted more confidence their findings were accurate, given the inaccuracy of the 2002 intelligence estimate of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., said the report showed "a level of independence from political leadership that was lacking in the recent past."
The CIA, which did most of the analysis, considered at least six alternate scenarios that could explain the new findings, including whether Iran was intentionally trying to deceive them into believing weapons work had stopped.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell decided last month that key judgments of NIEs should not be declassified and released. The intelligence officials said an exception was made in this case because the last assessment of Iran's nuclear program in 2005 has influenced public debate about U.S. policy toward Iran, and must be updated to reflect the latest findings.
Also Monday, a top U.S. diplomat said China may be open to discussing fresh U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran. China and Russia, both veto-wielding members of the Security Council, have been reluctant to support new sanctions.
And another one
Like Iraq, US intel on Iran faulty !!
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
Mon Dec 3, 9:06 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071204/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iran_analysis
First Iraq, now Iran. The United States has operated under a cloud of faulty intelligence in both countries.
In a bombshell intelligence assessment, the United States has backed away from its once-ironclad assertion that Tehran is intent on building nuclear bombs.
Where there once was certainty, there now is doubt. "We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons," the new estimate said Monday.
Compare that with what then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte told Congress in January. "Our assessment is that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons."
Just last month, President Bush, at a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said, "We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace."
More ominously, Bush told a news conference Oct. 17, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
Asked then if he definitely believed that Iran wanted to build a nuclear bomb, Bush said, "Yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon."
Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said the president made comments like those "because he was describing the threat as the intelligence community itself had been describing the threat both publicly and in their briefings to him."
Intelligence officials advised Bush several months ago that they were reevaluating their assessments about Iran. They came to the White House last Wednesday and briefed him on their new findings.
The intelligence flip-flop recalled the embarrassing reversal that Bush was forced to make on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The conviction that Saddam Hussein had such weapons was one of the factors behind Bush's decision to invade Iraq. It since has been determined that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
Democrats on Monday did not hesitate to suggest an Iran-Iraq comparison.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats had requested the new Iran assessment "so that the administration could not rush this Congress and the country to another war based on flawed intelligence."
"I hope this administration reads this report carefully and appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy vis-a-vis Iran," Reid said. "The administration should begin this process by finally undertaking a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran."
In the case of Iran, though, the White House has not dropped its suspicions that Tehran could pursue a nuclear bomb.
Iran continues to develop, test and deploy ballistic missiles, and its civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. "It can readily use the same technology to produce weapons-grade uranium," Hadley said.
In rewriting the conclusions about Iran, the new estimate said Tehran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program but halted that effort in the fall of 2003 under the weight of international pressure. Importantly, the estimate said Iran has not restarted the nuclear bomb program.
"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," the new estimate said.
While key facts have changed, the administration's strategy has not.
The White House says it will continue to try to build pressure on Iran to prevent it from ever acquiring nuclear bombs.
"The bottom line is that for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions and with other financial pressure," Hadley said. "And Iran has to decide that it wants to negotiate a solution."
Some analysts believe the new conclusions will be a roadblock for Vice President Dick Cheney and other hawkish members of the administration to be more confrontational toward Iran.
"It's a good thing that we caught this before we marched headlong into another military conflict," said Jon Wolfsthal, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "This isn't the timebomb the administration made it out to be for the last several years."
Wolfsthal said the conclusion that international pressure prompted Iran to halt its program "is the piece of information that we missed in Iraq" where Bush believed that Iraq's pursuit of WMD was continuing despite sanctions. He said the administration did not appear inclined to change its strategy toward Iran. He said that "suggests they can't take yes for an answer."
And another...
A Miracle: Honest Intel on Iran Nukes
by Ray McGovern
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=12001
For those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred today. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program has been issued, and its "Key Judgments" were made public.
With redraft after redraft, it was what the Germans call eine schwere Geburt – a difficult birth, 10 months in gestation.
I do not know how often Vice President Dick Cheney visited CIA headquarters during the gestation period, but I am told he voiced his displeasure as soon as he saw the first sonogram/draft very early this year and is so displeased with what issued that he has refused to be the godfather.
This time Cheney and his neocon colleagues were unable to abort the process. And after delivery to the press, this child is going to be very hard to explain – the more so since it is legitimate.
The main points of the NIE:
"We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program…
"We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.
"We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely…
"We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.
"We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015."
Having reached these conclusions, it is not surprising that the NIE's authors make a point of saying up front (in bold type), "This NIE does not [italics in original] assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons."
This, of course, pulls out the rug from under Cheney's claim of a "fairly robust new nuclear program" in Iran and President Bush's inaccurate assertion that Iranian leaders have even admitted they are developing nuclear weapons.
Apparently, intelligence community analysts are no longer required to produce the faith-based intelligence that brought us the Oct. 1, 2002, NIE "Iraq's Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction" – the worst in the history of U.S. intelligence.
Truth be told, one of the Iran NIE's findings was written into its first draft, from which Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell drew in telling the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 27 that Iran could possibly develop a nuclear weapon by early-to-mid-next decade.
McConnell said not a word, though, about Iran's having halted its nuclear weapons program in fall 2003. And in February, he was still adhering to the faith-based approach, saying, "We assess that Iran seeks to develop a nuclear weapon."
At which point Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) tried to sum up the proceedings with the disingenuous comment "We all agree, then, that the Iranians are trying to get nuclear weapons."
Curiously, McConnell indicated recently that the key findings of NIEs would no longer be made public.
My guess is that the Pentagon, and especially Adm. William Fallon, commander of our forces in the Middle East, succeeded in persuading McConnell to go public. Several months ago, Fallon was reliably reported to have said, "We are not going to do Iran on my watch."
And it is an open secret that he and other senior military officers, except those of the Air Force, are strongly opposed to getting into a war with Iran for which the U.S. is so ill prepared.
Will President George W. Bush and our domesticated media succeed in dismissing this latest NIE as "guesswork," as he has in the past? It is going to be highly interesting to see how the White House will try to spin this one.
So remind me why we are in plans to bomb the shit out of Iran...
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Monday December 3, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2221408,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12 US intelligence agencies undercut the White House today by disclosing for the first time that Iran has not been pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme for the last four years. The disclosure makes it harder for President George Bush and the vice-president, Dick Cheney, to make a case for a military strike against Iran next year. It also makes it more difficult to persuade countries such as Russia and China to join the US, Britain and France in imposing a new round of sanctions on Tehran. The national security estimate, which pulls together the work of the 16 US intelligence agencies, today published a declassified report revising previous assessments of Iran's weapons programme. "Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," it said. Bush and Cheney have been claiming that Tehran is bent on achieving a nuclear weapon. The British government, which is planning to discuss the report with its US counterparts over the next few days, has also repeatedly said it suspects Iran of seeking a nuclear weapons capability.
The Iranian government insists it is only pursuing a civilian nuclear programme. The US national security estimate disclosed that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 and had not restarted it. Two years ago, the national security estimate reached a different conclusion, saying Iran was still developing its nuclear weapons programme. The White House continued to claim today that Iran remains a threat to the region and the world as a whole. Although a halt to nuclear weapons development is significant, the national security estimate is far from a clean bill of health for Iran. The country is pushing ahead with its uranium enrichment programme, which has only limited civilian use and could be quickly converted to nuclear military use. The national intelligence estimate warned that Iran could secure a nuclear weapon by 2010. The US state department's intelligence and research office says the more likely timescale would be 2013. All the agencies concede that Iran may not have enough enriched uranium until after 2015. Referring to Iran's decision to halt the military programme in the autumn of 2003, Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, said today: "Today's national intelligence estimate offers some positive news. It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons. It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen.
"But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem. The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically, without the use of force, as the administration has been trying to do." Hadley said the White House would continue to try to intensify international pressure on Iran. Russia and China, two of the permanent members of the UN security council, have scuppered attempts by the US over the last six months to impose tough new sanctions on Iran. Bush and Cheney stepped up rhetoric against Iran this year. Bush said in October: "If you're interested in avoiding world war III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." Cheney warned of "serious consequences" if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear programme. The decision to publish the national intelligence estimate is aimed at trying to recover the public credibility lost when the agencies wrongly claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in the years running up to 2003. A US official said this time "there was a very rigorous scrub using all the trade craft available, using the lessons of 2002". Mitch McConnell, the director of national intelligence, last month decided that its reports would not longer be released automatically. But an exception is being made in this case because the new conclusion contradicts the 2005 findings. In a separate statement accompanying the report, the deputy director, Donald Kerr, said that given the new conclusions, it was important to release the report publicly "to ensure that an accurate presentation is available".
The national intelligence report says that Iran would have to go flat out to secure enough highly enriched uranium by 2010. The state department's intelligence and research office says that the more likely timescale would be 2013. All the agencies concede that Iran may not have enough enriched uranium until after 2015. The report says that ultimately Iran has the technical and industrial capability to build a bomb "if it decides to do so" but it Iran may be amenable to pressure. Tehran's "decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs." It adds: "Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might - if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible - prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons programme."
Another one
US: Iran Halted Weapons Program in 2003
By PAMELA HESS
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-12-03-13-17-17
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new U.S. intelligence report concludes that Iran's nuclear weapons development program has been halted since the fall of 2003 because of international pressure - a stark contrast to the conclusions U.S. spy agencies drew just two years ago.
The finding is part of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that also cautions that Tehran continues to enrich uranium and still could develop a bomb between 2010 and 2015 if it decided to do so.
The conclusion that Iran's weapons program was still frozen, through at least mid-2007, represents a sharp turnaround from the previous intelligence assessment in 2005. Then, U.S. intelligence agencies believed Tehran was determined to develop a nuclear weapons capability and was continuing its weapons development program. The new report concludes that Iran's decisions are rational and pragmatic, and that Tehran is more susceptible to diplomatic and financial pressure than previously thought.
"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," says the unclassified summary of the secret report.
The findings come at a time of escalating tensions between the United States and Iran, which President Bush has labeled part of an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea. At an Oct. 17 news conference, Bush said, "If you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them (Iran) from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
Rand Beers, who resigned from Bush's National Security Council just before the Iraq war, said the report should derail any appetite for war on the administration's part, and should reinvigorate regional diplomacy. "The new NIE throws cold water on the efforts of those urging military confrontation with Iran," he said.
A spokesman for Iran's U.N. mission declined to comment.
Senior intelligence officials said Monday they failed to detect Iran's fall 2003 halt in nuclear weapons development in time to reflect it in the 2005 estimate.
One of the officials said Iran is the most challenging country to spy on - harder even than North Korea, a notoriously closed society. "We put a lot more collection assets against this," the official said, "but gaps remain." The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Some of the changes in the new report reflect the use of "open source" intelligence - public information from sources such as the news media and international organizations. An official said, for example, that photos taken at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility during U.N. inspections in 2002 were particularly useful in assessing the capabilities of the civilian uranium enrichment program.
U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, said the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains "a serious problem." The estimate suggests Bush "has the right strategy: intensified international pressure along with a willingness to negotiate a solution that serves Iranian interests, while ensuring the world will never have to face a nuclear armed Iran," Hadley said. He was less interested in what the 2005 assessment missed than what it got right: that Iran had a covert nuclear program.
Bush was briefed on the 100-page document on Nov. 28. National Intelligence Estimates represent the most authoritative written judgments of all 16 U.S. spy agencies. Congress and other executive agencies were briefed Monday, and foreign governments will be briefed beginning Tuesday, the officials said.
Despite the suspension of its weapons program, it may be difficult to ultimately dissuade Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb because Iran believes such a weapon would give it international prestige and leverage to achieve its national security and foreign policy goals, the assessment concluded.
"The bottom line is this: For that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions, and with other financial pressure and Iran has to decide it wants to negotiate a solution," Hadley said.
The intelligence officials said they do not know all the reasons why Iran halted its weapons program, or what might trigger its resumption. They said they are confident that diplomatic and political pressure played a key role, but said the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Libya's termination of its nuclear program and the implosion of the illegal nuclear smuggling network run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan might also have influenced Tehran.
To develop a nuclear weapon, Iran needs to design and engineer a warhead, obtain enough fissile material, and build a delivery vehicle such as a missile. The intelligence agencies now believe Iran halted warhead engineering four years ago and as of mid-2007 had not restarted it.
But Iran is still enriching uranium for its civilian nuclear reactors that produce electricity. That leaves open the possibility that fissile material could be diverted to covert nuclear sites to produce highly enriched uranium for a warhead. Engineers have known the design for a nuclear weapon for 60 years. The countdown to a nuclear weapon is determined more by the availability of fissile material than anything else, the officials said.
Even if the country went all out with present enrichment capability, it is unlikely to have enough until late 2009 or 2010 at the earliest, the officials said. The State Department's Intelligence and Research office believes the earliest likely time it would have enough highly enriched uranium would be 2013. But all agencies concede Iran may not have sufficient enriched uranium until after 2015.
Iran would not be able to technically produce and reprocess enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015, the report says. But ultimately it has the technical and industrial capacity to build a bomb, "if it decides to do so," the intelligence agencies found. They said Iran's immediate intentions are a mystery.
"We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs its options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt it to restart its program," the report says.
This national intelligence estimate was originally due in the spring of 2007 but was delayed because the agencies wanted more confidence their findings were accurate, given the inaccuracy of the 2002 intelligence estimate of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., said the report showed "a level of independence from political leadership that was lacking in the recent past."
The CIA, which did most of the analysis, considered at least six alternate scenarios that could explain the new findings, including whether Iran was intentionally trying to deceive them into believing weapons work had stopped.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell decided last month that key judgments of NIEs should not be declassified and released. The intelligence officials said an exception was made in this case because the last assessment of Iran's nuclear program in 2005 has influenced public debate about U.S. policy toward Iran, and must be updated to reflect the latest findings.
Also Monday, a top U.S. diplomat said China may be open to discussing fresh U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran. China and Russia, both veto-wielding members of the Security Council, have been reluctant to support new sanctions.
And another one
Like Iraq, US intel on Iran faulty !!
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
Mon Dec 3, 9:06 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071204/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iran_analysis
First Iraq, now Iran. The United States has operated under a cloud of faulty intelligence in both countries.
In a bombshell intelligence assessment, the United States has backed away from its once-ironclad assertion that Tehran is intent on building nuclear bombs.
Where there once was certainty, there now is doubt. "We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons," the new estimate said Monday.
Compare that with what then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte told Congress in January. "Our assessment is that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons."
Just last month, President Bush, at a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said, "We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace."
More ominously, Bush told a news conference Oct. 17, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
Asked then if he definitely believed that Iran wanted to build a nuclear bomb, Bush said, "Yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon."
Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said the president made comments like those "because he was describing the threat as the intelligence community itself had been describing the threat both publicly and in their briefings to him."
Intelligence officials advised Bush several months ago that they were reevaluating their assessments about Iran. They came to the White House last Wednesday and briefed him on their new findings.
The intelligence flip-flop recalled the embarrassing reversal that Bush was forced to make on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The conviction that Saddam Hussein had such weapons was one of the factors behind Bush's decision to invade Iraq. It since has been determined that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
Democrats on Monday did not hesitate to suggest an Iran-Iraq comparison.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats had requested the new Iran assessment "so that the administration could not rush this Congress and the country to another war based on flawed intelligence."
"I hope this administration reads this report carefully and appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy vis-a-vis Iran," Reid said. "The administration should begin this process by finally undertaking a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran."
In the case of Iran, though, the White House has not dropped its suspicions that Tehran could pursue a nuclear bomb.
Iran continues to develop, test and deploy ballistic missiles, and its civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. "It can readily use the same technology to produce weapons-grade uranium," Hadley said.
In rewriting the conclusions about Iran, the new estimate said Tehran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program but halted that effort in the fall of 2003 under the weight of international pressure. Importantly, the estimate said Iran has not restarted the nuclear bomb program.
"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," the new estimate said.
While key facts have changed, the administration's strategy has not.
The White House says it will continue to try to build pressure on Iran to prevent it from ever acquiring nuclear bombs.
"The bottom line is that for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions and with other financial pressure," Hadley said. "And Iran has to decide that it wants to negotiate a solution."
Some analysts believe the new conclusions will be a roadblock for Vice President Dick Cheney and other hawkish members of the administration to be more confrontational toward Iran.
"It's a good thing that we caught this before we marched headlong into another military conflict," said Jon Wolfsthal, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "This isn't the timebomb the administration made it out to be for the last several years."
Wolfsthal said the conclusion that international pressure prompted Iran to halt its program "is the piece of information that we missed in Iraq" where Bush believed that Iraq's pursuit of WMD was continuing despite sanctions. He said the administration did not appear inclined to change its strategy toward Iran. He said that "suggests they can't take yes for an answer."
And another...
A Miracle: Honest Intel on Iran Nukes
by Ray McGovern
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=12001
For those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred today. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program has been issued, and its "Key Judgments" were made public.
With redraft after redraft, it was what the Germans call eine schwere Geburt – a difficult birth, 10 months in gestation.
I do not know how often Vice President Dick Cheney visited CIA headquarters during the gestation period, but I am told he voiced his displeasure as soon as he saw the first sonogram/draft very early this year and is so displeased with what issued that he has refused to be the godfather.
This time Cheney and his neocon colleagues were unable to abort the process. And after delivery to the press, this child is going to be very hard to explain – the more so since it is legitimate.
The main points of the NIE:
"We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program…
"We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.
"We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely…
"We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.
"We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015."
Having reached these conclusions, it is not surprising that the NIE's authors make a point of saying up front (in bold type), "This NIE does not [italics in original] assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons."
This, of course, pulls out the rug from under Cheney's claim of a "fairly robust new nuclear program" in Iran and President Bush's inaccurate assertion that Iranian leaders have even admitted they are developing nuclear weapons.
Apparently, intelligence community analysts are no longer required to produce the faith-based intelligence that brought us the Oct. 1, 2002, NIE "Iraq's Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction" – the worst in the history of U.S. intelligence.
Truth be told, one of the Iran NIE's findings was written into its first draft, from which Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell drew in telling the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 27 that Iran could possibly develop a nuclear weapon by early-to-mid-next decade.
McConnell said not a word, though, about Iran's having halted its nuclear weapons program in fall 2003. And in February, he was still adhering to the faith-based approach, saying, "We assess that Iran seeks to develop a nuclear weapon."
At which point Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) tried to sum up the proceedings with the disingenuous comment "We all agree, then, that the Iranians are trying to get nuclear weapons."
Curiously, McConnell indicated recently that the key findings of NIEs would no longer be made public.
My guess is that the Pentagon, and especially Adm. William Fallon, commander of our forces in the Middle East, succeeded in persuading McConnell to go public. Several months ago, Fallon was reliably reported to have said, "We are not going to do Iran on my watch."
And it is an open secret that he and other senior military officers, except those of the Air Force, are strongly opposed to getting into a war with Iran for which the U.S. is so ill prepared.
Will President George W. Bush and our domesticated media succeed in dismissing this latest NIE as "guesswork," as he has in the past? It is going to be highly interesting to see how the White House will try to spin this one.
So remind me why we are in plans to bomb the shit out of Iran...