Something Stinks about the NIE

Despite a 2005 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that states the exact opposite, the Intelligence Community has released another NIE that states with “high confidence” that Iran had abandoned its nuclear program in 2003 due to “increasing international scrutiny.”

There are several things that smell fishy about this report.

First; what international scrutiny was there in 2003? The buzz that surrounds Iran’s nuclear weapons program (or lack thereof) today was not there in 2003.Maybe it was that they had been labeled by Bush as a member of the “axis of evil.” US troops were in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe they feared that the hammer would drop on them like it did on Saddam Hussein.

Second; Democrats, who typically don’t trust the CIA, are totally buying this report. It fits their agenda of weakening the Bush administration. This report will be a major obstacle to President Bush as he seeks more international sanctions or even a pre-emptive strike against Iran.

Third; which NIE should we believe? The 2005 report stated, again with “high confidence,” that “Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure…” (italics mine). One of the reports must be inaccurate.

Fourth; the 2007 NIE says that Iran cancelled its program due to a “cost-benefit approach.” The State Department wrote the same thing 40 years ago about India’s nuclear weapons program. They said that it was not in India’s best interests to pursue nuclear weapons due to a cost-benefit analysis. India then proceeded to detonate a nuclear weapon in May of 1974.

Fifth; the three main authors of this report are from the State Department as well. Why should we believe them this time? Interestingly, a Wall Street Journal intelligence source describes the three authors in question as “hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials.” Hmm.

Keep in mind that Iran’s uranium enrichment is in open defiance of UN binding resolutions. The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran has the blueprints to shape uranium into a bomb core. Iran has technical information on how to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile. There is also evidence that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has been developing detonation devices that would set off a nuclear explosion. This does not seem to me like a regime that has abandoned its nuclear weapons programs.

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