Cheney Stovepipping the NIE (on Iran) - Once More with Feeling

Fortunately we've all seen this play before and we all know how it ends. Which is not well.

Gareth Porter of IPS has the details.

A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear program, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency officers.

There is a split in the intelligence community on how much of a threat the Iranian nuclear programme poses, according to the intelligence official's account. Some analysts who are less independent are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the alarmist view coming from Cheney's office, but others have rejected that view.

Not only are there major disagreements over Iran's Nuclear efforts, there's also disagrement over how much - if any - Iran has involved itself with our efforts in Iraq.

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi provided a similar account, based on his own sources in the intelligence community. He told IPS that intelligence analysts have had to review and rewrite their findings three times, because of pressure from the White House.

"The White House wants a document that it can use as evidence for its Iran policy," says Giraldi. Despite pressures on them to change their dissenting conclusions, however, Giraldi says some analysts have refused to go along with conclusions that they believe are not supported by the evidence.

In October 2006, Giraldi wrote in The American Conservative that the NIE on Iran had already been completed, but that Cheney's office had objected to its findings on both the Iranian nuclear programme and Iran's role in Iraq. The draft NIE did not conclude that there was confirming evidence that Iran was arming the Shiite insurgents in Iraq, according to Giraldi.

Iran hasn't been arming the Shiite insurgents? Hold on, wait a minute - I thought the Sunni's where the "insurgents" and that the Shia ran all the Death Squads which were ethnically cleansing the those damn dirty Sunni who blew up the Golden Mosque? It thought the vichy Iraqi Government was largely run by Shia and that the various Shia militias such as the Mahdi Army were largely turning against Al Qeada in Al Anbar province - which means that they (and their alleged Iranian suppliers) are now on "our side" right?

It's all just so confusing...

But one thing is clear, the one thing that neo-cons can't stand is for someone to stand up and point out how full of feces they are.

(National Intelligence Director) Negroponte had angered the neoconservatives in the administration by telling the press in April 2006 that the intelligence community believed that it would still be "a number of years off" before Iran would be "likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into or to put into a nuclear weapon, perhaps into the next decade."

Neoconservatives immediately attacked Negroponte for the statement, which merely reflected the existing NIE on Iran issued in spring 2005. Robert G. Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and an ally of Cheney, contradicted Negroponte the following day. He suggested that Iran's nuclear programme was nearing the "point of no return" -- an Israeli concept referring to the mastery of industrial-scale uranium enrichment.

Frank J. Gaffney, a protégé of neoconservative heavyweight Richard Perle, complained that Negroponte was "absurdly declaring the Iranian regime to be years away from having nuclear weapons".

That's right how could Negroponte dare to claim that Iran is years away from having Nuclear Weapons - it only happens to be the same thing that the IAEA says.

The mainstream media has failed to report the agreement reached between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Iranian government in regards to the Iranian nuclear energy program. An understanding has been reached between the two. The IAEA has given Iran's nuclear program a clean bill of health.

Why is the U.S. media not reporting on this matter? Why do the U.S. and its Western allies continue to threaten Iran with punitive bombings for its alleged non-compliance, when everything indicates that Iran has a bona fide nuclear energy program and does not have the capabilities of developing nuclear weapons?

More on the IAEA and Iran from the WaPo.

PARIS, Aug. 30 -- The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency gave an upbeat assessment of Iranian cooperation with international inspectors in a new report Thursday that could make it more difficult for the United States to win tougher U.N. sanctions against Iran.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna also concluded that while Iran continues to enrich uranium in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, its fuel enrichment plant has produced "well below the expected quantity for a facility of this design." The quality of the uranium also was lower than expected, the IAEA said.

The report praised Iran for taking "a significant step forward" by agreeing to a new work plan and timelines for resolving numerous questions about the history of its nuclear program. Separately, U.N. officials said that Iran had slowed construction of a new plutonium-fuel reactor in Arak.

So while President Bush is beating the table while shouting about "World War III" the actual professionals in the business of fighting nuclear proliferation (Y'know like Valerie Plame-Wilson used to be) seem to be completely calm and unfazed.

Meanwhile the Intelligence Community remains muzzled because the True Reality of the Situation happens to be a little too inconvenient for the War-Monger Party!

It's clear that the big rush to bomb Iran isn't being driven by the speed of their Nuclear program or being driven by their so-called "terrorist activity" in opposition to us in Iraq - it's a plan to get it in under the wire before Bush leaves office in just over a year.

Hit 'em Now - While You Can!

Because we all know that spineless Democrats (except for Good Ole' Joe Lieberman, who still claims his Iran Amendment wasn't a declaration of War against the Republican Guard) don't have the Stones to attack an unarmed country with bogus, manipulated intelligence, then completely fuck-up the aftermath of it and refuse to take any responsibilty for their actions what-so-ever!

Thank heaven for small favors.

Vyan