Politicizing the National Politicized Intelligence Estimate

12/05/07 10:27 Bush goes on the attack: NIE Jujitsu, Bush Says “Prove It”

Meanwhile, according to CNN news, this is all over the newspapers in Iran (from Tehran Times):

U.S. must 'pay the price' for nuclear accusations

Iran said Tuesday the Bush administration must ""pay the price"" for what it called ""lies"" concerning Tehran's nuclear program.

On its Web site, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency called the updated estimate ""a necessary and positive step in Tehran-Washington relations, but undoubtedly is not sufficient.""

""The U.S. administration should know that only admitting a mistake is not enough,"" the IRNA report said.

Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham, quoted on the IRNA site, was more harsh but offered no specifics.

""U.S. officials have so far inflicted ... damage on the Iranian nation by spreading lies against the country and by disturbing public opinion, therefore, they have to pay the price for their action,"" Elham is quoted as saying.

That's just....peachy. More here. And of course, Ahmadinejad's having a field day, running with it.

Siblings watch as the image of the U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley speaking about Iran is televised in Tehran December 4, 2007.
REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl

From Bill Roggio:

I've been investigating the story of Iran's activities inside Iraq for almost two months. During the investigation, I've found out the names of all three commands of Iran's Ramazan Corps, the Qods Force entity created to conduct operations in Iraq. I also received a map detailing the ratlines for weapons and fighters for the southern and central regions from Iran into Iraq. Much of the information in this report is not in the public sphere. I have created a Flash Presentation to detail these ratlines.

Iran's Ramazan Corps and the ratlines into Iraq

*End UPDATE II*

12/05/07 06:59 The Strata-Sphere has it that the Washington Post quotes,

intel officials who admit that the conclusion that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is still suspended was not a consensus view (hence the low confidence it was given), but was in fact challenged by key elements of the intelligence community:

Also, Dennis Prager mentions the Washington Post editorial:

While U.S. intelligence agencies have "high confidence" that covert work on a bomb was suspended "for at least several years" after 2003, there is only "moderate confidence" that Tehran has not restarted the military program. Iran's massive overt investment in uranium enrichment meanwhile proceeds in defiance of binding U.N. resolutions, even though Tehran has no legitimate use for enriched uranium. The U.S. estimate of when Iran might produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb -- sometime between late 2009 and the middle of the next decade -- hasn't changed.

"Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons," says the summary's second sentence. Yet within hours of the report's release, European diplomats and some U.S officials were saying that it could kill an arduous American effort to win support for a third U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning Iran for failing to suspend uranium enrichment. It could also hinder separate U.S.-French efforts to create a new sanctions coalition outside the United Nations. In other words, the new report may have the effect of neutering the very strategy of pressure that it says might be effective if "intensified.

*END UPDATE*

So after being wrong time and time again, suddenly the NIE is "spot on"? Oh, well of course it's spot on....but only whenever it appears to harm President Bush.

Curt has an excellent post up, tying together Kenneth Timmerman, Michael Ledeen, and Ronald Kessler

I'd love to pick up Ledeen and Kessler's new books.

I'm in the middle of Timmerman's:

Listen to Michael Medved's interview with Kenneth Timmerman here.


Further reads:
American Power (*Update*)
American Thinker (many useful links, including to Ledeen)
Bloviating Zeppelin
Dragon Lady's Den
Flopping Aces update
Freedom Eden
Hugh Hewitt
Maria's Two Cents
Mike's America (contest prize: luncheon date with Mike)
Pondering Penguin
Right Think
Strata-Sphere (*Update*)