Consortium News
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/083007b.html____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Bush Puts Iran in Crosshairs
By Ray McGovern
August 30, 2007
snip
Well, this week, aware or not, it was the president himself who mouthed the “new product”—war with Iran—and, in the process, made clear how “fixed” intelligence is being arrayed to “justify” it.
The case is too clever by half, but the Bush/Cheney team is clearly hoping the product will sell.
snip
Iran’s Nuclear Plans
It has been like waiting for Godot...the endless wait for the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear plans.
That NIE turns out to be the quintessential dog that didn’t bark. The most recent published NIE on the subject was issued two-and-a-half years ago and concluded that Iran could not have a nuclear weapon until “early- to mid-next decade.”
That estimate followed a string of NIEs dating back to 1995, which predicted, with embarrassing consistency, that Iran was “within five years” of having a nuclear weapon.
The most recent NIE, published in early 2005, extended the timeline and provided still more margin for error. Basically, the timeline was moved 10 years out to 2015, but a fit of caution yielded the words “early-to-mid next decade.”
On Feb. 27, 2007, at his confirmation hearings to be Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell repeated that formulation verbatim.
A “final” draft of the follow-up NIE mentioned above had been completed in February 2007, and McConnell no doubt was briefed on its findings prior to his testimony.
The fact that that this draft has been sent back for revision every other month since February speaks volumes. Judging from McConnell’s testimony based on the NIE draft of February, its judgments are probably not alarmist enough for Vice President Dick Cheney. (Shades of Iraq.)
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
