I see headlines saying that this NIE contradicts or repudiates Bush, I guarantee you those words are not in the report, but are the spin of the news services. There is no question that Iran is enrichening uranium, the one piece of the puzzle that we can remotely detect, and an essential, time consuming step towards developing a nuclear bomb.
It's amazing how one side or another latches on to anything our intelligence community puts out, as long as it supports their arguments. After 9/11, the intelligence community was lambasted for not having a clue. Their defense was that their budgets had been slashed in the post cold war years. We are relying too much on electronic surveillance and not enough on human intelligence gathered in the field. So, after 9/11, the intelligence community was biased towards not taking threats seriously enough. Then they were criticized again, when no WMDs were found in Iraq. It's hardly surprising that now, there might be a bias in the other direction. Note that the report indicates that Iran still has a nuclear weapon program intact. What is the confidence level expressed in the NIE that Iran stopped it's program in 2003?
"It also said U.S. intelligence had "moderate confidence" that Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons effort by mid-2007 but added that Tehran's intentions were unclear.
Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so," it said."
Oh yeah, that's going to help me sleep tonight. They have moderate confidence that Tehran has not restarted it's nuclear weapons effort. Given their track record, my confidence level in this report is much lower than moderate. On the other hand, I hope it's true, for all of our sakes. And if true, isn't that an 'accomplishment' of the Bush administration?
