Letters to the Editor
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His opinion
It isn't an opinion, you understand. It's from gawd. It can't change.
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Who released the NIE?
It's not SOP for the Bush admin to produce intelligence that isn't fixed to fit the policy. Does anyone know if this got pushed through by internal dissenters attempting to derail the pro-war cabal?
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Don't Confuse Me With the Facts
Bush said there's no risk to U.S. credibility abroad ...
That's because it's impossible to risk something that you've already destroyed. I remember reading somewhere that before going public with the reality of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, Kennedy called the leaders of the NATO allies to let them know what was going on. He offered photographic evidence to Charles de Gaulle, who turned down the offer telling him that the word of the president of the US was enough for him. I think those ideas are over.
BTW - here's another example of ol' "Stay the Course" George showing Colbert was right. He really does believe the same thing on Wednesday that he did on Monday, regardless of what happened on Tuesday. He's still pimping Iran as the latest enemy stating that they had a program and they halted it, but that they could always restart it. Sound familiar?
One day I'd like to have an administration that didn't need enemies.
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Bush the incurious
I think the explanation for why Bush himself kept coasting along on WWIII rhetoric long after the contradictory information came in is that he had already made up his mind and wasn't going to listen to any new information. This is a man who is congenitally incurious and also couldn't reason his way out of a wet paper bag, at least not on matters of intellectual substance. (I guess we have to credit him with having a nose for politics).
Even if he was briefed 20 times on this since July he may not have heard the message, so painfully obvious to everybody else.
And before the trolls come out, I'm not saying the US shouldn't have an Iran policy, or a nuclear non-proliferation policy. I'm saying that in the end the Bush administration hasn't been thinking about Iran, or non-proliferation, but rather about their own tough-guy posturing and Churchillian egos. These are people who will not confront reality, on a basic level.
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re: Anonymous
I was wondering the same thing. This definitely throws cold water on Cheney's plans, and I have to suspect it was intentional. It really will tie the administration's hands in their final stretch. They won't have time to recreate the dire Iranian threat to a degree an already skeptical public would accept. Plus, the presidential campaign will be heating up, and people will be less far less agreeable to any profoundly controversial moves by an outgoing (and failed) administration.
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Credibility
He seems to be to ignorant to realize that he lost all credibilty a long time ago. He may be right when he said nothing changed. In this respect he is absolutely right. Worldwide to be sure.
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Classic
It really is classic Bush, isn't it? "It turns out I was entirely wrong but that isn't going to change my mind one bit".
I can't wait to get someone from the reality-based community back in power.
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CNN Says Prez Has "Lowered the Bar"
Since when have facts mattered to the President of the United States? In the face of facts, the President repeats his spin and BS. The world scratches its head. Then laughs. What a moron. Honest to God. And you say he has a full year left to spout this stuff?
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George Friedman weighs in 1
The NIE Report: Solving a Geopolitical Problem with Iran
By George Friedman
The United States released a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Dec. 3. It said, "We judge with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." It went on to say, "Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005." It further said, "Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs."
With this announcement, the dynamics of the Middle Eastern region, Iraq and U.S.-Iranian relations shift dramatically. For one thing, the probability of a unilateral strike against Iranian nuclear targets is gone. Since there is no Iranian nuclear weapons program, there is no rationale for a strike. Moreover, if Iran is not engaged in weapons production, then a broader air campaign designed to destabilize the Iranian regime has no foundation either.
The NIE release represents a transformation of U.S. policy toward Iran. The Bush administration made Iran's nuclear weapons program the main reason for its attempt to create an international coalition against Iran, on the premise that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable. If there is no Iranian nuclear program, then what is the rationale for the coalition? Moreover, what is the logic of resisting Iran's efforts in Iraq, rather than cooperating?
In looking at the report, a number of obvious questions come up. First, how did the intelligence community reach the wrong conclusion in the spring of 2005, when it last released an NIE on Iran, and what changed by 2007? Also, why did the United States reach the wrong conclusions on Iran three years after its program was halted? There are two possible answers. One is intelligence failure and the other is political redefinition. Both must be explored.
Let's begin with intelligence failure. Intelligence is not an easy task. Knowing what is going on inside of a building is harder than it might seem. Regardless of all the technical capabilities -- from imagery in all spectra to sensing radiation leakage at a distance -- huge uncertainties always remain. Failing to get a positive reading does not mean the facility is not up and running. It might just have been obscured, or the technical means to discover it are insufficient. The default setting in technical intelligence is that, while things can be ruled in, they cannot simply be ruled out by lack of evidence.
You need to go into the building. Indeed, you need to go into many buildings, look around, see what is happening and report back. Getting into highly secure buildings may be easy in the movies. It is not easy in real life. Getting someone into the building who knows what he is seeing is even harder. Getting him out alive to report back, and then repeating the process in other buildings, is even harder. It can be done -- though not easily or repeatedly.
Recruiting someone who works in the building is an option, but at the end of the day you have to rely on his word as to what he saw. That too, is a risk. He might well be a double agent who is inventing information to make money, or he could just be wrong. There is an endless number of ways that recruiting on-site sources can lead you to the wrong conclusion.
Source-based intelligence would appear to be the only way to go. Obviously, it is better to glean information from someone who knows what is going on, rather than to guess. But the problem with source-based intelligence is that, when all is said and done, you can still be just as confused -- or more confused -- than you were at the beginning. You could wind up with a mass of intelligence that can be read either way. It is altogether possible to have so many sources, human and technical, that you have no idea what the truth is. That is when an intelligence organization is most subject to political pressure. When the intelligence could go either way, politics can tilt the system. We do not know what caused the NIE to change its analysis. It could be the result of new, definitive intelligence, or existing intelligence could have been reread from a new political standpoint.