Monday, December 10, 2007
The latest NIE: Were our spooks hoodwinked?
I have not written about the latest National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had stopped pursuing nuclear weapons in 2003 after the United States and its allies parked 150,000 troops on its western border, because I have been far too busy to digest what has been written about it. That said, I had a series of disjointed and wholly inconsistent reactions.
First, our NIEs concerning nuclear weapons programs in that part of the world have been notoriously inaccurate. We were wrong about Saddam's program twice -- NIE's concluded that there was no program when there was, and that there was a program when there was not -- and can now be said to have been wrong about Iran's program at least once. I do not know what to think, except that Iran has deliberately pursued its nuclear power program in such a way as to create the impression that it has more nefarious designs. Bluffing about nuclear weapons is also dangerous and destabilizing, and the world should hold Iran accountable for that.
Second, my first reaction was that the Bush administration had affirmatively driven the publication of the NIE because it needed space on the right to make progress with Iran. It has long been obvious that we have been conducting extensive "negotiations" with Iran -- or factions within the Iranian government -- both through signaling and back-channel exchanges. These discussions have manifested themselves in lots of ways, including in the reports we have read that Iran may no longer supplying insurgents in Iraq with explosively formed penetrators [Addendum: The United States and Iran continue to have apparently constructive official discussions over security in Iraq.]. I had thought that these reports indicated that more public negotiations were in the offing. If so, the Bush administration would need to diffuse the attacks from the right to have any chance of reaching a deal. Indeed, contrary to the widely-expressed view on the left that the Bush administration was laying the groundwork for a military attack on Iran, the right has been equally concerned about the opposite outcome -- that Bush had informally ruled out an attack. The leaked NIE certainly gives the Bush administration the excuse it needs for a posture toward Iran that is more dovish than many of its supporters can tolerate.
However, the reactions of the various relevant actors, including the British and the Israelis, lead me to the more conventional view that the release of the report was probably an attempt by doves within our own intelligence community to make it very difficult for the United States military to follow the orders of the president. The latest evidence is a new story this morning's Telegraph that vents the outrage of the British spooks (bold emphasis added):
British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.
The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.
The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.
The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.
A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.
The source said British analysts believed that Iranian nuclear staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. "We are sceptical. We want to know what the basis of it is, where did it come from? Was it on the basis of the defector? Was it on the basis of the intercept material? They say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white. They will say anything to throw us off.
"It's not as if the American intelligence agencies are regarded as brilliant performers in that region. They got badly burned over Iraq."
A US intelligence source has revealed that some American spies share the concerns of the British and the Israelis. "Many middle- ranking CIA veterans believe Iran is still committed to producing nuclear weapons and are concerned that the agency lost a number of its best sources in Iran in 2004," the official said.
Commentary
Assume that the British spies are correct -- that the NIE represents a deliberate attempt by doves in the American intelligence community to make it practically impossible for President Bush to order military action against Iran's nuclear program. If the NIE is correct in its judgment that Iran had a weapons program but suspended it in 2003 for mysterious reasons that had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq, then perhaps Iran will be emboldened to restart the program if it believes that the United States is effectively hamstrung. If it was incorrect and Iran never did suspend its program, then the NIE has almost certainly diminished its incentives for suspending it now. Either way, the fact of having observed Iran's weapons program may have altered the trajectory of the project in favor of its revival.
Worse -- much worse, actually -- is the question of Israel's reaction. If Tel Aviv believes that there is no longer any prospect of American intervention because the United States military would resist the orders of the sitting president (if, in fact, the president would have given such orders), will that move Israel to strike first? If so, it would mean that the doves who sought to prevent American action that probably would not have been forthcoming in the first place may actually have increased Israel's sense of insecurity along with Iran's sense of security. The combination of insecure Israelis and excessively secure Iranians does not strike me as stable. Our "intelligence community" may, in the end, wish that it could put the NIE back into its bottle.
15 Comments:
By 
Who Struck John, at
Mon Dec 10, 03:35:00 PM:
It's very interesting to read your thoughts and those of Former Spook over at In From The Cold on the leak of Congressional briefings on interrogation techniques in 2002. The impression one gets is that the intelligence tail is trying to wag the government dog.
By 
, at
Mon Dec 10, 04:02:00 PM:
Dis-information: It's what's for dinner.
1) Bush Administration dis-informing on the Iranian, just to see what they do. Andmaybe to drive DOWN oil prices.
2) Iranians dis-informing the CIA, with the predictable result, at least short term.
3) The CIA deliberately dis-informing the Executive and the American people because they can, and want to make policy, too.
If the Iranians are enriching uranium (50:50 U-235:U-238 for a weapon), that is problematic, but that path will not lead to a small enough nuke warhead to fit on a missile. For that you need plutonium.
The Uranium centrifuge cascade the Iranians have built may be an engineering project that can lead to plutonium enrichment; in that case, years away (maybe?). Plutonium (un-enriched, or separated) is made in reactors by bombarding uranium with fast neutrons (a by-product of 'spent' fuel rods).
Would the Russians or Chinese ( or somebody else?) barter plutonium from 'spent' fuel rods for enriched fuel grade uranium? Do the Iranians want to be net exporters of fuel grade uranium (10% U-235, 90% U-238)? There's good money in that for many third-world countries that do not want to do business with the US of A (and evade the non-proliferation treaty). With declining oil export volumes, this has an internal logic for Iran (but potentially very un-appealing for world stability).
The Iraelis are scared, because they could all be incinerated in an afternoon by the psychotic mullacrocy in Tehran.
Many questions, and the waters are muddy with the boots of spooks who know less than they seem, to protect their phoney-baloney jobs.
MI6, CIA, etc. None of these people really KNOW, because they have no human assets in place. And a military strike by the US is off the table for the rest of the Bush admninistration, unless Iran does something REALLY stupid and provokes world condemnation.
-David
By Gordon Smith, at
Mon Dec 10, 04:33:00 PM:
Hawk,
I've been looking forward to your assessment of the NIE (not to mention the Republican Presidential field). It seems you've left only the following options:
1. U.S. Intelligence is lying to the President (your "doves" possibility).
2. U.S. Intelligence is deliberately emboldening Iran by "hamstringing" U.S. hawks.
3. U.S. Intelligence is wrong.
and
4. That since we aren't invading, Israel has to attack them for the nuclear weapons that the NIE says they don't have.
This seems to presuppose that invasion/military intervention is the best course and that the NIE just messed up the really effective war we were about to have.
I think that maybe there are some other possibilities.
Since Iran has allowed greater access, our intel has improved. Since we have increased intel ops in Iran, our intel has improved. Iran, on the cusp of a generational baby-out-with-the-bathwater moment, needed to initiate a cold war to maintain power in the existing structures. The Bush administration needed another enemy to keep the folks back home scared and prepared to allow continued abuse of Presidential powers.
I guess there are lots of interpretations of the NIE, eh? What's worst is not being able to trust the Intelligence Establishment, the Executive, or the journalists. So many failures have left them all lacking credibility.
Final analysis - The NIE means little. Past analyses have pegged the Iranian nuclear program at being years away from any completed weapons. To prepare for military intervention with Iran over weapons that may or may not exist looks to me like an unnecessary war of aggression.
We need more information, that's for sure.
(Hey, still looking forward to your Presidential candidate examination!)
By , at
Mon Dec 10, 04:49:00 PM:
What an astounding conclusion: "the NIE means little"!
If the NIE is an attempt to manipulate policy at the expense of truth, that can only be devastating both for national safety (the obvious), and the sanctity of our political system. If, after all, executive branch employees decide the President elected by the people can't be trusted with foreign policy then it's only a brief moment before the President decides he can't trust the so-called "intelligence community" to advise him.
Terrible news, however you look at it.
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Dec 10, 04:59:00 PM:
Gordon -
I am not what sure to think of the NIE qua NIE. As I said, I have not done enough reading to have even an amateur view; I merely noted for the record that we have not had a great track record on the question of Middle Eastern weapons programs.
Moreover, since this was not a comprehensive post on the subject of Iran, I did not mean to suggest that it included the only plausible policy options.
My point is rather different, which is that the publication of this particular NIE may prove to be destabilizing, rather than stabilizing. One of the reasons is that it is fairly apparent that lots of people do not believe it, including the Israelis (and, apparently, the Brits, which is only relevant because it lends credibility to the Israeli position). If the NIE constrains the United States to such a degree that (i) Iran is emboldened to restart or continue its program, depending on your point of view, and (ii) Israel becomes insecure that we will not act if Iran does not get more transparent on their nuke capability, then the chances for shooting between those two countries probably increases.
By , at
Mon Dec 10, 06:10:00 PM:
TH,
A slightly nitpicky point:
You write, "If Tel Aviv believes..." I'd note that just because our State Department indulges in the fiction that Israel's capital sits in Tel Aviv doesn't mean that the rest of us have to. The real question is what Jerusalem believes...
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Dec 10, 06:13:00 PM:
Good point, Howard. Further evidence that I'm not a flack for Likud, occasional accusations to the contrary!
By , at
Mon Dec 10, 08:40:00 PM:
I find it interesting that both the Israelis and British (who are not known for getting along... the Brits have sided with the Arabs against the Israelis consistently since the 60s) have 'publicly' broken with this report. Taken with comments like John Bolton's and the facts of Iran's continued obfuscation, I think it's safe to say that it (the NIE) is garbage.
By , at
Tue Dec 11, 02:11:00 AM:
If the Bush Administration had a hand in this NIE release, then here are some thought. They wanted to get out of the driver seat temporarily to let the EU, the Israelis, and the Arabs deal with the problem for a while. The US would give a hard time for the EU and the Arabs to handle this situation. This also means, that the US defense umbrella is partially removed from Europe and the Middle East. Presumably this also means that the US knows that Iran doesn't have the capacity to make usable (read rocketable) nukes now. This, hopefully, means that these regions/countries start to think that they bear some responsibility of their own security (especially the EU and the Arabs).
This move (again, if the Bush Administration had a hand in the NIE release) would also force the Eu "doves" to eat the pie they baked. Be a good cop without the bad cop they love so much to trash.
If this scenario is valid (not probable since I don't think that the Administration had a hand in the NIE release), then it would be beneficial for world peace since it would force the EU to grow a little backbone.
Vilmos
By Cardinalpark, at
Tue Dec 11, 11:09:00 AM:
I don't know. Maybe I'm naive, but I give us more credit than that.
What is one thing about which Arabs, Israelis and Turks can agree? They can certainly make common cause over Iran. That's probably about it. Maybe the Saudis will actually be convinced to come to some accomodation with Israel. Maybe.
How about this? why would the Russians sell nuke IP to Iran? Oil prices. Otherwise it's just stupid. They're within range.
Why would we let the europeans negotiate with Iran and stay out of it directly? Because we don't care that much.
Why would we release this NIE?
To let all the parties know we don't care that much.
I suspect the Iranians have concluded that we only care about them insofar as they are messing with our guys in Iraq. Leave them alone, and we will leave you alone.
As for the nuclear threat, we must have concluded that the Russians won't finish (it's just for $), the Norks can't (because Israel flattened them in Syria in september) and the Paki is in jail. And even if they get a nuke, it won't be used against us.
So no reason for us to bomb iran, or care that much, so let's deflate the threat and see if maybe we can take the edge off oil prices...
All in all, there's an argument. Remember, I think we'd all be happier if we didn't go to war with Iran...
By , at
Tue Dec 11, 10:09:00 PM:
If the net effect of this report is to increase the chances of Israeli-Iranian conflict... maybe it was released by HAWKS in the CIA???
By , at
Wed Dec 12, 01:29:00 PM:
That is soooo Rovian. Is Rove secretly in charge of NIE writing?
By , at
Wed Dec 12, 11:04:00 PM:
I have no more confidence in my interpretation than anyone else here, but do find it curious not to have been mentioned anywhere. Namely, that the Bush administration may have cut a deal with the Iranians to get out of Iraq, and once the violence had died down significantly, reward them by ceasing our nuclear scare rhetoric (regardless of whether it's true or not). This would be in part because of a reluctant US acceptance of a strategy of deterrence, rather than of eliminating the nukes. Extrapolating, I would guess the real purpose of Ahmadinejad's visit in September was to seal the deal.
I simply don't understand why people think the intelligence estimate this time was not influenced by the administration. Why is it different this time?
By , at
Thu Dec 13, 12:45:00 PM:
Powerline has an very on target post that would have been a good contribution to your conversation here, so I'll just link it and call it a day...
By , at
Sat Dec 15, 12:20:00 PM:
And what do you think of Obadiah Shoher's arguments against the peace process ( samsonblinded.org/blog/we-need-a-respite-from-peace.htm )?
