Compilation Thread: IRAN National Intelligenc Estimate COVER UP

[L. Coyote]

Please add any and all IRAN NIE posts and x-posts.

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McConnell Defends Iran NIE Against the Right
By Spencer Ackerman - December 7, 2007, 12:29PM
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004850.php

Faced with the inconvenient assessment that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program, GOP Senators are running an old game plan: create a commission that will treat the truth and a lie as equal possibilities. However, Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, is unequivocally standing by the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.

The Washington Post reports that GOP Senators John Ensign (R-NV) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) want to create a commission on the NIE that will, inevitably, trash it. For some historical perspective on how frequently the right has gone after intelligence assessments that conflict with desired conservative policy preferences, read Ilan Goldenberg. His bottom line: "In all of these cases conservatives played with and disregarded intelligence to help make their cases for a particular policy. And in all of these cases the conservatives were wrong." But he might have added something else: in all of these cases the conservatives were successful, despite being, you know, wrong.

Meanwhile, others on the right see something more nefarious at work. Danielle Pletka of AEI smears the entire intelligence community to the Post without any evidence: "This NIE was presented with a clear intention to deceive..." Similarly, in The New Republic, Yossi Klein Halevi doesn't bother addressing the new intelligence that prompted the Iran volte-face, and simply says the U.S. has lost "the will to stop Tehran" from doing something that Tehran isn't doing.

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[Gman]

1. I hope Harry refuses a Senate conference room

and they have to use the breakfast area at the Super 8.

Paybacks are a bitch.

[LittleClarkie]

2. Iirc, we did that a lot during Vietnam

we ignored the reports that didn't match what we wanted to be going on there.

[L. Coyote]

3. More recently, McCain "investigating" Abramoff.

[Forkboy]

6. Now how can anyone not have faith in that?

:rofl:

[L. Coyote]

4. Truth Serum by Don Williams "... you heard Dubya’s lie..."

Truth Serum by Don Williams
http://www.knoxvoice.com/blogs/truthserum/2007/12/07/reasons-to-impeach-arrive-with-each-days-news/
CIA torture videos destroyed; Bush lies about Iran; time to impeach

How many times have you heard Dubya’s lie that “we do not torture.” Now comes more evidence of cover-up, as the CIA admits to destroying tapes depicting waterboarding and other (fill in here with your favorite euphemism) interrogation techniques. Read about it here. Someone should ask, just what did the president know and when did he know it?

.........

[L. Coyote]

5. How a Search for Iran's Nuclear Arms Program Turned Up an Unexpected Conclusion

Diving Deep, Unearthing a Surprise
How a Search for Iran's Nuclear Arms Program Turned Up an Unexpected Conclusion
By Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers - Saturday, December 8, 2007; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/07/AR2007120702418.html?hpid=moreheadlines


They call them "deep dives," special briefings for President Bush to meet with not just his advisers but also the analysts who study Iran in the bowels of the intelligence world. Starting last year, aides arranged a series of sessions for Bush to "get his hands dirty," in the White House vernacular for digging into intelligence to understand what is known and not known.

Preparing for what might be the defining foreign policy challenge of his final years in office, Bush was struck by the limited intelligence on Tehran's nuclear program and pressed for more, said officials familiar with the sessions. But if Bush hoped for solid evidence that Iran was trying to build nuclear bombs, what came back proved more surprising -- Iran did have a nuclear weapons program but shut it down four years ago.

The new report on Iran released this week underscored the fluid nature of U.S. intelligence and its uncomfortable marriage with the nation's foreign policy. Five years after the botched assessment of Iraq's weapons programs, the new information posed profound challenges to the Bush administration: How could officials be sure it was right this time? What would it mean for Bush's policy of international confrontation with Tehran? And should it be revealed to Congress, U.S. allies and the public at large?

While deeply sensitive to any suggestion of improperly influencing intelligence, White House officials were initially skeptical .........