U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work

Stinger · 12-10-07, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon W. Moon

I'm not sure if I can explain the obvious in a manner that renders it more understandable.

However, if you will try to explaining how a an active nuclear weapon program does NOT make a country more of a threat I'll give it a shot.

I'm talking about THIS specific case, Iran.

What has made them less dangerous? Even this report says they could have a working bomb by sometime between 2009 and 2010.

Simon W. Moon · 12-10-07, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stinger

I'm talking about THIS specific case, Iran.

What has made them less dangerous? Even this report says they could have a working bomb by sometime between 2009 and 2010.

So, if they fired up their nuclear weapons program they wouldn't be any more dangerous than they are now?

Simon W. Moon · 12-10-07, 10:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stinger

Even this report says they could have a working bomb by sometime between 2009 and 2010.

If they do not restart their nuclear weapon program, how long will it take them to build a nuclear weapon?

Stinger · 12-10-07, 11:06 AM

Originally Posted by Stinger

I'm talking about THIS specific case, Iran.

What has made them less dangerous? Even this report says they could have a working bomb by sometime between 2009 and 2010.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon W. Moon

So............?

So, what has made them less dangerous? Even this report says they could have a working bomb by sometime between 2009 and 2010.

Simon W. Moon · 12-10-07, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stinger

So, what has made them less dangerous? Even this report says they could have a working bomb by sometime between 2009 and 2010.

If they do not restart their nuclear weapon program, how long will it take them to build a nuclear weapon?

aquapub · 12-10-07, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfuh

source

2003!!! Not 2007 not 2008 not 2006 , fracking 2003 and yet this year again we had the same bull**** drum roll for a possible military conflict with Iran. Wow another bull**** lie from this administration. Last time with Iraq it was because Afghanistan wasn't going all too smoothly, this time because Iraq wasn't going all this well and again we had all the hawks screaming their heads off about Iran and how we should nuke them.
So again, WHAT FRACKING NUKES!
This is what knee jerk reactionism gets you, absolutely nothing.

1) Finding out now that Iran, as Libya, responded to tough post-9/11 US foreign policies by temporarily stopping their WMD program, while still trying to figure out how to build one, in no way demonstrates that Bush lied about Iran seeking nukes and being a grave threat.

2) Bush wanting to do something about the fanatical regime Democrats installed in Iran-the one that has relentlessly killed our troops and that is responsible for much of the problems in Iraq-and still wanting to do something about such foreign threats now (as dastardly as such a patriotic notion might be to liberals) in no way makes Bush a warmonger.

Hatuey · 12-10-07, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aquapub

1) Finding out now that Iran, as Libya, responded to tough post-9/11 US foreign policies by temporarily stopping their WMD program, while still trying to figure out how to build one, in no way demonstrates that Bush lied about Iran seeking nukes and being a grave threat.

Bush claim Iran had active weapons programs in the year of our lord 2007.

. Which was proven false by the NIE 2007.

Quote:

2) Bush wanting to do something about the fanatical regime Democrats installed in Iran-the one that has relentlessly killed our troops and that is responsible for much of the problems in Iraq-and still wanting to do something about such foreign threats now (as dastardly as such a patriotic notion might be to liberals) in no way makes Bush a warmonger.

Democrats installed the mullahs? I call revisionsim.

aquapub · 12-10-07, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatuey

Bush claim Iran had active weapons programs in the year of our lord 2007.

. Which was proven false by the NIE 2007.

Good job.

This has already been established.

The point I made-the one which you in no way addressed-was that Bush didn't have to be lying in order to claim that Iran was seeking and trying to build nuclear weapons. They had been (and still are)...until they temporarily stopped in response to Bush's post-9/11 policies.

The Senator Democrats kicked out of their tolerant, pro-diversity party for being only 95% liberal said it best:

"...as the NIE makes clear, the Iranian regime has neither verifiably ended nor abandoned its secret nuclear weapons program...Rather, the Iranian regime has at best made a tactical decision to halt certain elements of this program, in response to increased international pressure and scrutiny, and which it may restart at any time...As the NIE also makes clear, the Iranian regime continues to pursue its illegal uranium enrichment program, in violation of its international commitments and in flagrant disregard of the will of the international community..."

Senator Joe Lieberman: News Release

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatuey

Democrats installed the mullahs? I call revisionsim.

Democrats installed the Ayatollah.

Simon W. Moon · 12-10-07, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aquapub

Democrats installed the Ayatollah.

I for one would love to see a cite for this.
So, pretty please, with sugar on top, if you would, could you be so kind as to provide your source for this assertion?

Thank you very, very kindly in advance.

oldreliable67 · 12-10-07, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfuh

2003!!! Not 2007 not 2008 not 2006 , fracking 2003 and yet this year again we had the same bull**** drum roll for a possible military conflict with Iran. Wow another bull**** lie from this administration. Last time with Iraq it was because Afghanistan wasn't going all too smoothly, this time because Iraq wasn't going all this well and again we had all the hawks screaming their heads off about Iran and how we should nuke them.
So again, WHAT FRACKING NUKES!
This is what knee jerk reactionism gets you, absolutely nothing.

These excerpts from a WP story on 12/8 outline the chain of events leading up to the release of the new NIE. Notice in particular the role that Bush plays in moving this project forward:

Quote:

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 origin of the latest intelligence can be traced to the summer of 2004, when an Iranian man turned up in Turkey with a laptop computer and the phone number of a German intelligence officer. He called the number, and within 24 hours, analysts at CIA headquarters in Langley were poring over thousands of pages of drawings and information stored on the computer indicating that Iran had been trying to retrofit its longest-range missile, the Shahab III, to carry a nuclear payload. It was designated Project 1-11 and seemed to confirm a nuclear weapons program.

The information retrieved from the laptop formed the backbone of a National Intelligence Estimate issued in 2005 that declared "with high confidence" that Iran was working to build a bomb. Armed with that, the Bush administration spent the past two years pressing European allies, Russia and China to sanction Iran if it did not give up its uranium enrichment program, despite Tehran's insistence that it was only for civilian energy.

With tension rising, Congress asked last year for a new NIE. Bush was pushing for more information as well during his deep-dive sessions. "We've got to get more information on Iran so we know what they're up to," one official paraphrased Bush saying.

As analysts scrambled to finish by April, they were reaching the conclusion that Iran was still a decade away from nuclear weapons, senior intelligence and administration officials said. For three years, the intelligence community had not obtained new information on Project 1-11, vexing administration officials who worried that a cold trail would lead to doubts about the reliability of the laptop's information. "They just wouldn't budge," complained one such official, who declined to be identified to speak candidly.

By June, analysts had an almost complete draft of a new NIE, and it provoked a sharp debate. "The less data you have, the more you argue," said a source familiar with the discussions. Some officials pressed the CIA's Iran desk to follow up on Project 1-11. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and National Security Agency Director Keith B. Alexander responded by directing vast manpower and technology toward spying on Iranians who may have been involved in the warhead effort.

With Bush pressing for more information, the intelligence community finally came up with something new -- a series of communications intercepts, including snippets of conversations between key Iranian officials, one of them a military officer whose name appeared on the laptop. Two sources said the Iranians complained that the nuclear weapons program had been shuttered four years earlier and argued about whether it would ever be restarted.

There had been clues for those willing to see them. For one thing, the laptop contained no new drawings on its hard drive after February 2003, said officials familiar with it. And during a dinner in Tehran with visiting American experts in 2005, Iranian leaders Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hassan Rowhani flatly declared that the country's nuclear weapons research had been halted because Iran felt it did not need the actual bombs, only the ability to show the world it could.

"Look, as long as we can enrich uranium and master the [nuclear] fuel cycle, we don't need anything else," Rafsanjani said at the dinner, according to George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Our neighbors will be able to draw the proper conclusions."

The evolving NIE bore the imprint of McConnell and his deputies, Thomas Fingar and Donald M. Kerr, friends with decades of national security experience. Fingar in 2005 began changing how information was gathered, filtered and analyzed, and McConnell formalized the new rules after becoming director of national intelligence in February. "He quickly got the mantra down: 'We must make a clear distinction between what we know and don't know and what we judge to be the case,' " said an official present at the time.

As a result, the internal debate over the meaning of the new Iran intelligence was intense and often contentious, with different agencies and individuals clashing over everything from the fine points to the broad conclusions, participants said.

McConnell told Bush about the new information in August during a daily intelligence briefing, but did not provide much detail or anything on paper, White House officials said. Bush periodically asked McConnell for updates. "The president and his advisers were regularly and continuously appraised on new information as we acquired it," an intelligence official said.

Officials also informed House intelligence committee members and key Senate intelligence committee staff members in September, although they were circumspect. "They said, 'We've got new information. We want to make sure we get this thing as close to right as possible,' " said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), the House panel's senior Republican.

One intelligence official said Bush's team expressed concern that the intercepts might be disinformation, so analysts tested that thesis. "They tried to figure out what exactly it would take to perpetrate that kind of deception, how many people would be involved, how they would go about doing it, when it would have been set up and so forth," the official said. Analysts "scrubbed and rescrubbed" more than 1,000 pieces of evidence but concluded Iran's program really had been shut down.

A new draft NIE was prepared in September that was radically different from the June version. As part of the testing process, Hayden and his deputy, Stephen Kappes, convened a murder board of sorts, grilling analysts about their data and conclusions. They "had them in a room and it was kind of 'show me,' " one official said. "And they were a skeptical audience." A similar session was conducted in front of Fingar in late October or early November.

By mid-November, the agencies were ready to deliver their conclusions to the White House. Intelligence officials gave a preliminary briefing Nov. 15 in the Situation Room to Vice President Cheney, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and other senior officials.

The process was climaxing just as Bush was convening a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, a meeting designed at least in part to rally the region against Iran. No one told participants about the new information, but on the same day they were gathering in Annapolis on Nov. 27, the National Intelligence Board met to finalize the new NIE. McConnell and others briefed Bush and Cheney the next day. Even though intelligence officials planned to keep it from the public, Bush later that day passed it on to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Cheney told Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

By last weekend, an intense discussion broke out about whether to keep it secret. "We knew it would leak, so honesty required that we get this out ahead, to prevent it from appearing to be cherry picking," said a top intelligence official. So McConnell reversed himself, and analysts scrambled over the weekend to draft a declassified version.

Points of interest:

> "Bush was struck by the limited intelligence on Tehran's nuclear program and pressed for more, said officials familiar with the sessions."

> Iran was working diligently to adapt its longest-range missile, the Shahab III, to carry a nuclear payload.

> In 2005, Iranian leaders Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hassan Rowhani flatly declared that the country's nuclear weapons research had been halted because Iran felt it did not need the actual bombs, only the ability to show the world it could, and Iran's "neighbors will be able to draw the proper conclusions."

Relating these observations to current events requires one to acknowledge that:

> Iran has continued to develop medium-range ballistic missiles with the capability to carry nuclear payloads, and has, or will have soon, missiles with the capability to reach most of western Europe.

> Iran has the blueprints and the technical expertise with which to construct nuclear warheads, all that is needed to complete the package is the fissile material.

> Iran continues to press forward in its efforts to produce fissile material-whether or not that fissile material is or will be weapons grade or not is still undetermined.

> Whether or not the uranium that Iran continues to enrich is weapons-grade or not remains unknown because Iran continues to obfuscate and not live up to their responsibilities with respect to the additional protocol of the NPT, to which Iran is a signatory. The IAEA's Elbaradei responded to the news of the new NIE as follows:

Quote:

Iran is very keen to see an affirmation of its right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nobody is questioning this right, what is at stake is confidence-building. Until confidence is restored, Iran should put a hold on enrichment-related activities, and to restore this confidence Iran needs to commit to being fully transparent and to start giving the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the full access we need for verification. This includes inspections under the Additional Protocol.

This sounds like anything but a knee-jerk reactionism. The only knee-jerking that I've seen so far is from the usual Bush haters who are quick to jump at any bone without looking to see where it has been buried.

The biggest question is not about Bush. The biggest question is, why will Iran not comply with IAEA requests to, as the IAEA puts it, "clarify specific aspects of its past and present nuclear program as outlined in the work plan and through the implementation of the additional protocol?"

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