The Politics Of The NIE 2007: Iran

Back in 2004, American defense and intelligence officials were given a bombshell report from General Ihor Smeshko, head of the Ukrainian Secret Service.

Intelligence and Pentagon officials were in London discussing WMD's in Iraq with Britain's MI6 when they were advised by General Smeshko that Iran had been attempting to persuade the Ukraine to give them access to their nuclear technology.

John Shaw, who was at that time the Pentagon's deputy secretary for international technology security, stated that, according to Smeshko, the Iranians weren't interested in the technology for energy purposes.

Now, Intelligence officials are saying that Iran is no longer a threat. According to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iran is continuing their enrichment program but they have ceased any weaponizing attempts. The funny thing is that according the NIE report, Iran halted the program in 2003, a year before the meeting in London.

Obviously, something isn't right here. American Intelligence has insisted for the last couple of years, all they way up to just a few months ago, that Iran is determined to enrich Uranium to develop nuclear weapons. All of a sudden, almost overnight, they have done a complete turnaround.

One major fact that anyone who is following this has to realize is that most of the 700 or so page report remains classified. My curiosity wants to know what else is in that report.

Gut instinct tells me that this report on Iran is purely political in nature. President Bush's war on terror started with noble intentions in Afghanistan. When President Bush pleaded his case to go into Iraq, most politicians were on board. The list of those who were for an Iraq invasion included many of the Democrats that have been calling it an unjust war since they took control of congress, including Harry Reid, John Murtha and Hillary Clinton. With the intelligence we had - and it was good solid intelligence - just about everyone from the top down in Washington thought it was a good idea.

We now have senators and representatives who say that we were lied to. They say President Bush manipulated the intelligence community to give him a reason to go to war. We now have an intelligence community who appear unanimous in their estimate that Iran is no longer a threat. This, by all accounts, seems to be perfectly okay with the current Democrat-led Congress.

As long as the information suits their agenda, they will back the Intelligence agencies 110%, and give them what they want. The authors of the latest NIE report need to be looked at with suspicion. Thomas Fingar, Kenneth Brill and Vann Van Diepen, all former State Department officials, have had an ax to grind with President Bush since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. They have also been very vocal about their opposition to Iranian sanctions.

There are currently a handful in congress now who are beholden to the far left ideology of "Take down Bush at all costs". It seems that I remember a lot of moderates who were not on that bandwagon before the last election who have changed their politics. These are the cowards who will side with only the team that is winning, who seek shelter at any change in the wind.

You just simply can't have it both ways. Intelligence in the United States is political in nature. There are agents and officials jockeying for positions in various cabinets and departments. Being shrouded in secrecy, it is easy to manipulate any data or information to suit ones agenda without much outside scrutiny. All too often, the security of the United States and its citizens are what suffers. Anyone can do just a little research on the internet and see the intelligence failures in just the last fifteen or so years, failures that could have prevented tragedy.

All in all, we don't know, and probably won't know, what is in the rest of the NIE on Iran until we are either old and gray or have passed on. We didn't know everything in 2003 and we sure as hell don't know now. Iran is a threat, and this latest blunder in intelligence has emboldened Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his regime. He is gaining friends at an alarming pace, friends that are powerful and can inflict damage on the United States on various fronts.

When all is said and done, who will take responsibility for sacrificing American security for the sake of politics?