Oh Boy...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.
Analysts believe that Iranian staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation.
"Good morning, you've reached the Iranian Secret Nuke Center, how may I direct your call?"
"Uhhh...hi, this is the CIA. Can we talk to your public relations office?"
"Certainly, sir. I'll connect you immediately!"
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."
| That's a major point, isn't it, and it's one of the reasons why Dick Cheney set up his own, parallel analysis group: he didn't trust the CIA. Apparently he has reasons. Let's remember the CIA missed the development of the Pakistani bomb in 1998, and missed that the Indians were going to test their own bombs in response. Let's remember that the CIA missed completely the parallel, distributed development of the 'Islamic bomb' as envisioned by Khan. Let's remember that the only reason we know about the Libyan effort in this is because they came clean. If the Hildebeast were to win the Presidency, one of the first things she'd have to do is either clean out CIA or set up her own analysis group to double-check everything they do with regard to nuclear proliferation. CIA has missed the boat too often for a responsible president to do anything else. |
The Foreign Office is studying a new text of a third United Nations Security Council resolution that would impose tough travel bans on regime figures and penalise banks that do business with Iran. But diplomats say the chances of winning Chinese and Russian support for the move are in freefall. A Western diplomat said: "It's created a lot of difficulties because of the timing, just as we were about to go for a third resolution."
| This is exactly what the CIA people who wrote the new NIE wanted. They knew Bush would mouth a few public words at them and keep doing what he felt he needed to do; what they wanted was to give the Russians and Chinese an excuse to back away from any tougher measures against Iran. That worked. Now there's two conclusions one can draw from this -- 1) The CIA people who wrote the report are just horrified, horrified as to the thought of military action against Iran, and are willing to fudge a report to make sure it doesn't happen, because war is bad for people and living things. 2) These people are on the other side. I'm beginning to figure out which option is more likley. |
| Which was their intention. |
| The CIA, by ensuring that sanctions can't go forward, have made war more likely, not less likely. I doubt that was their intention. It pro'ly won't be Bush who takes military action but our next President. |