Betrayal or Deception: The Case of the NIE Report
Mark Silverberg
10 Dec 2007
They must be celebrating in Tehran. On December 3rd, and in direct opposition to the conclusions drawn from Israeli intelligence sources, a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 with no evidence to suggest it had re-started it. "Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons," says the summary's second sentence, while expressing only "moderate confidence" that Tehran has not re-started the military program.
The report says "with high confidence" that Iran did have a secret nuclear weapons program and that it stopped only after it got caught and was threatened with international punishment (like the Iraqi invasion). Presenting the NIE Report, Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley said: “The estimate offers ground for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically without the use of force, as the administration has being trying to do.” The President followed up with calls to world leaders and held a White House news conference to argue that the new National Intelligence Estimate only reinforces the need for more diplomatic pressure against Iran. Bombing Iran, it seems, is now off the table.
On the face of it, it appears to be a betrayal of Israel (that has consistently argued that Iranian nuclear intentions are military not civilian and that Iran will possess nuclear capability possibly as early as the fall of 2008) and a humiliation for an administration that has repeated argued that Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program. As Robert Baer writes:
“The Bush Administration has finally concluded Iran is a bridge too far.”
Iranian President Ahmadinejad has already called it "a victory" for the Iranian nation against world powers. If he's right; if they're both right, then we are fools. In the contest for influence between a U.S.-backed liberal democracy and the champion of radical Islamism (Iran), guess who has just emerged as the strong horse and who the weak horse? The Saudis have pretty well figured it out. Doubtless the Israelis have too…….assuming the NIE Report is for real.
If so, there is good reason to conclude that it is seriously flawed. The distinction between Iran's "military" and "civilian" programs is highly artificial, since the enrichment of uranium, which all agree Iran is continuing, is critical to civilian and military uses. Furthermore, as John Bolton argues in the Washington Post:
“The 2007 NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.”
Besides, the U.S. intelligence community has a poor track record regarding nuclear weapons programs and has made several incorrect judgments on some of the most critical proliferation cases of our time including Iraq, Libya and North Korea.
Nevertheless, if the conclusions of the NIE are allowed to stand, it would appear increasingly improbable that there will be any U.S. military action against Iran for the foreseeable future. Worse, the implications of the Report suggest that Israel will be left alone to deal with Iran and the radical Islamic wave sweeping through the Middle East - that is, unless the NIE is part of a massive deception plan.
A theory? Certainly. An unfounded theory. Certainly not. After all, both the Gulf Arabs and Israel are consumed by the probability (not possibility) that Iran will go nuclear - NIE or no NIE - and neither can be expected to sit back (or let America sit back) and allow that to happen. The Report comes as the Arab world has been countering Ahmadinejad's rhetoric and his government's influence over the presidential turmoil in Lebanon, the politics in Syria, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Report did nothing to allay Arab fears over Iran's nuclear intentions and its secretive program to enrich uranium. The Saudis are literally holding hands with Ahmedinejad (as they did recently in Doha), but both the Saudis and Israelis are convinced that he's a rabid dog that must be eliminated. Israel, for its part, whether in coalition or on its own, cannot and will not ever allow Iran under the mullahs to acquire nuclear weapons.
The facts overwhelmingly suggest that Iran is still pursuing nuclear weapons for military purposes. Therefore, despite the NIE Report, a U.S.-sponsored campaign of deception cannot be dismissed.
Believing Ahmedinejad
As Gerard Baker wrote recently in the Times of London: "Those who say war with Iran is unthinkable are right. Military strikes, even limited, targeted, and accurate ones, will have devastating consequences for the region and for the world. There are many fearfully powerful arguments against the use of the military option. But multiplied together, squared, and then cubed, the weight of these arguments does not come close to matching the case for us to stop, by whatever means may be necessary, Iran from becoming a nuclear power."
Born to a blacksmith, educated as a revolutionary, trained as a killer and attacked as a mystical fanatic, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the personification of everything there is to fear about a nuclear Iran. He has stated, not once but on many occasions, and not privately, but publicly in many world forums, that Israel is a cancer that will be "wiped off the map", that "the Holocaust was a myth", and that "if there is to be a Jewish State, it should be in Europe or Alaska."
The religious ideology of the Islamic republic is tied to the belief that Iran's Supreme Leaders (Ayatollahs Khomeini and later Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) are just temporary guides pending the return of the Imam Mahdi who vanished more than a thousand years ago. Ahmadinejad has linked himself to a mystical movement that believes the way must be prepared (through Armageddon) for the return of the Mahdi and that is precisely what he is doing.
Nor are his threats new. Several years ago, Iran's former President Rafsanjani stated that "the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam" (showing an appalling ignorance on the ramifications that would necessarily flow from a nuclear exchange). And speaking to Hamas leaders recently in Damascus, Ahmadinejad confirmed that the Middle East conflict, for the Islamic government of Iran, has become "the locus of the final war" between Muslims and the West.
So why should we take this Iranian rhetoric seriously? Because, such rhetoric comes from the same Islamic regime that, twenty years ago, sent Iranian children scurrying across Iraqi minefields with yellow plastic "keys to Paradise" made in Taiwan hanging around their necks. Thousands were sacrificed as "martyrs for Allah." While many may not believe that Ahmedinejad intends to carry out his threat (by the way, the world didn't believe Hitler in Mein Kampf or Saddam Hussein's stated intentions to invade Kuwait either), the Israelis, the Saudis and yes, I suspect even the Americans are convinced that he does. A "balance of terror" deterrence philosophy may have worked during the Cold War, but we live in the post-Cold War era and the Iranian mullahs are not the Communists.
Following the Evidence…
There is certainly sufficient evidence to support the fact that Iran is buying time and pursuing a nuclear weapons program with a vengeance. Even now, Tehran's scientists are working to master the skills to make nuclear fuel - the hardest part of building a weapon. The Iranians have brought in Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, and North Korean technology to develop a nuclear weapons infrastructure that far surpasses their need for civilian energy. They have broken the seals on their critical nuclear reactors, announced that they have attained nuclear fission production capability and made fools of IAEA inspectors (not to mention the Europeans and Americans).
So is Israel spinning tales about Iran's nuclear plans? The evidence strongly suggests otherwise. Beginning with the August 2002 announcement by the Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), it was clear that Iran had concealed a clandestine nuclear weapons program for the preceding fourteen years. Satellite imagery has confirmed a conversion plant at Isfahan, uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz, a plutonium/heavy water processing center at Arak*, a uranium hexafluoride gas (a critical component in nuclear weapons production) production site near Isfahan in central Iran and many other sites throughout the country, and the Iranians were none to happy about our knowledge of them.
After the NCRI revealed the existence of the Lavizan laser enrichment site near Tehran in 2004, a full year after the NIE now says Iran's nuclear weapons program supposedly ended, the regime razed the site to the ground, removed the topsoil and every single tree in the vicinity in order to conceal any trace of radioactivity (as the Syrians did recently after the Israeli air strike on their nuclear facility on September 6, 2007). All equipment from that site was moved to a new site at Lavizan II, where the laser enrichment activity resumed.
And just last month, the IAEA issued a report criticizing Tehran for providing "diminishing" information and access to its current program. According to Clare Lopez, writing in the December 4, 2007 issue of Middle East Times:
“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 2004 discovery of polonium inside Iran also would seem strong evidence that Iran was involved well past 2003 in the production of trigger systems for nuclear warheads. Corroboration of the IAEA's findings came from the NCRI, which detailed an ongoing program of polonium and berylium acquisition by Iran. There are simply no other credible uses for these rare and expensive isotopes than warhead triggers. Even more recently, the November 2006 death of former KGB officer Andrei Litvinenko by self-ingested polonium blew the lid off a polonium smuggling operation that transited through London en route to Iran and other end users, including al-Qaeda and the Chechens."
According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on February 16, 2006, the reformist Internet daily Rooz reported for the first time that extremist clerics from Qom had even issued what the Daily called "a new fatwa" which states that "shari'a (Islamic law) does not forbid the use of nuclear weapons"……..and during the past year, a period when Iran's weapons program was supposedly halted, the government has been busy installing some 3,000 gas centrifuges at its plant at Natanz.
The Israeli Factor
Notwithstanding the NIE Report, there is little doubt within Israeli intelligence circles (nor has there been for some time) that Tehran's goal is to confront the world with an irreversible nuclear fait accomplis and to use its nuclear shield to exert Iranian Islamic hegemony throughout the region. Secure behind that nuclear shield, it will accelerate its campaign of terror around the world by proliferating weapons of mass destruction to its international terrorist affiliates.
Worse, it will ignite a nuclear arms race in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria, each of which has been working diligently for the past several years to develop its own nuclear capability. Had Saddam Hussein delayed his invasion of Kuwait until he resurrected his damaged nuclear program, Kuwait would now be an Iraqi province and perhaps Saudi Arabia as well. Weapons of mass destruction controlled by the world's least stable and most erratic dictatorial and Islamic regimes would be a recipe for Armageddon.
Given these fears, Iran must be fully aware that a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear facilities could be imminent. Having learned from the 1981 Israeli air strike that destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor, the mullahs are racing against time to dig a network of tunnels and upgrade Iranian air defenses with Russian ground-to-air missiles to protect their nuclear facilities from another pre-emptive strike. They are spreading their nuclear facilities around the country burying many of them in hardened bunkers in the sides of mountains and in some cases, under-populated areas contrary to all international Conventions. That, however, may not be enough. As nuclear expert Edward Luttwak has noted, some of these Iranian installations may be thickly protected against air attack, but:
“…..it seems that their architecture has not kept up with the performance of the latest penetration bombs.”
Furthermore, the mullahs must know that in September 2003, Israel's foreign intelligence service (Mossad) began reorganizing its international infrastructure by enhancing its "Delta-Force" capabilities suggesting not only sabotage but regime change as well.
They also must know that in early 2005, the first shipment of F-15I long-range strategic bombers arrived in Israel (including a separate shipment of “bunker-buster bombs”) from the U.S. and that others have arrived since that time. These bombers are capable of traveling well over a thousand miles without refueling - an absolutely critical strategic necessity if long-range targeted bombing in Iran is undertaken.
And one can assume that Iranian scientists have read Jane's Defence Weekly and noted the Israeli purchase of several new Dolphin-class diesel submarines from Germany each having both stealth capability and the ability to launch tactical nuclear missile payloads at hardened targets (not to mention the enormous strides made by Israel in Ofek satellite technology). In that regard, Israel has also perfected its Arrow II anti-ballistic missile defense system using every existing missile in the Iranian arsenal as "targets" despite the fact that Israeli intelligence continues to believe that Iran is not yet able to produce a shaped nuclear warhead for its Shabab-3 missiles.
There are even rumors that “air corridors” have been created over Iraq that would allow Israeli warplanes to be painted as “friendlies” by U.S. forces - thereby protecting them from American ant-aircraft fire.
Then there is the not-so-secret air base being built near the northern Iraqi town of Kirkuk thought to be one of the more important staging areas for a pre-emptive strike. Turkey has allowed the U.S. to pre-position an estimated ninety tactical nuclear weapons on its territory. These weapons can be deployed against Iranian targets if needed……..and the Persian Gulf continues to remain awash with high-tech American warships of every class awaiting “further instructions.”
Faced with these activities, there is a distinct possibility that the West has already made its decision to end the Islamic regime and has decided to put forth a bogus NIE Report to deflect Iranian attention.
Two years ago, Israel's former Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz responded to a reporter's question - "How far would Israel go to stop Iran's nuclear program?"
"Two thousand kilometers," he replied.
………….. and now the American intelligence community is telling us that they may have been mistaken about Iran's nuclear intentions since 2003, and that the Bush administration favors a diplomatic offensive as opposed to a military one to create a legacy of diplomatic peacemaking in the Middle East.
Sorry. I just don't buy it. America's intelligence agencies must know that, one morning, we will all wake up to a nuclear Iran unless the Islamic revolution is ended. Something else is happening here. We just couldn't be that stupid.
Source: Analyst network
Saudi, Iran settling scores in Iraq
MANAMA (Agencies): Iraq’s National Security Advisor on Sun-day called on Gulf states to form a regional security pact, which would include Iran, while he reassured the area’s US allies that Baghdad is “heading West” in its foreign policies. But Mouaffak al-Rubaie also criticised Saudi Arabia and Iran for what he called settling scores on Iraqi soil and called for regional reconciliation that put sectarian differences aside. “It is extremely important to have a regional reconciliation rather than having this heightened sectarian tension in the region,” he told delegates at a security conference held in the Bahraini capital Manama. “That is why Iraq is looking seriously to call for a regional security pact like the good old (1954 anti-Soviet alliance) Baghdad Pact or a Nato-style pact, with a set agenda: counter terrorism, counter narcotics, counter religious extremism and counter sectarianism,” he said.
The Iraqi official said security in the region was “indivisable. You cannot stabilise Iraq and destablise Iran, for example.” Iraqi Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi meanwhile agreed that Iran should be included in any regional security arrangement. “It is our destiny to live with Iran... It is inevitable ... that we should work on regional arrangements that lead Iran to be a source of good to the region and not a source of harm,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the conference, which Iran decided at the last minute not to attend. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates had told participants on Saturday that Washington saw Tehran’s foreign policies as a threat to the Middle East and all countries within the range of the missiles he said it was developing. Rubaie meanwhile made it clear to the Sunni-dominated Gulf countries that Baghdad was set to strengthen its ties with the United States, in an apparent bid to dampen their concerns over the influence of Shiite Iran over the Iraqi govenment. “A long term relationship of cooperation and friendship between Iraq and the United States of America will be a great relief for all the GCC countries and all the countires in the region. This is to ensure that the strategic direction of Iraq is very clear to everybody in the region,” he said.
“We are heading West,” he added. In a strongly-worded address, Rubaie complained of an Iran-Saudi proxy conflict raging in Iraq and accused some regional countries of meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs. “From where we sit in Baghdad and from an Iraqi prespective... we see competition turned into conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran on the soil of Iraq. “Some of the regional countries are tempted to meddle in Iraqi internal affairs... Some... are helping in fuelling the sectarian conflicts and maintaining the political stagnation in my country,” he said. But he pointed out that Baghdad’s engagement with neighbouring countries had “encouraged Saudi Arabia to apply effective measures on the flow of Saudi young men, so-called jihadists (holy warriors), to come to Iraq.
“(It) also has encouraged Saudi Arabia to apply a tightened control on the flow of funds coming to the jihadists in Iraq.” As for Iran, he highlighted “some good measures on tightening the control over the borders and making it difficult for arms shipments (to reach) the militias,” while Syria has taken measures “to tighten the control in Damascus airport and stopping foreign terrorists from crossing the borders to Iraq.” Damascus has been accused of helping the Sunni insurgency, while Tehran is accused of backing Shiite factions who are opposed to the US presence in the country. Rubaie’s comments did not go unnoticed by the head of the Saudi delegation, who rejected the claim that the kingdom was competing with Tehran in Iraq. “We do not compete with anyone, except for good and unity, mainly when it concerns a brotherly country (Iraq) that is a friend and a neighbour,” said Prince Faisal bin Abdullah al-Saud, the deputy chief of Saudi General Intelligence.
Killed
A roadside bomb killed the Iraqi police chief of a predominantly Shi’ite province south of Baghdad on Sunday just hours after US military commanders had publicly praised his efforts to secure his region. The attack on Major-General Qais al-Mamouri’s convoy follows a threat by an al-Qaeda-linked group to carry out car bomb attacks and strikes on Iraqi security forces and neighbourhood security patrols working with US soldiers. Police said Mamouri, police chief of Babel province, was killed when the bomb struck his convoy near the local capital Hilla, 100 kms (60 miles) south of Baghdad. They said it was the seventh attempt on Mamouri’s life since he became Babel police chief a few years ago. Police immediately declared a curfew in Hilla. At a media briefing hours before the blast, US commanders responsible for areas including Babel had lauded Mamouri.
“We’re very lucky in Babel province to have Major-General Qais, who is a very good Iraqi police chief for that province,” Colonel Tom James, commander of a US combat brigade in north Babel, told reporters. “He is committed to securing Iraq for the people, the population. He does not see anything through a sectarian lens, it’s all about Iraqi law, and the people see that.” Asked for the US military’s reaction to his assassination, a spokeswoman said: “This is a terrible loss.” A roadside bomb killed the police chief of Diwaniya province in southern Iraq in August. Other provincial police chiefs across Iraq have survived numerous assassination attempts. During the media briefing, military commanders said about 1,400 US soldiers would launch a fresh assault next week against al-Qaeda gunmen who are regrouping around Babel. The offensive would target al-Qaeda militants in small hamlets and fishing villages along the Euphrates River valley.
Babel is expected to be one of the next provinces to revert to the control of Iraqi security forces. Iraqi forces have taken back security responsibility from multinational forces for eight of the country’s 18 provinces. The US military says Iraq’s forces have improved steadily but there is no timetable for a rush of provincial handovers as the United States begins the gradual withdrawal of more than 20,000 soldiers by July 2008. That drawdown has been made possible by falls in violence across most of Iraq following a build-up of US forces. US military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith told a separate news conference that attacks had fallen 60 percent since June. The number of roadside bombings fell 15 percent in November from October, he said. Smith was speaking before news of Mamouri’s death was announced.
US military commanders have also reported a decrease in attacks using Iranian-made weapons, a development some Iraqi officials hope will lead to better dialogue between Washington and Tehran over security in Iraq. On Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Iraqi officials had proposed holding the next round of talks between the United States and Iran to discuss security in Iraq in January. Officials from the two foes, at odds over who is to blame for violence in Iraq and over Iran’s disputed nuclear ambitions, have held three rounds of discussions in Baghdad since May. The last meeting was in August. “We are now studying the proposal and we will decide about the level of participation,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said. This year’s Iranian-US talks on Iraq’s security eased a diplomatic freeze that lasted almost three decades.
Surrender
Turkey is considering a new plan to entice Kurdish rebels to surrender and cease recruiting new fighters, the prime minister said, according to local media on Sunday. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said an existing amnesty had not had the desired results, and that his government was working with the military to prepare new legislation to make the rebels surrender, Hurriyet newspaper reported. Erdogan did not give details of the proposed plan, but said it also aimed to stop recruitment to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, according to the newspaper.
An existing amnesty program pardons rebels who leave the PKK voluntarily and who have not been engaged in fighting, but it so far has failed to lure most rebels into giving up. “With a new effort, we can minimize, stop recruits,” Erdogan was quoted by Hurriyet as saying during a conversation with Turkish newspaper reporters on his way to an EU-Africa summit in Portugal. Turkish army helicopters in recent weeks have dropped thousands of leaflets on mountain paths used by the PKK members to infiltrate Turkey. The leaflets tell of the already existing amnesty and urge rebels to leave the PKK. The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in the predominantly Kurdish southeast since 1984, when it launched its first attack on a military outpost.
After a volley of rebel attacks killed dozens of people, public pressure has built up on the government, urging it to hit the PKK bases in neighboring Iraq’s north. Last week, the military said it fired on a group of about 50 to 60 PKK guerrillas inside Iraqi territory, inflicting “significant losses.” It did not say whether Turkish troops had crossed into Iraq for the operation. Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said later the military operation involved only air force strikes – not land forces. The United States and Iraq have pressured Turkey to avoid a large-scale attack on rebel bases in northern Iraq, fearing such an operation would destabilize what has been Iraq’s calmest region. Washington has agreed to share intelligence about rebel positions in the region. And the Iraqi Kurdish administration in northern Iraq has promised to prevent the rebels from attacking Turkey.
Britons
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday demanded the release of five Britons being held hostage by an Iraqi Shiite group. Brown said his government would do everything in its power to win the freedom of the four security guards and one computer expert who were seized from a government compound in Baghdad about six months ago. The men’s captors released a videotape of one of the five victims Tuesday coupled with the demand that Britain pull all its forces from Iraq. It was the first public proof that any of them were alive. “We will do everything in our power to secure our objective, which is the immediate release of the hostages,” Brown said in a televised statement. “(Iraqi) Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his ministers and others are doing a tremendous amount to secure the release of the hostages and I want to thank them for what they have done.”
The kidnapping took place on May 29, when about 40 gunmen in police uniforms and driving vehicles used by Iraqi security forces grabbed the men from an Iraqi Finance Ministry compound. Suspicion has fallen on Shiite splinter groups that the United States believes have been trained and funded by Iran. The video was posted as Britain prepares to hand over security control of oil-rich Basra province – the last of four regions of southern Iraq it occupied after the 2003 invasion – to the Iraqis in mid-December. British troops withdrew in September from their last base in Basra city to an airport garrison on the outskirts, and half the 5,000 British troops in Iraq are due to go home by the spring. Four of those abducted were security workers for the Montreal-based firm GardaWorld; the fifth was an employee of BearingPoint, a McLean, Virginia-based management consulting firm. BearingPoint has been working in Iraq since 2003 on a US Agency for International Development-funded contract to support economic recovery and reform.
Al-Douri
Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad Al-Bolani on Sunday revealed that the security forces are on constant pursuit of leaders of the Baath Party wanted to justice, pointing out that security was improving in Baghdad as a result of the increase of the Iraqi forces in the streets of the capital. Al-Biolani said in a press conference held in Baghdad today that there are about 3,000 security elements of the secret police currently working on the prosecution of Saddam’s former vice-president Ezzat Al-Douri and member of the national leadership of the Baath party Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed inside Iraq.
The minister added that the special forces were also pursuing those classified by the government as (important wanted suspects), as well as the prosecution of kidnapping cells, pointing to the arrest of 1,174 kidnappers and the freeing of hundreds of hostages. The minister indicated that these forces are receiving support and special training, adding that their numbers would increase according to the need of the ministry. He also disclosed that security in Baghdad has improved remarkably due to the further spread of the Iraqi forces in the streets of the capital, stressing that 100,000 security elements have been deployed in Baghdad alone and carry out the duties of pursuing terrorists. He also pointed out that his ministry had recently formed six security divisions that have been integrated into the leadership of the Iraqi border forces to help control the border and prevent the infiltration of terrorists.
Also:
SAN ANTONIO, Texas: More than a year after Spc Alejandro Albarran lost part of his right leg in an explosion in Iraq, his wife has graduated from US Army basic training – enlisting to take his place in uniform. “After everything he’s gone through – and he loves the Army – he kind of inspired me,” said Janay Albarran, 19. “I made him a promise that I would finish what he started.” She graduated Friday, gaining the rank of private.
Alejandro Albarran, meanwhile, still has not decided whether he will stay in the Army. “Right now, I’m leaning against it,” said the 20-year-old infantryman, looking ahead with distaste to a possible desk job because of his new prosthetic leg. About 24,000 of the Army’s soldiers, about 9 percent of the force, are married to other soldiers. The Army does not have any statistics on how many join after a spouse or family member is badly wounded in combat, but a spokeswoman, Maj Anne Edgecomb, said she has heard of people joining after the injury or death of a sibling and at least one woman who joined after her husband was killed in combat. “The courage of our soldiers and their families is remarkable,” she said. The couple married in February 2006, and he was sent to Iraq six months later.
Source: Arab times Online
