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| Another US intelligence failure? |
paraclete |
08/25/06 |
When will Bush get his team together?
US spies slammed for Iran failures
Dafna Linzer in Washington
August 25, 2006
A KEY House of Representatives committee has issued a stinging attack on US intelligence on Iran, saying the CIA and other agencies lack the ability to acquire essential information necessary to make judgements on Tehran's nuclear program or even its ties to terrorism.
The 29-page report, principally written by a Republican staff member on the House of Representatives' intelligence committee, fully backs the White House position that Iran is moving forward with a nuclear weapons program and poses a significant danger. But it attacks intelligence agencies for not providing enough direct evidence to support that claim.
Little evidence has been found to tie Iran to al-Qaeda and to the recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, says the report, which relies exclusively on public documents. Its authors did not interview intelligence officials.
But it warns the agencies to avoid the mistakes made over weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war, saying Iran could easily be engaged in "a denial and deception campaign to exaggerate progress on its nuclear program as Saddam Hussein apparently did concerning his WMD programs".
"We want to avoid another 'slam dunk'," the committee chairman, Peter Hoekstra said, explaining why the staff report was made public. "We think it's important for the American people to understand the kinds of pressures that we are facing and to increase the American public's understanding of Iran as a threat."
The then CIA director, George Tenet, had called prewar intelligence on banned weapons a "slam dunk", but no such arms were ever found.
The report comes as the Bush Administration scrambles for leverage in its bid to force Iran to halt its nuclear program. Some Republicans privately oppose President George Bush's policy of potential engagement with Iran and believe it is crumbling in the face of European reluctance to impose strict measures on Tehran.
A spokesman for the intelligence groups disclosed that the report's principal author was Frederick Fleitz, a former CIA officer who had been a special assistant to John Bolton, a former undersecretary of state at the State Department. Mr Bolton, now US ambassador to the United Nations, had previously influenced the crafting of a tough policy that rejected talks with Tehran.
Coinciding with the report's release, policymakers expressed anger that spy agencies were playing down intelligence - including from the Israeli Government - of extensive contacts between Hezbollah and members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. "The people in the community are unwilling to make judgement calls and don't know how to link anything together," one senior US official said.
"When they say there is 'no evidence,' you have to ask them what they mean? What is the meaning of the term 'evidence'?"
A separate report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London meanwhile has concluded that Iran has replaced the US as the most influential foreign power inside Iraq. It said the turmoil unleashed by the invasion of Iraq gave Tehran the chance to fill the void left by Saddam Hussein's downfall.
The Washington Post, The New York Times
This lack of ability is what has plunged the world into war once, it must not be allowed to do it again! |
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 08/26/06 7:34 am:
We can understand why they plan them down after the African Uranium affair, There is agreat deal of disinformation put out by rival agencies
your kidding ;right ? the one thing we know is a fact is that Iraq was seeking yellow cake uranium . the first wmd retreived from Iraq was uranium ;500 tons at Al-Tuwaitha.If you are relying on the "investigation "by Joe Wilson then you are relying on someone already completely discredited . In hisown words ;this is how he conducted his investigation and came to his conclusions :
from his NY Slimes article :
I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place
Despite some forged documents that were found that the anti-war kooks use as their sole argument against the facts,European intelligence officers revealed that three years before the fake documents became public, human and electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger. One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq.
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