French Spy Chief: Iran Outsmarted U

                                                          [The Telegraph, U.K.]

 

 

Le Figaro, France

American Report on Iran Nukes

'a Fake' Designed to 'Save Face'

 

"This [NIE] is deliberate American disinformation. ... the publication of this NIE is a further example of the politicization and manipulation of American intelligence."

 

By Éric Denécé and Alain Rodier, director and research director, respectively, of the Research Center on intelligence Matters (a Paris-based research institute).

 

Translated By James Jacobson

 

December 20, 2007

 

France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)

On December 3, the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI), a body attached to the White House that centralizes information provided by all American intelligence agencies, issued a report (a National Intelligence Estimate or NIE ) which guessed that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in the autumn of 2003. This document, drafted in mid-2007, says that for the immediate future, Iran in not a nuclear threat, and that the Iranian regime is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than the U.S. had thought back in 2005. But the report stressed that Teheran continues to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, and it estimates that if the Iranian military effort were launched again, the country could produce nuclear warheads between 2010 and 2015.

 

This is a radical about-face. Released in 2005, the previous NIE on the Iranian nuclear program emphasized Teheran’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons. It was on the basis of this report that President Bush called for more sanctions and was contemplating the use of force against Teheran.

 

The NIE is a summary of what the various U.S. intelligence agencies forecast on topics of major interest. It is drafted at the request of the political authorities or members of Congress and is not the result of a jointly-executed analysis. The report is prepared by DNI analysts. The text is then circulated to the agencies concerned to collect their input. This is a process that necessarily takes several months. Sometimes the services that supply intelligence on the subject don't even recognize their contributions to the final report.

 

The intelligence at the heart of this NIE comes mainly from intercepted telephone conversations between Iranian military officials, in which they complain about the decision to halt weapons development. These wiretappings were allegedly collected by the Government Communications Headquarters , the British eavesdropping service.

 

In the world of intelligence, it is customary to attribute to the interception services, information obtained from human sources that one wants to protect. Along these lines, it is legitimate for one to consider the case of Ali Reza Asghari, the Revolutionary Guard general who defected at the beginning of the year .

 

SEVERAL ASSUMPTIONS CAN BE FORMULATED

 

It is important to treat the content of this report with great caution. Indeed since the end of 2002, the politicization of American intelligence, which has been under constant pressure from the authorities, has prompted the presentation of the facts based on points of view that favor the political objectives of the White House or the Pentagon. A few examples: the creation of the Office of Special Plans  in order to justify the war in Iraq; the masquerade February 2003 session at the United Nations, where despite the presence of director George Tenet beside Colin Powell, members of the CIA were shocked by the assertions of the Secretary of State WATCH ; the revelation of the real position [outing] of CIA officer Valérie Plame in order to undermine her husband, a diplomat whose report pointed out that Iraq didn't acquire uranium from Nigeria, and so on. Examples of the manipulation of the facts by American authorities are legion. As a result, several assumptions can be made about the effect sought by releasing this latest NIE.

 

First - it's true that the new assumptions must be taken into account. But that means that the previous NIE of 2005, which asserted that Iran was continuing its military weapons research, was wrong. That report was drafted on the basis of information received up to the end of 2004. If analysts were so heavily deceived then, how much credence should we give their report from December 2007?

 

But this is an erroneous analysis. U.S. intelligence officials are now mistaken to assert that Iran's nuclear weapons program has been halted; the NIE from 2005 was accurate. Error is an integral part of intelligence. The Americans already demonstrated this through their erroneous analysis on Iraqi WMDs in 2002, which was the heart of President Bush’s decision to topple Saddam Hussein.

 

This is Iranian misinformation. The Teheran authorities know they are under constant surveillance by the American, British and Israeli interception services. They could have "staged" these false discussions to mislead their opponents or may have sent the other side a double-agent [Ali Reza Asghari ]. By 2002, the Iranians were already engaged in a misinformation campaign: thanks to false information transmitted by the Baghdad regime's opponents, Tehran had confirmed Washington's belief in the existence of Iraq's WMDs. They goal was twofold: to get rid of Saddam Hussein and draw the Americans into the Iraqi trap, so Baghdad would no longer have the military capacity to attack them.

 

The new NEI is a fake. Iran continues to pursue its nuclear weapons program, but the Americans have decided to backtrack to save face. The strategic response put in place by Teheran in the event of hostilities seems to have worked nicely. Confronted with catastrophic consequences for the balance of power in the Middle East (military strikes in neighboring countries, a global terrorist campaign, support for insurgencies across the Middle East: Lebanon, Gaza, Kurdistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., the elimination of the domestic political opposition blocking short-term hope of democratic change), Washington abandoned the military option.

 

This [NIE] is deliberate American disinformation. Iran is still developing nuclear weapons, but Washington wants Teheran to relax its vigilance in the event of a military operation. It is, however, unlikely that the U.S. would resort to the Machiavellian maneuver of making the announcement just to deceive Teheran, and then hitting it militarily. For by executing such maneuver, the United States would be mocking and deceiving its allies.

 

This is a political maneuver. With less than a year until presidential elections, this could be driven by the U.S. Congress or President Bush's putative successors, in order to prevent him from triggering a new conflict, the consequences of which he would not have to bear. In this case, the publication of this NIE is a further example of the politicization and manipulation of American intelligence.

 

In the current state of affairs, the NIE puts an end to speculation about a future military intervention against Iran, because it no longer seems justified. It has inflicted a blow against President Bush. Based on the report, the opposition Democrats are already calling for a new politics toward Iran. There’s no doubt that this issue will be widely exploited in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign.

 

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President Bush argues Iran is still a threat - and force still an option - at the White House, Dec. 5.

—BBC NEWS VIDEO: Bush on the 'defensive' over recent U.S. intelligence report, Dec. 5, 00:01:56WindowsVideo

RealVideo[LATEST NEWSWIRE PHOTOS: Iranian Nuclear Program].

—BBC NEWS VIDEO: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is treating the outcome of a U.S. report on Tehran's nuclear program as a 'great victory, Dec. 5, 00:02:44WindowsVideo

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: He has declared 'victory,' after American intelligence estimated that his government stopped its nuclear weapons research program in 2003. But was the report actually an attempt to assist his more moderate opponents in the upcoming elections?





Hashemi Rafsanjani: Some believe the American intelligence estimate released last week was aimed at assisting he and other moderate opponents of the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.


Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami: Another beneficiary of America's most recent intelligence estimate on Iran.





— Debate on the effects of Iranian policies on the Middle East, Sept. 25, 00:04:49, Al-Jazeera TV, Qatar, Via MEMRIRealVideo