[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.
Click for French version