Ray Mcgovern
December 3, 2008
"I do not know how often Vice President Dick Cheney visited CIA Headquarters during the gestation period, but I am told he voiced his displeasure as soon as he saw the first sonogram/draft very early this year, and is so displeased with what issued that he has refused to be the godfather.
This time Cheney and his neo-con colleagues were unable to abort the process. And after delivery to the press, this child is going to be very hard to explain—the more so since it is legitimate.
The main points of the NIE:
“We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program...
“We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.
“We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely...
“We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.
“We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.”
Having reached these conclusions, it is not surprising that the NIE’s authors make a point of saying up front (in bold type) “This NIE does not (italics in original) assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons.”
This, of course, pulls out the rug from under Cheney’s claim of a “fairly robust new nuclear program” in Iran, and President Bush’s inaccurate assertion that Iranian leaders have even admitted they are developing nuclear weapons."
This report would have been supported with more intelligence on Iran nukes if Valerie Plame and her network in Iran, which focused on intelligence concerning nuclear weapons there, had not been outed by the Cheny gang. Maybe there was method in his criminality since finding the truth is not in his best interest.
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