Posts with the tag 'NIE'
Interesting report over at NRO’s The Corner:
Eli Lake reports that top spy Michael McConnell has had second thoughts about the National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program. If the goal of the NIE was to tie Bush’s hands, it succeeded marvelously. Eli writes:
The director of national intelligence is backing away from his agency’s assessment late last year that Iran had halted its nuclear program, saying he wishes he had written the unclassified version of the document in a different manner. …
The release of the December 2007 estimate at best delayed American diplomatic efforts to pass a third U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning Iran’s uranium enrichment, an activity the mullahs have continued for two years despite warnings from all five permanent members of the security council. The estimate also drew rare rebukes from American allies, including Israel, France, and the United Kingdom who said their intelligence agencies did not concur with the American assessment that Iran had frozen its plan to produce an A-bomb.
I tried to get into the Lake article, but I think half the blogospher hit the link once it showed up on NRO - if correct, this story shows that at least part of the intelligence community was determined to thwart President Bush’s policy towards Iran’s nuclear program. As to why President Bush would along with such subversion - simple, he had to. In a dishonest age, it is difficult at times to immediately combat a clever lie. Had Bush suppressed the report, the fact of its suppression would have been leaked and it would have looked in idiot MSM reporting like President Bush had something to hide - so, Bush was forced to grit his teeth and put lipstick on the pig.
Hopefully, however, the truth will come out, and come out soon - because if this NIE was bogus, then we need to move very, very quickly against Iran.
Tags: Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons
February 6th, 2008
When the CIA was founded in 1947, a large portion of the initial personnel were recruited from the World War Two-era Office of Strategic Services (OSS). An unfortunate fact of life about the OSS is that it was heavily staffed with communists and fellow travellers. The reason for this? Simple - we were fighting on the side of communist Russia in WWII, and a communist OSS operative would (a) likely never voluntarily surrender to the Nazis and (b) would never turn traitor for the Nazis. Of course, these communists were not at all adverse to working for communist Russia once the United States and Russia came into a post-WWII collision course.
Essentially, CIA was founded with a built in series of moles who were highly placed - and not only able to provide secrets to the communists and deceive American policy-makers, but they were also able to continually recruit and advance like-minded individuals in the CIA over the years. It should be kept in mind that when CIA was founded and the FBI suggested background checks on employees of the new agency, CIA said they would take care of it themselves. As far as I know, there has never been an indepedent audit of CIA personnel - and given the number of moles which have emerged in the CIA over the past 60 years, it seems very likely that a certain percentage of CIA employees continue to give their loyalty to persons, nations and movements other than the United States of America.
Robert Novak notes a growing dismay - partially bi-partisan - over the way the CIA is behaving as a policy-making rather than advisory-and-executive organization on matters of intelligence. The recent NIE on Iraq - while a multi-agency product - is heavily CIA in content and was clearly designed to influence policy rather than offer dispassionate advice. I believe this and other outrages and failures of the CIA is attributable to a continuing fifth collumn (as it were) in the CIA - and it is good to understand that once a spy, always a spy; once a foreign entity recruits you, you can’t un-recruit yourself save by turning yourself in to the authorities, with all its risk of long-term incarceration. It doesn’t matter that the USSR which originally penetrated the CIA is no more - the Republic of Russia retains its spies, who are traitors whether they are working for the USSR or the Republic of Russia. Russian policy vis a vis Iran is to thwart US action against Iran’s nuclear program - and its just too neat a coincidence that just as crunch time is coming on Iran’s nukes, a NIE comes out saying, in effect, “no worries”.
Of course, I could be wrong - the recent NIE could be the absolute truth of the matter. But I don’t know - and I don’t know because there is no reason for anyone to place any reliance on information which comes from - or is influenced by - the CIA. Too many traitors have been proven to be there for us to have anything other but very strong doubts. The only way to break this particular logjam is to just abolish the organization.
It is certain that most of the employees of the CIA are dedicated Americans who want what is best for the nation - and we can re-hire them at a successor agency, but only after an exhaustive background check not just on themselves, but on who hired them and promoted them over the years. America needs a central intelligence agency, but we can’t afford to retain the CIA - better to amalgamate the Defense Intelligence Agency with people from State (for foreign political intelligence) and Treasury (for foreign economic intelligence) into a new intelligence group, with the pick of the litter from the defunt CIA to fill out the organization.
The need for good intelligence for both the Executive and Legislative branch is too important for us to have any doubts - we must be certain that our lawmakers and Administration are working on the best data available, presented without any agenda, and without any leaking to the MSM (no intel agency should ever release any info to the press - such releases of info should only come via the Executive or the relevant intel committees in the House and Senate). Abolish the CIA - start over from scratch; and start to build America the sort of intelligence agency its needed, but sadly lacked, for the past 6 decades.
Tags: CIA, intelligence, NIE
December 26th, 2007
That’s the interesting question I heard yesterday from a nondescript liberal-leaning fill-in host on a rerun of an October talk radio show. The host, who admitted that the democrat party has lost its once prominent base of white male voters, acknowledged that the democrat party wrote off the voting bloc 30 years ago, and hasn’t courted it since.
A quick google search suggests that the concept is not lost on many a democrat mind; some saying that the white male vote is a bloc forever lost in the democrat vest pocket; a prodigal son never to return to the fold. Others say that the white male voter is still a yet-untapped bloc of voters that if accessed, would assure a democrat juggernaut for years, if not decades to come.
The radio host went on to observe that all is not well in republican-land; that white male voters were becoming disaffected with the Republican party; and went on to cite the war in Iraq as the major factor in white male disaffection within the GOP.
I would submit that there may indeed be a growing disaffection with the GOP among white males, but the war in Iraq would be the least, if not nearly the least of the reasons. If anything, the disaffection of the white male voting bloc with the Republican party is due to the fact that the Republican Party, rather than governing under the principles that swept it into a decade-long majority, actually forgot who it was that brought them to the dance; and instead started acting like the two-bit tart that flirts with all the other guys while her frustrated date looks on.
The white male voting bloc signed on first with Ronald Reagan, then with Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America; and not for democrat lite. President Bush received a hefty majority vote among the white male voting bloc, not because we were ecstatic over his expansion of Medicare into prescription drugs for seniors; not because of his endorsement of No Child Left Behind; but rather because between him and Jean Francois Kerrie, he was the only one that could be trusted to be a stalwart against the terrorists, and the one who actually gave a damn about protecting this nation.
So, back to the original question, what would it take for me, a white, middle class male, to be able to vote for a democrat as President of the United States?
Here is a non-inclusive, though important list of the top four traits that would make it so:
- 1. First and foremost: The democrat must put America first, not blame America first.
If your rhetoric panders to the European intelligentsia, go and run for German Chancellor or President of France.
If you put the "rights" of terrorists above the safety of the United States, its citizens, and its defenders in harm’s way, just so you can beat your chest atop your soapbox and claim that you’re a morally-superior, caring, sensitive, feeling metrosexual, forget about leading the U.S.
Go and apply as a houseboy for OBL, sing kumbaya with Kalid Sheikh Muhammed; but get the hell out of my face and leave the leading of the Free World to the big boys, okay?
You want to know a secret? If the presidential race were between Ron Paul on the Republican side, and Joe Lieberman on the Democrat side, I’d vote for Joe Lieberman in a heartbeat, based on the above principle alone.
- 2. National security is serious business. Quit screwing with it.
The notion of National Security embodies the very fight for our survival as a nation and as a people. It is not a political-point vending machine placed there for your convenience.
When you go and treat Iraq as a political football game to be won, rather than what should and must be a critical strategic victory over a deadly geopolitical enemy; going so far as to actually lay obstacles in the way of our victory, and putting those who put their lives on the line in additional and unnecessary risk as a result, that tells me you don’t give a rat’s posterior about the security of our nation, and that as such you have no business leading it.
There really are people and even nations out there who mean to do us harm.
9/11 should have given you a clue.
- 3. The democrat must quit showing contempt for America and that for which it stands!
Trust me on this. You may get a pat on the back from your fellow limousine liberals over at the Yacht club, but you won’t score a single vote among the "Joe Sixpack" crowd if you refuse to wear a flag on your lapel because you have contempt for the nation for which you are asking for the privilege and honor of leading.
It’s OK to say you love America, that it is the greatest nation on earth, and that Americans have spilled more blood and have given more treasure to help the downtrodden than any nation in the history of the planet.
It’s OK. Really, it is.
- 4. Don’t tell us what our problems are. We know what they are.
Running a grocery-styled bitchlist of everything that’s wrong, and portraying everyone under the sun as a victim isn’t going to make any white guy run through a wall to get you elected.
Here’s a novel idea: Present a vision of what is right about America, and an accompanying vision of how to work with what’s right so as to become an even greater nation (and–this is important– believe in it!).
Ronald Reagan’s Shining City on the Hill vision eventually garnered him two landslide terms as President. Jimmy Carter’s "malaise" speech, along with his inability to proffer a positive vision of America’s future is arguably what lost him his second term, and what sealed his fate as one of the most ineffectual presidents in history.
Again, this list is far from inclusive as to what it would take for me to vote for a democrat as President, but it’s a start. I offer this in the knowledge that the suggestions put forth in this screed will be summarily dismissed as hogwash, and also in the knowledge that some leftwinger will no doubt leave some "clever" comments about how wrong I am. But it was a democrat that asked the question, and since I am the world’s leading authority on what I think and feel, I answered it to the best of my ability.
Fire away.
(Cross-posted at The Ice Palace)
Tags: Democratic Majority, Democratic Nomination, Iraq, Joe Lieberman, Liberal hypocrisy, liberal talk radio, NIE, President Bush, Ron Paul
December 23rd, 2007
Just a quick note about how pretty much everyone in the whole world - other than American lefties - is going “what?” to the NIE claiming that Iran stopped its nuke program in 2003:
British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran.
The timing of the CIA report has also provoked fury in the British Government, where officials believe it has undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.
The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.
The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.
A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.
At bottom, it is absurd to think that Iran has given up its nuclear ambitions - while there might be a delay in this or that aspect of the program, the plain fact of the matter is that once you start on the path to build a nuclear weapon, you’re not going to be easily deflected from your course. With the Iranian leadership getting ever more lunatic in their pronouncements, there’s just no way to reasonably believe that they’ve taken nukes off the table. Only the most rigorous inspection regime could demonstrate one way or the other, and the Iranians won’t allow that.
In my view, American policy-makers should proceed on the assumption that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons - in this very crucial area, it is better to be safe than sorry. We must err on the side of caution.
Tags: Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons
December 11th, 2007
Latest Rasmussen survey shows a bit of good, solid sense among the American people:
Just 18% of American voters believe that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 66% disagree and say Iran has not stopped its nuclear weapons program. Twenty-one percent (21%) of men believe Iran has stopped the weapons development along with 16% of women.
The 18% we can classify as the real hard core of the kook left, just to keep things clear. I mean, you’ve got to be rather obtuse to really think that Iran has stopped its nuke program - its one thing to be an intel guy saying, “I don’t have proof”, quite another to essentially take the word of the lunatics who run Iran. I feel very confident that the 66% who believe Iran is making nuclear weapons will be confirmed in their belief…I just hope the confirmation doesn’t come in the form of a nuclear test in Iran, or a nuke set off in Tel Aviv.
Tags: Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons
December 7th, 2007
This is absolutely worth reading.
Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the “intelligence community” on issues such as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.
All this shows that we not only have a problem interpreting what the mullahs in Tehran are up to, but also a more fundamental problem: Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than “intelligence” analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it. President Bush may not be able to repair his Iran policy (which was not rigorous enough to begin with) in his last year, but he would leave a lasting legacy by returning the intelligence world to its proper function.
He goes on to explain five key flaws in the report, which you should read carefully.
Tags: Iran, John Bolton, NIE
December 6th, 2007
Norman Podhoretz takes note of some questions about it:
…I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations. As the intelligence community must know, if he were to do so, it would be as a last resort, only after it had become undeniable that neither negotiations nor sanctions could prevent Iran from getting the bomb, and only after being convinced that it was very close to succeeding. How better, then, to stop Bush in his tracks than by telling him and the world that such pressures have already been effective and that keeping them up could well bring about “a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program”—especially if the negotiations and sanctions were combined with a goodly dose of appeasement or, in the NIE’s own euphemistic formulation, “with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways.”
Me, too; I haven’t read the actual NIE, but it is reported that while the NIE is highly confident that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, Iran continues to enrich a sort of uranium which is really only useful in a nuclear weapons program. In technical terms, to say something like that is known as bullsh**. Its like saying that the illegals have stopped trying to cross the border, but are still digging that tunnel under the fence…
Someone at State and/or CIA is merely trying to undercut the President’s stated policy of not allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Yet another lesson in the absolute necessity of any future GOP Administration to fire each and every person hired or promoted by a previous Democratic Administration. Aside from that, I don’t think this NIE will amount to a hill of beans as far as President Bush is concerned - it won’t be an NIE which decides what to do about Iran, but President Bush after carefully weighing all the available data.
Tags: Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons
December 5th, 2007
