Word: nies
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...Democrats, good news in Iraq is bad news. For me, good news is good news, whether from Iraq or now from Iran. Facts are facts. And if the conclusions of the most recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) about Iran's nuclear program are true, they are moderately encouraging. Moderately only, because the NIE itself expressed only "moderate confidence" in its most sensational conclusion--that Iran had not restarted its previously suspended covert nuclear-weaponization program...
...giant and juicy piece of information that came to the U.S. this summer. President George W. Bush said it then took time to determine whether it was disinformation. One can never be sure how these double- and triple-agent mirror games are played, which might be why the NIE is only "moderately confident" it has gotten this one right...
Assuming it has, the conclusion drawn by some--that this means Iran has abandoned its nuclear ambitions--is not just wrong but also contradicted by the NIE itself. Suspension does not mean abandonment. The program can be restarted at any time. The fact that huge amounts are still being spent on uranium enrichment and missile development--the other essentials for a nuclear-weapons program--while the weaponization part remains dormant is overwhelming evidence of a country that wants to go nuclear but is being restrained by international pressure...
Which is why the critics' claim that this NIE report is a mandate for a new and soft Iranian policy is wrong. John Edwards immediately said the report justified his vote against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and imposing sanctions on it. But the NIE's major conclusion is that Iran calibrates its nuclear efforts--including the suspension of the weaponization part--in a real-world cost-benefit reaction to outside pressure. It makes the case precisely for sanctions...
...National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, compiled every two years, reflects the consensus among the 16 branches of the U.S. intelligence community. This week's report judged "with high confidence" that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program back in 2003, reversing the findings of the 2005 NIE on Iran. U.S. officials have yet to disclose, even to their allies, precisely what intelligence may have led to the change of view. (A classified version of the NIE is said to contain up to 1,000 pieces of information in footnotes, including a telephone call in which an Iranian general expresses exasperation...