Some of you guys need to get out of the left wing blogs and read some of the stuff coming out from the right on this:
"The last page of the declassified Key Judgments notes significant differences between what the IC believed in 2005 and what it is saying now.
In 2005, the IC noted: "[We] assess with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure, but we do not assess that Iran is immovable." Now the IC says, "?we do not know whether (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." So, in 2005 the IC was sure that Iran was determined to build a nuclear weapon and now it is not sure at all. "
"And the Robb-Silberman Commission, which investigated what the IC knew about WMD programs around the world, found in 2005:
"Across the board, the Intelligence Community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors. In some cases, it knows less now than it did five or ten years ago." "
Or how about this from the New York Times?
OP-Ed
But there?s also a lot of worrisome news in there that must not be overlooked.
First, the report says ?with high confidence? that Iran did have a secret nuclear weapons program and that it stopped only after it got caught and was threatened with international punishment. Even now, Tehran?s scientists are working to master the skills to make nuclear fuel ? the hardest part of building a weapon.
Anyone who wants to give the Iranians the full benefit of the doubt should read the last four years of reports from United Nations? nuclear inspectors about Iran?s 18-year history of hiding and dissembling. Or last month?s report, which criticized Tehran for providing ?diminishing? information and access to its current program. In one of those ironies that would be delicious if it didn?t involve nuclear weapons, an official close to the inspection agency told The Times yesterday that the new American assessment might be too generous to Iran.
Then there is the fact that the guy who wrote the part about Iran was making statements along the lines that Iran WAS working on a nuke back in July (can't find a link to that story)
Finally... remember all the time and attention paid to NIE's from the summer of 2001?? Osama and AQ were putting the last pieces of the biggest terrorist attack in history in to place while our intelligence services totally missed the boat.
Also remember how wrong our intelligence services were when it came to Iraq.
The same people on this board who jump up and down about how much we missed the Iraq WMD estimates have all of a sudden declared the same people to be brilliant analysts. :roll: