Chutzpah
December 10th, 2007Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
This comment from former Bush Administration official John Bolton is telling, reported in the LA Times,
U.S. intelligence services attempted to influence political policy by releasing their assessment that concludes Iran halted its nuclear arms program in 2003, said John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Der Spiegel magazine quoted Bolton on Saturday as alleging that the aim of the National Intelligence Estimate, which contradicts his and President Bush’s position, was not to provide the latest intelligence on Iran.
“This is politics disguised as intelligence,” Bolton was quoted as saying in an article appearing in this week’s edition.
When new information does not provide support for policy justifications that you have been making, it simply must be politicized. When it provides support for your arguments, of course, it is free from political influence. It was not long ago that intelligence, according to Mr. Bolton’s standards, was apparently unpoliticized (ahem). From the archive of The New York Times:
Now John R. Bolton, nominated as United Nations ambassador, has emerged as a new lightning rod for those who saw a pattern of political pressure on intelligence analysts. And this time, current and former officials are complaining more publicly than before. . .
Some of them are prompted by antipathy to Mr. Bolton, some by lingering guilt about Iraq. Some, perhaps, are nervous about the quality of current intelligence assessments at a time of new uncertainties about North Korea’s nuclear program, and ambiguous evidence about whether it is moving toward a nuclear test.
One of those critics, Robert L. Hutchings, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, made the point in an e-mail message, even as he declined to discuss Mr. Bolton in specific detail. “This is not just about the behavior of a few individuals but about a culture that permitted them to continue trying to skew the intelligence to suit their policy agenda – even after it became clear that we as a government had so badly missed the call on Iraqi W.M.D.,” Mr. Hutchings said. The most recent criticism of Mr. Bolton to emerge comes from John E. McLaughlin, the former deputy director of central intelligence, who has told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Mr. Bolton’s effort to oust a top Central Intelligence Agency analyst from his position in 2002 breached what should be a barrier between policy makers and intelligence analysts.
Now I have no idea whether the newest National Intelligence Estimate from the U.S. on Iran is politicized or not, but I do know that its reception reflects a disturbing tendency to substitute criteria of political efficacy for information quality in making judgments about the quality of guidance provided by experts, an argument I develop in The Honest Broker.
It is of course one thing for a die-hard partisan like John Bolton to engage in such behavior, but it is quite another, and of greater concern, when the experts themselves start playing that game.
December 10th, 2007 at 2:37 am
Personally I think that an oil rich country like Iran, with a third world economy and one refinery needs nuclear power. All those centrifuges, money and time wasted instead of just building another refinery, who would have thought this was best for Iran. And a heavy water nuclear reactor which can make plutonium, just a scientific curiosity, don’t you think. Why use a light water reactor which cannot produce bomb grade material — bombs are so much fun.
How did you like last Friday’s death to America rally? The President of Iran has one nearly every week.
Sometimes the obvious doesn’t need explanation.
December 19th, 2007 at 6:52 am
I’ve read the US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.
Though it certainly is a relief, if true, that Iran has stopped developing nuclear weapons, the report contains some conclusions that are disturbing. And embarrasssing (again if the report is true) to those who have so vehemently denied Iran ever had a nuclear weapons program.
The report notes:
“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”
Why did they stop?
But: “we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.”
and
“We judge with high confidence that the halt … was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.”
So is this saying that the pressure from outside, actually achieved results?
Now I know how this report has already been spun from all ends of the political spectrum. But the spinners can’t have it both ways. This report, which some will proclaim vindicates their view that Iran should not be attacked militarily (a view with which I agree ) also explicitly repudiates the claim that Iran never had a nuclear weapons program. It also suggests the Iranians lied: Here’s Iranian UN Ambassador Mohammed Javad Zarif on CNN on 13 December 2002:
CNN: “Is Iran planning a nuclear weapons program?”
ZARIF: “No. Absolutely not. Iran is a member of the Non Proliferation Treaty. We have safeguard agreements with the IAEA. Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction do not have a place in our defense doctrine. We have stated that clearly. And we have shown it.
We’ve had cooperation with various multilateral organizations dealing with weapons of mass destruction. And that is why I can categorically tell you that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.”
The NY Times also reported that the US intel agencies who issued the NIE got their info from direct intercepts of Iranian military deliberations. Namely they “obtained notes last summer from the deliberations of Iranian military officials involved in the weapons development program.” According to the NYT story “the notes included conversations and deliberations in which some of the military officials complained bitterly about what they termed a decision by their superiors in late 2003 to shut down a complex engineering effort to design nuclear weapons, including a warhead that could fit atop Iranian missiles.”
The Iranian regime welcomed the report, despite its explicit refutation of their insistence their nuclear program was only for peaceful purposes.
As the NYT reported “It is natural that we welcome it,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told state-run radio. “Some of the same countries which had questions or ambiguities about our nuclear program are changing their views realistically.”
Later the Iranian regime branded the NIE a “lie.” UPI reported that “Kazem Jalali of the Iranian Parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission said Saturday the United States lied to the international community about the Iranian nuclear program, Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency reported Saturday.”
‘The claim that Iran had changed its nuclear weapons programs since 2003 is a mere lie to show that it was the U.S. pressures that forced Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program,’ Jalali said.”
These people have got to get their story straight.