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Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE
WASHINGTON -- A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear program, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency officers.
But this pressure on intelligence analysts, obviously instigated by Cheney himself, has not produced a draft estimate without those dissenting views, these sources say. The White House has now apparently decided to release the unsatisfactory draft NIE, but without making its key findings public.
A former CIA intelligence officer who has asked not to be identified told IPS that an official involved in the NIE process says the Iran estimate was ready to be published a year ago but has been delayed because the director of national intelligence wanted a draft reflecting a consensus on key conclusions -- particularly on Iran's nuclear program.
The NIE coordinates the judgments of 16 intelligence agencies on a specific country or issue.
There is a split in the intelligence community on how much of a threat the Iranian nuclear program poses, according to the intelligence official's account. Some analysts who are less independent are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the alarmist view coming from Cheney's office, but others have rejected that view.
The draft NIE first completed a year ago, which had included the dissenting views, was not acceptable to the White House, according to the former intelligence officer. "They refused to come out with a version that had dissenting views in it," he says.
As recently as early October, the official involved in the process was said to be unclear about whether an NIE would be circulated and, if so, what it would say.
Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi provided a similar account, based on his own sources in the intelligence community. He told IPS that intelligence analysts have had to review and rewrite their findings three times, because of pressure from the White House.
"The White House wants a document that it can use as evidence for its Iran policy," says Giraldi. Despite pressures on them to change their dissenting conclusions, however, Giraldi says some analysts have refused to go along with conclusions that they believe are not supported by the evidence.
In October 2006, Giraldi wrote in The American Conservative that the NIE on Iran had already been completed, but that Cheney's office had objected to its findings on both the Iranian nuclear program and Iran's role in Iraq. The draft NIE did not conclude that there was confirming evidence that Iran was arming the Shiite insurgents in Iraq, according to Giraldi.
Giraldi said the White House had decided to postpone any decision on the internal release of the NIE until after the November 2006 elections.
Cheney's desire for a "clean" NIE that could be used to support his aggressive policy toward Iran was apparently a major factor in the replacement of John Negroponte as director of national intelligence in early 2007.
Negroponte had angered the neoconservatives in the administration by telling the press in April 2006 that the intelligence community believed that it would still be "a number of years off" before Iran would be "likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into or to put into a nuclear weapon, perhaps into the next decade."
Neoconservatives immediately attacked Negroponte for the statement, which merely reflected the existing NIE on Iran issued in spring 2005. Robert G. Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and an ally of Cheney, contradicted Negroponte the following day. He suggested that Iran's nuclear program was nearing the "point of no return" -- an Israeli concept referring to the mastery of industrial-scale uranium enrichment.
Frank J. Gaffney, a protégé of neoconservative heavyweight Richard Perle, complained that Negroponte was "absurdly declaring the Iranian regime to be years away from having nuclear weapons".
On Jan. 5, 2007, Pres. George W. Bush announced the nomination of retired Vice Admiral John Michael "Mike" McConnell to be director of national intelligence. McConnell was approached by Cheney himself about accepting the position, according to Newsweek.
McConnell was far more amenable to White House influence than his predecessor. On Feb. 27, one week after his confirmation, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee he was "comfortable saying it's probable" that the alleged export of explosively formed penetrators to Shiite insurgents in Iraq was linked to the highest leadership in Iran.
Cheney had been making that charge, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, as well as Negroponte, had opposed it.
A public event last spring indicated that White House had ordered a reconsideration of the draft NIE's conclusion on how many years it would take Iran to produce a nuclear weapon. The previous Iran estimate completed in spring 2005 had estimated it as 2010 to 2015.
Two weeks after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced in mid-April that Iran would begin producing nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, the chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Thomas Fingar, said in an interview with National Public Radio that the completion of the NIE on Iran had been delayed while the intelligence community determined whether its judgment on the time frame within which Iran might produce a nuclear weapon needed to be amended.
Fingar said the estimate "might change", citing "new reporting" from the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as "some other new information we have". And then he added, "We are serious about reexamining old evidence."
That extraordinary revelation about the NIE process, which was obviously ordered by McConnell, was an unsubtle signal to the intelligence community that the White House was determined to obtain a more alarmist conclusion on the Iranian nuclear program.
A decision announced in late October indicated, however, that Cheney did not get the consensus findings on the nuclear program and Iran's role in Iraq that he had wanted. On Oct. 27, David Shedd, a deputy to McConnell, told a congressional briefing that McConnell had issued a directive making it more difficult to declassify the key judgments of national intelligence estimates.
That reversed a Bush administration practice of releasing summaries of "key judgments" in NIEs that began when the White House made public the key judgments from the controversial 2002 NIE on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction program in July 2003.
The decision to withhold key judgments on Iran from the public was apparently part of a White House strategy for reducing the potential damage of publishing the estimate with the inclusion of dissenting views.
As of early October, officials involved in the NIE were "throwing their hands up in frustration" over the refusal of the administration to allow the estimate to be released, according to the former intelligence officer. But the Iran NIE is now expected to be circulated within the administration in late November, says Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and founder of the anti-war group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
The release of the Iran NIE would certainly intensify the bureaucratic political struggle over Iran policy. If the NIE includes both dissenting views on key issues, a campaign of selective leaking to news media of language from the NIE that supports Cheney's line on Iran will soon follow, as well as leaks of the dissenting views by his opponents.
Both sides may be anticipating another effort by Cheney to win Bush's approval of a significant escalation of military pressure on Iran in early 2008.
139 Comments so far
Show AllIf you don't get hung up on his hate and anger, you can see the helpless frightened child peeking out from behind his eyes…poor him, poor us.
Cheney is by far the most dispicable excuse for a human being I've ever had the displeasure of sharing this planet with. He's a snivelling coward of gigantic proportions and like all his kind scream like stuck pigs should they suffer a minor scratch yet they inflict untold misery on others.
The only pleasure in life for them is kill,kill,and kill some more, their appetite for murder is insatiable. Who do you think the people are blowing up US soldiers in Iraq. Who do you think was behind 9/11, and worst of all who is behind Cheney.
The American people have to consider their future in this next election, neither the Democrats nor the republicans have the American peoples welfare in mind, only their own. A new party has to be formed and formed quickly but as a first step stop using the TV and newspapers, cut them completely out of your life and become very active in your local community, limit the power of the many religious organisations who are standing solidly behind Cheney and his thugs.
Impeach Cheney. Save the world.
I second that. Impeach Cheney for world peace!
Well, Duh!!! Tell me something I don't already know. Fudging the Facts is the Modus Operandi of this Cabal of neocon extremist warmongers.
Dims that don't support Kucinich's call for impeachment of Cheney should be targeted for defeat. They must be put on notice that they will be charged with complicity in high crimes and misdemeanors as well.
Hitler tried the "Murder For Peace" program almost 70 years ago. It failed. That kind of program won't work.
God in heaven, I HATE the people in the Bush administration. They're arrogant liars, dictators, bullies, warmongers, torturers, scofflaws, and felons.
They're conceited, autocratic, insolent, swaggering, despotic terrorists.
Feel free to add to the list...
And this in the US is completely in line with Israel's new demand that El Baradei be sacked from the international atomic agency because the IAEA also concludes that Iran is far off from any possible A-bomb construction. The likudnik-neocon fanatics dont want or need any evidence, they just "know" that their Destiny is to attack Iran and accelerate world chaos to the apocaliptic scale. They will also make a lot of money in the process.
Amen to Jaded Prole. in my view of thinking we need to stop calling them the "Bush" administration or the Republicans or the democrats. There all in it together. They all have a lot of 0's in their paychecks and few of them give a damn about the majority of earths population.
Vote for change. Not for a democrat simply because the word democrat.
This needs to be on the frontpage of every newspaper across the country, and on the television news. Of couse, this will not happen because as all of us know, the MSM is in bed with the Bush Administration. It also needs to be directed to Nancy "impeachment is off the table" Pelosi (like she is going to do anything with it... hell she and Steny Hoyer could not efficiently run a lemonade stand). This madness needs to stop, NOW!
Anney -
To me, cheney looks - not mean, not vicious - just miserable, wretched even. Look at the picture, his misery is almost palpable.
My nephew has autism and he looks the same way - it's like every moment he lives is a moment of misery for him. Cheney has been alive a long time and that's a lot of moments of misery. I don't like to be around my nephew - and often choose not to – simply because the misery that emanates from him is not energy that I want in my life. Unfortunately, his immediate family (including his parents) doesn't much like to be around him, either. My nephew has said to me that nobody loves him.
This seems to be mr. dick. No one likes him (he lost an election to a dead man, remember?). And so, like a child who has no coping mechanisms, he spreads his misery like a cancer - just like my nephew - because he doesn't know any other way.
How very, very sad.
Which is not to say that he shouldn't be held accountable for his actions – just like when I give consequences to my nephew for hitting his brothers. But like I learned with my nephew, spouting anger at a person who is already so wretchedly miserable simply makes them more miserable and more desirous to spread that misery around.
Are the American people really so stupid as to fall for this yet again??....oh....never mind...American Idol is on...
Cheney has only fear to use to convince people he is right, So he will join Israel's company and try to nullify Mr. Baradei and his organization. If someone that high up completely contradicts the official line, then that person, and what they have to say, has to be removed from the discourse. Soon we won't be hearing much from him. He will wind up like the Bishop in Jack London's 1907 "IRON HEEL": "`Not a word that he uttered will see print. "You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. The Bishop's utterance was a violent assault upon the established morality. It was heresy. They led him from the platform to prevent him from uttering more heresy. The newspapers will purge his heresy in the oblivion of silence. The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it."
Hoa binh
According to Zoe Lofgren(D-CA), my representative, actions like this aren't "high crimes and misdemeanors…"
Which I am sure sounds like all the letters received by all of you fron your representative as well.
Is there an "Office of Special Plans" in the Pentagon for Iran? Anyone know what Doug Feith is up to these days?
When I first glanced at the photo of Cheney and saw your title I misread, Cheney tried to smile, which seems unlikely but for him a smile and a sneer are probably the same thing.
iowairish
Why are you trying to paint Dick Cheney as a victim? He isn't autistic. Do you think all people would be "good" if they just weren't "victims"? I know lots of people who were victims of all kinds of abuse as well as people born with disabilities. Those things didn't make those people evil. Peoples' choices make them evil.
Interestingly enough i was a patient in a Swiss hospital today and an elderly woman suffering from dementia in the next bed called me over. She asked if I were American (my accent is a give away even to those mentally impaired). Then she said "Je detest W." and proceeded to list the wrongs of him and Cheney as if she were a regular reader of commondreams.org I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. If only the AMerican people were as aware as this woman.
"To me, cheney looks - not mean, not vicious - just miserable, wretched even. Look at the picture, his misery is almost palpable."
http://onegoodmovemedia.org/movies/njenson/mp3/dickisakiller.mp3
[His 'misery' is the only-thing this guy ever learned to 'share'...]
iowairish -
Looking at Cheney he seems so unhappy. Frankly he moves his face like drug addicts. Unlikely he does illegal street drugs, but I bet he's addicted to prescription drugs. His doctors are over medicating him. Prescription drug addiction happens in the best of families.
The man doesn't feel well, ever. And he takes it out on the rest of us. Those of us from dysfunctional families intuitively understand what's going on in the Cheney family -- Talk about dysfunctional!!!
Hoa Binh,
Is an extremely cogent thinker. I think he is an Americam patriot in the good sense.
I believe that if the majority of the writers here represented were equal to the population at large and we had new votor laws like those in Maine and Connecticut there might be some rapid changes in this country for the better.
IKE
You know, the media must hate Cheney deep down as much as we do. They ALWAYS use a really snarly picture of him. I don't believe he looks like that every minute.
Isn't Inter Press Service one of the major news wire agencies like Reuters (and others). This is not some obscure publication.
I find it even more frightening (not that I'm frightened) that even though this man's actions are thoroughly exposed to the light of day and are a matter of common knowledge, no one seems willing - or worse, able - to stop him, and the rest. Such a viscous destructive machine - so deadly.
Couple this with the takeover of the us military by millenial evangelicals who not only envision, but welcome a "final battle", and you have the makings of an powerful death cult.
Now I am afraid - but not going to let a little fear stop me.
The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, and all of the research and policies developed in the public sector, have to reflect the will of an informed and responsible public.
The public does not want or need fossil fuels so the Middle East oil game is completely unnecessary, its costs are completely unjustified, and as public policy, it must be completely destroyed.
Destruction of US fossil fuel policies is accomplished through solidarity in individual responsibility to shift our exchange/association away from the power centers and toward our local economies.
We can get our energy from renewable sources produced responsibly in small independent enterprises. Let's stop feeding the fossil/nuclear godzilla with our individual energy choices and start providing sustained opportunity for local self-determination and prosperity.
Nice photo of Dick....
this guy has got to be taking on a transformation state of Satan in this pic
hello everyone maybe you heard about this document
read the whole thing but theres one part that i would like every one to see first
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
it all so goes on and says that long standing governments shouldn't be change for light and transient causes but i will have to say this government is guilty of war crimes against humanity and should be punished it the pull extent by the people
on another note people shouldnt fear there governments,governments should fear there people
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Cheney doesn't matter. What matters is that Likud wants it. Which means that Likud's proxy in Israel's satellite country (US), AIPAC, wants it. If they want a US war with Iran, they'll get it. Oh, crap, now a bunch of us "hillbillies" will have to go die in a war for Israel's security.
Get rid of AIPAC, and away goes the threat of another unncecessary war.
This is the most evil, corrupt administration in our history. It owes its success to the unswerving support of the Democratic caucus of the Republican party.
I sent an email to Ayatollah Khamenei, offering to swap him Cheney for Ahmadinejad; It must have gotten caught in an NSA spam filter. :(
Isn't it a repetition of "the story of Iraq"????? If the US government has blamed the US intelligence agencies after invading and killing more than a million innocent Iraqis, it will do the same after bombing Iran and killing innocent Iranians. The loyalists of Shah of Iran, who live in the US, take the place of the Iraqi, Chalabi, to show to the world that the intelligence has come from INSIDE IRAN.
What a wicked, evil, and blood-thirsty country the US is!!!!!!!! It is beyond human comprehension that such "human beings" exist on this planet.
Look at the face of the US VICE PRESIDENT? Isn't he an embodiment of evil and wickedness??? A MONSTER WHO ENJOYS KILLING INNOCENT CHILDRN, WOMEN AND MEN.
Impeach Cheney, then turn him over to the International Court and try him for crimes against humanity. After he is convicted, send him to Abu Graib for further punishment.
anney {quote} "Why are you trying to paint Dick Cheney as a victim?"
That wasn't my intention. As I said in my first post, mr. dick needs to be held accountable. mr. dick and all of the bush cabal have committed criminal deeds and need to be brought to justice.
Finding a periodic feeling of compassion for a life that has caused so much harm in the world doesn't, in any way, pardon or mitigate the actions. Quite the contrary. Accountability and justice for harmful actions is the ONLY compassionate response. Victimization would suggest pity and pity is an aggressive (passively) response.
And yes, I do believe that everyone has the potential to act 'good' (i.e., gently with an attitude of not harming). And everyone as the potential to act 'bad' (i.e. harmfully). I have done both - many times - as I'm sure you have, too. But just because I act 'good' doesn't mean that I AM good. Just because I act 'bad' doesn't mean I AM evil.
jail Cheney for war crimes!
There are so many pictures of Cheney looking like a bulldog ready to bite someone......LOL
The Democrats who are against Dennis Kucinich's attempt to impeach Cheney are not Democrats. They are Republicans who continue to betray us.
Dennis Kucinich is the Man! I will write his name in if it's not on the ballot.
Allow me to post a question: can the rapture be jump-started by man? This could explain some of W's actions. I don't get the impression that Cheney is particularly spritual (if at all). His god seems to be oil. Meanwhile Christians for Israel seem to be focussed on maintaining Israel so that everything will line up for the rapture. WWJD? I suspect he would throw the lot of vipers out of the temple. Let's do it for Him and for the world!
He looks like he could star in the movie 28 weeks later!
Seriously, is Cheney photogenic or what? That Jon Stewart impersonation isn't too far from reality!
More proof that they indeed DO want to bomb Iran.
Remember, they said they would NOT attack Iraq either, and they did.
Lies, all fucking lies.
and Christians too.
I love that picture. Perfect. Who needs rifles to shoot people in the face with when you have teeth like that?
He looks like the guy watching the varsity QB kiss his girl.
mrif59: Or maybe it's cheney's look after the varsity QB turned him down and went for the girl instead.
Maybe the QB is kissing Cheney's wife, Lynne. Who the hell would want to do that?
Anney @ 12:32pm:
"God in heaven, I HATE the people in the Bush administration. They're arrogant liars, dictators, bullies, warmongers, torturers, scofflaws, and felons. They're conceited, autocratic, insolent, swaggering, despotic terrorists.
Feel free to add to the list..."
~Thanks for the invite Anney.
I think I'll opt for *STARK STARING MAD* as my own considered understanding of the dogpile which now so *tragically* misrules the USA, -to the detriment of the rest of the planet, -as well as the decent, *intelligent* US citizens who saw all this coming from a mile off, ~ but who couldn't seem to explain it to the 'slow learners' at the back of class...
_______________
Denny @ 2:43pm:
"This guy has got to be taking on a transformation state of Satan in this pic"
~ I think the link forged between the Prince of Darkness and the 'Prints of Bush-mess' (Cheney) is now incontrovertible Denny.
But *damn* he does it so well!!
~Who else but a *genuine expert* in LIES and DECEIT could so successfully have a huge swathe of purported 'Christians' rooting so risibly and so strongly for the Anti-Christ!!
Gotta hand it to him, -that's quite a coup...
ALthough I agree with the spirit of the proposal, the talk about impeaching Cheney is stupid and irresponsible. Do you know what it takes to impeach a member of the administration? Remember the impeachment of Bill Clinton? The House voted to impeach him, but the Senate didn't. By the time the impeachment process is completed, his term of office will be over. Get Real!
What's this? Our former Secretary of War is re-writing SpyGrams so he can make war and plunder our treasury again? This is like Deja Vu - all over again and again and again...rational people are moving to Euros.
What is Cheney going to tell us next?? The earth is flat, sun revolves around it, and that he is an honest individual!!! What a joke!! These guys must think we were all born yesterday.
on and on and they remain.why?
soon there will be no food or water...