by D. Cupples (photo by Eric Draper, U.S. DoD) | President Bush has not officially denounced the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) indicating that Iran had dropped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but he did reportedly tell Israeli officials that Iran is still a threat despite the NIE's conclusions. Newsweek reports:
"In public, President Bush has been careful to reassure Israel and other allies that he still sees Iran as a threat, while not disavowing his administration's recent [2007] National Intelligence Estimate. That NIE, made public Dec. 3, embarrassed the administration by concluding that Tehran had halted its weapons program in 2003, which seemed to undermine years of bellicose rhetoric from Bush and other senior officials about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"But in private conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week, the president all but disowned the document, said a senior administration official who accompanied Bush on his six-nation trip to the Mideast. "He told the Israelis that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don't reflect his own views" about Iran's nuclear-weapons program, said the official, who would discuss intelligence matters only on the condition of anonymity....
"Israeli and other foreign officials asked Bush to explain the NIE, which concluded with "high confidence" that Iran halted what the document describes as its "nuclear weapons program." The NIE arrived at this finding even though Tehran continues to operate uranium-enrichment centrifuges that many experts believe are intended to develop material for a bomb, and despite the CIA's assertion that it had, for the first time, concrete evidence of such a weaponization program. Most confusing of all, the document seemed to directly contradict a 2005 NIE that concluded—also with "high confidence"—that Iran did have such a weapons program." (Newsweek, emphasis added)
The two NIEs don't seem to conflict: they do conflict, at least with respect to whether Iran had nuclear weapons from 2003-05.
Did different analysts draft the two NIEs? If they analyzed vastly different data, why was it different? If they analyzed similar information, why did the NIE drafters come to such different conclusions re: 2003-2005?
Another troubling aspect is the senior administration official's "anonymous" chat with the press. If this chat happened without the president's blessing, wouldn't the official's betrayal amount to treason? It should be easy for White House officials to figure out who leaked, given that a limited number of people heard Bush's and Olmerte's private conversation.
If the senior official had the president's blessing, what was the president's objective in giving said blessing?
Administration officials are not known for straightforwardness. They've passed questionable "information" to the public about Iran, Iraq, torture, the Justice Department, the CIA, FEMA.... How can we members of the public not be confused by both official and leaked statements?
It would be refreshing for us taxpayers if Administration officials would start simply and candidly telling us what's actually happening and what the Administration's true aims and motives are.
A girl can dream.
Memeorandum has other bloggers' reactions: democracyarsenal.org, Think Progress, Emptywheel, Hullabaloo, SteveAudio, Cliff Schecter, The Newshoggers, Wall Street Journal, THE CUNNING REALIST, Corrente, The Carpetbagger Report, Make Them Accountable and RADAMISTO
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* Iran: is Administration Telling Truth or Trying to Save Face?
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