Iran's illegal Nuclear Weapons Program

Well, it isn't.





OK.





That is incorrect. It tends to be the world's reserve currency because we are a large, stable market.





The value of the dollar is controlled by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve. If they want the dollar's value to change, they just print more (or less) money, or they use interest rates to achieve the same thing.

People sell to America because we are a large market.





The Iraq war was because the Neocons thought they could transform Iraq into a friendly democracy, and used 9/11 to get Bush to invade Iraq based on fears of WMDs.

The technologies that Iran is pursuing make it rather obvious that they are trying for weapons.





That's been tried. Iran refuses diplomacy.





The Arak reactor starts operating sometime in 2009 I believe.

We have until that time to bomb Iran.

Between Bush and Israel, I don't know that there'll be a lot of patience for waiting until the last second. It would be different if Iran was negotiating, but they aren't.

Bush cant bomb Iran on his own. He needs the support of his military, the intelligence community and some public support. Bringing these intelligence reports into the public domain has rendered Bush impotent.

btw Alan Greenspan, a chap who knows rather more about economics than you and I put together, is on record as saying the Iraq war was largely about oil.

The US has never really tried diplomacy with Iran since the Islamic Revolution. President Clinton got up to having athletes visit, but that was it. Iran has learned from North Korea among others. If you want the US to sit down with you, provoke them in the extreme, go on anti-US rants, etc. That gets the US's attention. All those years where moderate governments in Tehran were making overtures to the US were just wasted time. When we were in a strong position, we refused to negotiate because we were strong. Now that we are in a weak position, we refuse because we don't want to appear to be giving in when we are weak. The US is not unique in this regard. It often takes a war hawk to make peace. Someone in a strong position with a history of taking tough stands has to decide that peace is desirable and to believe that concessions from a position of strength is worthwhile. If Bush had wanted a relationship with Iran in 2004, he could have had it. Now Iran has the high cards.

I agree with that assessment engineer. There is an element of black comedy about American foreign policy in the middle east. All those decades playing off one country against another, keeping the locals weak, the US strong and the oil flowing has finally imploded with the Iraq war. Iran is the victor, they are the regional super power, exactly opposite of American intentions.

U.S. Finds That Iran Halted Nuclear Arms Bid in 2003



Once again; because we believe it must be so all evidence to the contrary is just clever ruses on the part Iran to cover up its weapons program. Like someone said; Déjà vu Iraq.

Once again; because we believe it must be so all evidence to the contrary is just clever ruses on the part Iran to cover up its weapons program. How can they think they can pull this again? Even if they are correct and it is a trick of Iran; how can they expect anyone to believe them after Iraq? For that matter how can we even believe the intelligence reports one way or another? In my opinion other than the death and totally chaos we caused in Iraq and coalition troops; the blow to the confidence of listening to those who tell us these things is the worse thing the administration did in all their years in office.

I still say even if they are developing nuclear weapons; so what? Other countries have them too and are still making more. Who are we to decide who gets nuclear weapons and who don't?

I reiterate what I have said all along, "The US is the only real threat to world peace."
The sooner the world turns its back on this US Administration the safer mankind will become.
Sydney Morning Herald

The rest of the article at the source

Indeed, it's a sad morning for the 'we love war' crowd. The neoconservatives are beside themselves (a surely more agreeable condition than actually being with themselves). Boeing, Northrop, Blackwater and Cheney's portfolio managers are undoubtedly recalculating profits downwards. Michael Ledeen has just been arrested for strangling his grand-daughter's puppy. A black day.

[quote="oralloy]

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The Arak reactor starts operating sometime in 2009 I believe.

We have until that time to bomb Iran.

........[/quote]

Oralloy - you are an Israeli (or at any rate you served in a military capacity in Israel) currently residing in the U.S. OK, but it would be advantageous to those unfamiliar with your background to explain what you mean by WE in the above sentence.

Bernie - the "we" is obviously to be used with caution around here!

Btw, was very glad to talk to you and Lola the other day - call me or e-mail for details of your trip, will be around until Christmas but back in January.

What a revoltin' development ! ! !

That's very interesting. That explains a good deal.

A great deal has been made the last few days over an intelligence assessment that Iran does not currently have an active nuclear weapons program. It appears to be a complete reversal of opinion and indictment of long standing policies to forestall Iranian nuclear dreams. The far left and those who regard the United States as evil incarnate, regard the reassessment as a "victory". Bush haters are giving one another high fives at further evidence that the President is both the stupidest living organism on the planet and the wiliest leader of a conspiracy for world conquest. Ah yes, clear evidence that President Bush manipulates facts to justify his evil ambitions. We are not allowed to forget, as if anyone could, that Intelligence assessments that Saddam had WMD and was pursuing nuclear weapons was never proven.

What is a body to think? Is the American President a cynical egomaniac that makes these things up as he goes along? Is the US Intelligence Community no more competent than a Ouija Board? I'm sure that a large number of A2K regulars have been convinced of both propositions, and could never be persuaded otherwise. However, I'm equally sure that there are visitors here who are less partisan.

I believe there is a fundamental misunderstanding about the realities of Intelligence. People seem to accept or reject Intelligence reports and assessments as if they were the product of simple and unassailable facts. Wouldn't that be nice, to be able to reach an unimpeachable conclusion by merely assembling a number of facts. It doesn't work that way.

An intelligence agency first has to acquire data that the target wishes to keep secret. Open sources (speeches, news reports, governmental reports/budgets, laws, public events, etc.) are pored over by experts to construct an idea of the target's fundamental direction, and capabilities. When a Head of State repeatedly says that his government has an intention, and there is evidence that he is developing capability to implement that intention, and other data supports the likelihood that the spoken intention is not a blind, then tentative conclusions are reached, and reported. Anyone can, if they are willing to put in the time and effort can do intelligence estimates from open sources… if they have the requisite skills and can remain objective. Actually, people do this all the time in assessing their personal and social environment. Just as we make mistakes in assessing our friend's intentions and true feelings, so Intelligence agencies make mistakes in assessing their assigned targets. Intelligence agencies generally have a better record for getting things right, but we only hear of their errors.

Intelligence based only on open sources isn't good enough alone. We desperately need to see beyond the veil of secrecy that every government maintains around its intentions, capabilities and vulnerabilities. The traditional means of gathering "dark" data, is the use of human agents working secretly inside the target's circle of trust. Ideally, one inserts a well-trained mole into the targets policy making inner circle. It doesn't happen often, because the counter-intelligence apparatus of any target worth penetrating isn't likely to overlook a foreign agent inside their organization. Imagine trying to getting a CIA agent in a position where Kim Jong-Il, or Putin will confide State secrets to him. The Soviet Sorge Ring managed to penetrate German and Japanese policy organizations at the very highest levels during the 1930's, but that was an exception… and Sorge was accepted as a native German with strong ties to the Nazi hierarchy. Much more common, is to recruit an spies who are already in place, or close to the sources of information you want to gather. A number of infamous moles are known, after they betrayed important national secrets. Why do trusted members of a group betray their friends, family and country? Well, some do it for ideological reasons. Hidden Marxists inside British intelligence caused irreparable harm to Britain and the West during the Cold War, just as Anti-Nazi spies undercut that regime during WWII. Far more often agents betray secrets for other reasons. Some just can't keep their mouths shut about sensitive information. Some betray their trust for money or other material rewards. Some act out of revenge or to "prove" their superiority over peers. Some feel under appreciated, and need to be involved in matters of great import. Some have to be coerced. Blackmail is in every intelligence agencies tool bag. Find the target's weakness, and exploit it without hesitation. Any character fault can be exploited, and even the best can be tempted into a situation where they must cooperate with a case officer. In recruiting agents to provide information, there are no limits or rules. Lies, deception, and even physical force are acceptable so long as a steady stream of information from inside the target organization is forthcoming. It is a dirty, distasteful business that renders information that may not even be accurate.

Coerced agents may be counter-intelligence plants whose information will contain some nuggets of good intelligence, but almost certainly that same information is intended to mislead. Recruited agents tend not to be particularly zealous, and their training is often minimal. They tend to screw up and get caught, ergo… turned into counter-intelligence assets. They may knowingly, on their own make up information to please their handlers. They are seldom in a position to fully appreciate the information available, so their take is frequently chaff with only a few grains of gold mixed in. To overcome the inherent disadvantages of information gathered by secret agents, an Agency likes to have multiple sources that are not connected. If "A" in Department Z comes up with a tasty bit, it has to conform to data gathered by "B", a Colonel in Regiment Q, and "C" a dockworker whose sister-in-law is a cleaning lady at Ministry D… and, every other available source open or dark. The level of certainty is rarely even close to what is desirable, but then the foreign Head of State isn't likely to unburden themselves of secrets to one of your most trusted agents.

Penetration of DPRK and PRC inner circles has been almost impossible, and of limited productivity. Penetration of Radical Islamic Movement organizations is also extremely difficult, because of their reliance on de-centralized cells made up of people who are closely related in one way or another. Americans tend to really, really hate relying on spies, and both the Executive and Legislative branches of our government have made HUMINT almost impossible to conduct effectively. We have been forced to rely for HUMINT on the generosity (?) of cooperative Intelligence services that have fewer constraints. Israeli HUMINIT is outstanding, and has a better record of penetrating selected targets than most. When other Intelligence Services share information, it must be assumed that the sharing is intended to achieve that service's goals. Would they lie, or slightly distort information to achieve their ends? Would we? Damn right we would. The result has been that US HUMINT has been limited and prone to error. We've shot our HUMINT capabilities in the foot.

The hope has been that we can gather enough good quality data to form useful secreted intelligence from SATINT and ELENT sources. From orbit we can watch a whole hemisphere, but the detail of what is happening in any particular spot is lost unless we focus onto that location to the exclusion of larger scale views. Where in all of Iraq, or Iran, are the important features to monitor?

Analysts can see where roads and power lines lead, how much traffic is filling the roads and rails, how many ships are at anchor, or on the ways. Analysts can often determine the purpose of structures and vehicles by close measurement and inspection. We can look for details in frequencies outside our normal perceptions, but ultimately all of the pictures are limited in what they can tell us. Photographs can tell us how many people are in a particular area and what they appear to be doing. They can't tell us what those subjects are thinking, planning nor if their activity is real or feigned. The targets of our surveillance know when they are likely to be on camera, and they conduct themselves accordingly. They hide and construct misleading features for our analysts to spend precious time figuring out. We may be focusing on the wrong location, and our ability to zero in on locations will always be limited and constrained by orbital mechanics and technical limitations.

ELENT consists of monitoring all electronic emissions, and in today's world that is unbelievably large and difficult task to achieve. Almost everything is an emitter, from automobile engines to the Internet. The whole spectrum is crowded with data, some of which carries meaningful communication and others that signal the use of electrically powered "stuff". A good analyst can tell the difference between the emissions of an electric food mixer and an electric clock, but who cares? Most focus is on telecommunications, and again the amount of data that is emitted every moment of every day is overwhelming. Electronic communications aren't discrete, like messages over a copper wire running from a telephone to a switching device to another telephone. All those electronic signals are "in the air" for anyone to pickup if they have the right frequencies and technical capabilities. NSA is highly capable, far beyond the capabilities of any other organization in the world today. But, even NSA has its limitations and constraints. Telephones "off the grid" used for a single communication, that may be brief and in code, are really tough to break in a timely fashion. Sophisticated countermeasures and use of modern communications technology are difficult at best. To make things worse, the Legislative and Executive branches (presided over by both Democrats and Republican politicians) remain rooted in the horse and buggy era where telephone communication was point-to-point and took place over a wire. For better or worse, those days are gone, gone, gone and our enemies are sophisticated users of the new technologies.

The bottom-line? Intelligence gathering, analysis and interpretation are filled with uncertainties and sources are often unreliable and untrustworthy. Intelligence professionals are painfully aware of their limitations, and do everything they can to minimize error and decrease the risk of making a fatal error that will result in irreparable harm to the nation. Their work is necessarily kept secret and limited to the smallest number of people possible. Ideally all intelligences would be compartmentalized until if finally was assembled by the wisest man in the world who would only share it in a terse whisper to a single policy maker inside a secure room at 3 a.m. in the morning. That isn't possible. Intelligence agencies collect as much data as possible, and from that try to isolate meaningful clues as to a targets capabilities and intentions. That involves the dedicated and skillful efforts of countless technicians and analysts often unaware of the work being performed just down the hall from their own tiny area of focus. What is significant, and if its significant, why and how so? Someone has to made an evaluation from data that is limited, may be flawed or even purposefully misleading. Then that product is reviewed as the assessment is passed upward inside the organization where hopefully it will be fine-tuned by those with a greater range and scope of knowledge. Eventually, it is passed out of the intelligence closet to policy makers. That generally means to the National Security Advisor who heads a large staff, the Chief's of Staff, and some portion of the Executive's personal advisors. That group often includes people who shouldn't be entrusted with any secret more important than who is invited to the next White House banquet. Not only are some of those folks bad security risks, they may have an undue influence over how the intelligence is interpreted by the policy makers. Bad? Certainly, but that's the nature of politics and politicians.

Intelligence estimates and assessments aren't cast in stone, but have to be carefully monitored looking for anomalies and/or factoids that might signal different conclusions. Over time small deviations may lead to a reassessment that is quite different from what was originally believed and reported. When that happens, a new report is made. The new assessment may be no more accurate than the original, its just based on a bit more data and on-going analysis as to what the data might mean. Is Iran engaged in an effort to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal? Israeli Intelligence, and many within our own Intelligence community still believe that to be the case. The arguments favoring that interpretation remain, though more data challenging that conclusion is being reported. Is Iran building the capability of producing nuclear weapons? Absolutely. Is that their intention? Maybe not, but the capability is certain where their intentions can only be surmised by their words and actions. Our policy makers will make political decisions based on incomplete information of uncertain accuracy and reliability. However, it is the best and most complete information our intelligence community can provide given the constraints they labor under.

No, he is a cynical egomaniac who has staff members and conservative think tanks to do that for him. He doesn't possess the intellectual wherewithal to cobble these sorts of things together on his own.

Good morning doll. Will let you know a bit later on our agenda in NY. That's of course if 'The Muslims are coming! The Muslims are coming!' people are a bit in error and NY will still be there in January.

Yes, it does go some distance to providing an explanation for the slightly inelegant disregard for the lives of persians and arabs.

I don't know if you recall the member "Steissd," who went on IDF service and has not been heard from since. One hopes that he is alive and well. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, he was here cheerleading for an invasion of Iran. I commented acidly to him that i was sure it was a consummation devoutly to be desired by an Israeli, but that he might understand that Americans would not be charmed by reading that he was eager to see American lives lost to forward an agenda favored by some Israelis.

He did not respond.

Hard to forget him. Very literal fellow. The sort who could read through the first 10 pages of "the onion" before suspecting something odd was up.

Nice guy, though . . . i always liked him, and i hope he is happy and healthy. I found him very interesting on the subject of the "old" Soviet Union. He emigrated to Israel in the 1970s, if i recall correctly. Also, if my recollection is correct, he did his military national service in the Soviet Union before he emigrated, and then became a reserve member of the IDF after he arrived in Israel. When he wasn't daydreaming about the potential uses of the United States Cavalry riding to the rescue, he had a lot of interesting things to say.

I have trouble disliking oralloy too. Smart fellow, careful in thought and in his writing, willing ususally to admit where he got it wrong or where he's on thin ice. But there's this other area of 'spray the world with exploded and radioactive muslim intestines' stuff.