Another interesting thought. Along with that, I heard an ex-CIA agent on the radio yesterday who had personally contributed to multiple NIEs in his career said that the public conclusions on NIEs are often misleading because they don't include -- duh -- the classified information that really counts. He said it was entirely possible that this NIE would be totally discounted down the road.Given that the Iranians knew we were trying to uncover as much information as we could regarding their nuclear program, is it to be believed that they were incapable of planting written notes and engaging in over the air conversations that would mislead America?
Recall, that before the Iraq War, Colin Powell played a tape of Iraqis discussing what was believed to be WMD. Surely, the Iranians knew we were eavesdropping. Just as Saddam Hussein misled observers regarding his nuclear program to scare off his foes, the Iranians could very well be doing the reverse-creating a false picture to disarm its opponents.An Iranian source was also credited with bringing documents to the attention of Western authorities. The possibility of a double agent is explored here. A similar human source, Curveball, gave us false information regarding Iraq and WMD. Has history repeated itself?There was resistance in the intelligence community to believe these notes were reliable. Nevertheless, the three authors used their "judgment" to conclude this (mis?)information warranted a wholesale rejection of their previous views and ignoring a raft of other evidence (let alone common sense) pointing to Iranian programs geared towards nuclear weapons.
Ultimately, it still comes down to whether or not Iran poses a danger to the world. Without nuclear weapons, they are a much, much smaller danger...but still a danger. And, there are a lot of suspicious things going on around this NIE that raise some serious questions. Let's not jump to happy-place conclusions just yet.
There's my two cents.
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