Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: POLITICS:  White House Fought NIE Over an Old Charge

L'analisi che segue propone una risposta alla ovvia domanda: << Se è dal 2003 
che non vi sono più evidenze circa l'intenzione dell'Iran di dotarsi di armi 
nucleari, perché i precedenti rapporti NIE non sono stati altrettanto espliciti 
su questo punto rispetto al rapporto 2007? >>
La risposta sarebbe che le pressioni della Casa Bianca lo hanno impedito.
Ma da questa risposta deriva una ulteriore domanda: << Se negli anni passati la 
Casa Bianca è riuscita ad impedire che venisse prodotto un rapporto NIE 
esplicito come quello del 2007, perché non è riuscita ad impedire l'uscita di 
questo ultimo rapporto? >>
E' probabile che la risposta risieda in una serie di concause, tra queste 
potrebbe esserci il diffondersi dell'opinione nelle stesse Agenzie che la 
prossima amministrazione sarà democratica, in tal caso sarebbe comprensibile che 
vi fosse in atto una progressiva presa presa di distanza dei funzionari 
dall'amministrazione Bush.  Come è anche possibile che la fronda democratica 
stia giocando tutte le sue carte per non ereditare una situazione ancora più 
disastrosa di quella presente.
Tuttavia, tenuto conto della situazione sul campo in Afghanistan e in Iraq e 
della precarietà della situazione finanziaria interna, è possibile che 
l'amministrazione Bush abbia volontariamente cessato di ostacolare i rapporti 
NIE e consentito di fatto l'uscita del rapporto 2007 così come è stato formulato.
Questo a causa della sostanziale impraticabilità dell'opzione militare contro 
l'Iran, che avrebbe potuto originare un imprevedibile e pericoloso squilibrio 
interno ed esterno agli USA.
Da questo punto di vista il rapporto è stato risolutivo come causa per la 
esclusione di un attacco militare all'Iran.
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POLITICS:  White House Fought NIE Over an Old Charge
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (IPS) - The reported White House resistance to the National 
Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Iran had abandoned a nuclear weapons 
programme in 2003 was an effort to save a political tactic the George W. Bush 
administration had been using since early 2004, despite the absence of an 
intelligence analysis to support it.
The charge that Iran had a secret weapons programme was originally devised to 
build international support for sanctions -- and even potential use of force -- 
against Iran at a time when Iran was not enriching uranium.
But in 2006, the hawks added the allegation of a secret Iranian uranium 
enrichment programme paralleling the publicly acknowledged programme to bolster 
the argument that Iran must not be allowed to have any enrichment, even if 
carefully limited to far below a weapon-related level and intrusively monitored.
The original Bush administration argument was that Iranian uranium enrichment at 
Natanz was prima facie evidence of a "nuclear weapons programme". On Feb. 23, 
2003 the State Department charged that Iran had exhibited "an ambitious rush to 
develop a nuclear fuel cycle, whose true purpose can only be to produce fissile 
material for its nuclear weapons programme".
That line took advantage of the widespread impression that the Natanz facility 
was illegal when it was revealed by the anti-regime National Council of 
Resistance in mid-2002, even though its construction was in compliance with 
Iran's safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
When Iran voluntarily suspended its programme of uranium enrichment as part of 
its agreement with Britain, France and Germany in October 2003, however, it 
forced the Bush administration to come up with the idea of a secret Iranian 
nuclear weapons programme.
It was John Bolton, then undersecretary of state for arms control, who 
articulated the new charge. He told a press conference on Mar. 3, 2004, "We 
think the Iranians are still trying to conceal a clandestine weapons programme..."
Bolton repeated the charge before the House International Relations Committee on 
May 24, 2004, declaring, "The United States strongly believes that Iran has a 
clandestine programme to produce nuclear weapons."
After the Iranian enrichment suspension was extended under a new agreement with 
Britain, France and Germany in November 2004, U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA 
Gregory Schulte reaffirmed the U.S. charge that Iran had a clandestine nuclear 
weapons programme.
But the Bush administration's charge was not backed by any intelligence 
assessment. That was a major issue at stake when the National Intelligence 
Council commissioned a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran in 
January 2005.
Significantly, while the 2005 Iran NIE was being developed, the public charges 
of a covert weapons programme stopped, apparently on orders from Secretary of 
State Condoleezza Rice.
The new intelligence estimate, produced in May 2005, concluded, "It is the 
judgment of the intelligence community that, left to its own devices, Iran is 
determined to build nuclear weapons." But it remained uncertain about whether 
the evidence of "clandestine work" by the military amounted to a "nuclear 
weapons programme", as reported by Dafna Linzer in the Washington Post Aug. 2, 2005.
Equally important was the NIE's conclusion that Iran would not have enough 
fissile material for a nuclear weapon until 2010 to 2015. That timeline, as 
Linzer reported, reflected "fading suspicions that Iran's military has been 
running its own separate and covert enrichment effort".
Administration hardliners wanted the NIE to support their allegation of a secret 
enrichment programme to back up their pressure on Britain, France and Germany to 
reject Iran's 2005 proposal to the European three for an agreement under which 
it would limit uranium enrichment to the low levels appropriate to nuclear 
energy and submit to an inspection regime proposed by the Europeans. A key 
administration argument against such an agreement was that the experience gained 
from even a very limited enrichment programme could be diverted into the alleged 
underground enrichment programme.
The key findings of the NIE were never made public -- a decision which set that 
NIE apart from others covering politically sensitive subjects. Keeping them 
secret gave greater credibility to allegations of a secret enrichment programme 
by Israel's Mossad. Israeli intelligence officials told a number of journalists, 
including Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker, that there was a second nuclear 
programme in Iran run secretly by the military and the revolutionary guards that 
included both enrichment and weaponisation activities. Israel used the parallel 
enrichment programme charge to support its claim that Iran was much closer to 
having the capability to make a nuclear weapon than had been suggested by U.S. 
intelligence.
When work on a new NIE on the Iranian nuclear programme began in the second half 
of 2006, the alleged covert nuclear weapons programme was again the top issue.
By November 2006, the Central Intelligence Agency had already circulated an 
assessment within the intelligence community that rejected the covert weapons 
programme thesis, as Hersh reported in late November. However, Vice President 
Dick Cheney and his aides were trying to exclude the CIA's assessment from the 
NIE, a senior intelligence official told Hersh.
The CIA had found no evidence for such a programme, but Cheney and the White 
House were insisting, according to Hersh's story, that the failure to find a 
secret nuclear weapons programme in Iran was merely evidence of the skill with 
which the Iranians were hiding it.
Another tactic used by Cheney was to cite a new claim by Israeli intelligence 
that its spies inside Iran had learned that Iran had developed and tested a 
trigger device for a nuclear bomb. Conveniently, the alleged tests would not 
leave any trace of radioactivity, thus explaining why the sophisticated 
radiation monitoring devices placed in Iran by the United States and Israel had 
not detected it.
The CIA did not regard the report as reliable, especially in the absence of 
details that would allow verification. But Cheney asked for the original raw 
Israeli intelligence report, according to Hersh -- the same thing Cheney and top 
Pentagon officials had done in constructing their case for the invasion of Iraq 
in 2002.
Cheney's tactics bottled up the NIE until early 2007. Last spring, however, the 
intelligence community came up with much more compelling evidence that no secret 
nuclear weapons programme -- including covert enrichment-related activities -- 
had existed after fall 2003.
The White House responded by arguing that the new evidence might be based on an 
Iranian disinformation campaign, which forced a long process of proving that it 
was not information deliberately planted by Iran. That held up the acceptance of 
the NIE for several more months.
Recent briefings by intelligence officials have carefully refrained from naming 
any particular White House official who pushed the disinformation theory, but it 
was Cheney who was in charge of managing intelligence issues in order to protect 
the existing policy line.
*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. 
national security policy. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of 
Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.
(END/2007)

 So much per le tue deduzioni probabilistiche.
Tu che metodo usi?  Così, per curiosità.

 Tu che metodo usi?  Così, per curiosità.
lui ? nessuno. si limita a porgere.
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

  Mica sono criptofrocio come te.
"frocio"? toh il nazista brit è omofobo come Storace.


  lo sanno anche alle elementari.
anche alle elementari sanno che sei un cretino fascio? Ma non è che
bazzicavi Rignano Flaminio?


 faccio, me ne pento. ;-)
Un conformista, insomma, che deduce solo quando gli consentono di farlo e solo 
sulla base di quello che gli permettono di sapere.
Ecco perché le tue deduzioni coincidono sempre con l'opinione mainstream.


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Aldilà del linguacccio da sciamano della garbatella, concordo che le tue 
deduzioni si basano su quello che non sai.
Indubbiamente un corpus informativo  piuttoosto vasto e profondo.
Tb
-- 
Libertà per i comunisti siriani in carcere: Fateh Jamus, 'Isam Dimashqi,
Basel Hurani, 'Abd al-Halim Rumieh, Ratib Sha'bu, and Doha 'Ashur
al-'Askari 
http://snipurl.com/1oqtm

 Mai sentito parlare.
ehm...vivi in Italia o sulla Luna?

 portino all'assassinio politico, come in passato.
Vostri di chi?  Io non appartengo a nessun "noi":

 sappiamo che l'ha ripreso.
No, dice che ha fermato il programma militare (mentre l'arricchimmento continuava).
Gli iraniani cercano di spacciare le centrifughe come strumenti pacifici.
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 Qualcuno ha i passi salienti del NIE?
Sono 9 pagine in tutto
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/international/20071203_release.pdf
Passo saliente:
We assess centrifuge enrichment is how Iran probably could first produce enough
fissile material for a weapon, if it decides to do so. Iran resumed its declared 
centrifuge enrichment activities in January 2006, despite the continued halt in 
the nuclear weapons program. Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing 
centrifuges at Natanz, but we judge with moderate confidence it still faces 
significant technical problems operating them.
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In altre parole hanno fermato la costruzione dell'arma ma stanno pprocedendo 
nella costruzione del materiiale per farla.
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