BOLTON ATTACKS NIE REPORT ON IRAN

The Washington Post has today published an attack by John Bolton on the NIE report on Iran. Bolton produces no evidence whatsoever that Iran has been attempting to produce a nuclear weapon. This correlates with what Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said yesterday, in that Russia has no evidence that Iran ever followed a nuclear weapons program.

In his WP piece Bolton reminds us that he was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control in 2003. This was when the "coalition of the killing" went into Iraq telling us that Iraq had WMD and that they knew exactly where they were. To date, no such WMD has been found. However, despite telling us that Iraqi oil would be used for the Iraqis, the Iraq Oil Privatisation Law, which will hand control over Iraq's oil to Anglo-Americans, is being passed.

So can we ever believe John Bolton and his moustache again? I seriously doubt it.

I think that a compromise was reached between Cheney and the intelligence community. The year 2003 automatically makes one think that perhaps the invasion of Iraq did make Iran think twice about its nuclear weapon programme.

And there lies the trick, for you then assume that Iran did have a nuclear weapon programme. And if it did, then it could start it up again. So we had better invade etc etc.

But as Lavrov said; what evidence is at all that Iran ever did or does have a nuclear weapon programme?

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From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120502234.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

The Flaws In the Iran Report

By John R. Bolton
Thursday, December 6, 2007; Page A29

Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the "intelligence community" on issues such as Iraq's weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.

All this shows that we not only have a problem interpreting what the mullahs in Tehran are up to, but also a more fundamental problem: Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than "intelligence" analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it. President Bush may not be able to repair his Iran policy (which was not rigorous enough to begin with) in his last year, but he would leave a lasting legacy by returning the intelligence world to its proper function.