Operation War Con, Pt. II

The big story I left unremarked upon last week was the news that the neocons are getting impatient with the lack of half-truths and deliberate distortions designed to push the country into war again:

Some senior Bush administration officials and top Republican lawmakers are voicing anger that American spy agencies have not issued more ominous warnings about the threats that they say Iran presents to the United States.

That first sentence is amazing. They're not angry that Iran is a threat to the US, they're angry that the intelligence community isn't TELLING ENOUGH PEOPLE that Iran is a threat to the US. Now of course, the Adminsitration and their allies in the House have the biggest bully pulpit there is. So really the frustration is that the CIA and other intelligence agencies aren't seeing fit to be the willing and eager bamboozlers that they were in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

The complaints, expressed privately in recent weeks, surfaced in a Congressional report about Iran released Wednesday. They echo the tensions that divided the administration and the Central Intelligence Agency during the prelude to the war in Iraq.

The criticisms reflect the views of some officials inside the White House and the Pentagon who advocated going to war with Iraq and now are pressing for confronting Iran directly over its nuclear program and ties to terrorism, say officials with knowledge of the debate.

The dissonance is surfacing just as the intelligence agencies are overhauling their procedures to prevent a repeat of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate — the faulty assessment that in part set the United States on the path to war with Iraq.

See, and that's the problem. The intelligence agencies are overhauling procedures that the neocons don't want overhauled. Because they're far easier to manage if they just spit out predetermined conclusions.

All of this stems from a House Intelligence Committee report (read: bitch and moan-fest) that showed its anger at the intelligence community turning into an independent agent rather than a rubber stamp for Administration policy (like the House is, for example):

The new report, from the House Intelligence Committee, led by Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, portrayed Iran as a growing threat and criticized American spy agencies for cautious assessments about Iran’s weapons programs. “Intelligence community managers and analysts must provide their best analytical judgments about Iranian W.M.D. programs and not shy away from provocative conclusions or bury disagreements in consensus assessments,” the report said, using the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction like nuclear arms.

Some policy makers also said they were displeased that American spy agencies were playing down intelligence reports — including some from the Israeli government — of extensive contacts recently between Hezbollah and members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. “The people in the community are unwilling to make judgment calls and don’t know how to link anything together,” one senior United States official said.

“We’re not in a court of law,” he said. “When they say there is ‘no evidence,’ you have to ask them what they mean, what is the meaning of the term ‘evidence’?”

I wonder way they'd be gun-shy? After all, four years ago they gave the neocons everything they wanted, "slam-dunk" and all, and were promptly shit upon when the underlying assumptions weren't met. Why would they hold back this time? It couldn't be because they were holding out for the facts to come in, could it? Rush Holt reached the same conclusion:

Some officials said that given all that had happened over the last four years, it was only appropriate that the intelligence agencies took care to avoid going down the same path that led the United States to war with Iraq.

“Analysts were burned pretty badly during the run-up to the war in Iraq,” said Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. “I’m not surprised that some in the intelligence community are a bit gun-shy about appearing to be war mongering.”

Let's take a closer look at that House Intelligence Committee report:

Accurate and comprehensive intelligence is critical for the development of good policy. There is a great deal about Iran that we do not know. It would be irresponsible to list the specific intelligence gaps in an unclassified paper, as identifying our specific shortcomings would provide critical insights to the Iranian government. Suffice it to say, however, that the United States lacks critical information needed for analysts to make many of their judgments with confidence about Iran and there are many significant information gaps. A special concern is major gaps in our knowledge of Iranian nuclear, biological, and chemical programs. US policymakers and intelligence officials believe, without exception, that the United States must collect more and better intelligence on a wide range of Iranian issues -its political dynamics, economic health, support for terrorism, the nature of its involvement in Iraq, the status of its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons efforts, and many more topics of interest. The national security community must dedicate the personnel and resources necessary to better assess Iran's plans, capabilities and intentions, and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) must identify, establish, and report on intelligence goals and performance metrics to measure progress on critical fronts [...]

Although it is likely that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, there is the possibility that Iran could be engaged in a denial and deception campaign to exaggerate progress on its nuclear program such as Saddam Hussein apparently did concerning his WMD programs. U.S. leaders need more definitive intelligence to judge the status of the Iranian nuclear program and whether there have been any related deception efforts.

These statements are eerily reminiscent of the same kinds of circumstances we found ourselves in with regard to Iraq. And mind you this is in the report that agitates for war unequivocally. I'd hate to see the one that offers caveats!

Meanwhile, there's a whole lot of fudging within the report, including a graphic that shows an Iranian missile called "Shahab-4" which they don't have, emanating from Kuwait, which they don't control. And the report flat-out states that it "relies exclusively on publicly available documents. Its authors did not interview intelligence officials." I'm going to throw in my lot with the professionals in the intelligence community who are trying to ensure a failure like Iraq never happens again, rather than a bunch of neocon warmongerers with an agenda. I think Iran is dangerous and Russia's apparent unwillingness to push forward with sanctions is unfortunate. A regionalized, coalition-based sactioning is apparently an option, but military action is incredibly premature, and when a report like this comes out, riddled with half-truths and bullying, it should raise a red flag.

And we should never forget why Iran is in this position in the first place:

The US-led "war on terror" has bolstered Iran's power and influence in the Middle East, especially over its neighbour and former enemy Iraq, a thinktank said today.
A report published by Chatham House said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had removed Iran's main rival regimes in the region.

Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and its invasion of Lebanon had also put Iran "in a position of considerable strength" in the Middle East, said the thinktank.

Unless stability could be restored to the region, Iran's power will continue to grow, according to the report published by Chatham House.

Understatement of the year. They had two major enemies and we took out both of them.

UPDATE: And the Times gets everything right in this editorial.

The last thing this country needs as it heads into this election season is another attempt to push the intelligence agencies to hype their conclusions about the threat from a Middle Eastern state.

That’s what happened in 2002, when the administration engineered a deeply flawed document on Iraq that reshaped intelligence to fit President Bush’s policy. And history appeared to be repeating itself this week, when the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, released a garishly illustrated and luridly written document that is ostensibly dedicated to “helping the American people understand” that Iran’s fundamentalist regime and its nuclear ambitions pose a strategic threat to the United States [...]

All in all, this is a chilling reminder of what happened when intelligence analysts told Vice President Dick Cheney they could not prove that Iraq was building a nuclear weapon or had ties with Al Qaeda. He kept asking if they really meant it — until the C.I.A. took the hint.

It’s obvious that Iran wants nuclear weapons, has lied about its program and views America as an enemy. We enthusiastically agree that the United States needs every scrap of intelligence it can get on Iran. But the reason American intelligence is not certain when Iran might have a nuclear bomb is because the situation is so murky — not because the agencies are too wimpy to tell the scary truth.

If the Republicans who control Congress really wanted a full-scale assessment on the state of Iran’s weapons programs, they would have asked for one, rather than producing this brochure.

The nation cannot afford to pay the price again for politicians’ bending intelligence or bullying the intelligence agencies to suit their ideology.