The Intelligence War Over Iran

[dogday]

Intelligence Czar John Negroponte splashes cold water on the neocons who are hot to attack Iran.

In a replay of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction charade, neoconservative supporters of George W. Bush are pushing the U.S. intelligence community to take a more alarmist view about Iran's nuclear program -- only this time, the nation's top spy John Negroponte is resisting the pressure unlike former CIA chief George Tenet.

Tenet joined in Bush's hyping of the WMD evidence about Iraq -- famously telling the President that the case was a "slam dunk." But Negroponte is defying hardliners who want a worst-case scenario on Iran's capabilities. Instead, he is citing Iran's limited progress in refining uranium and their use of a cascade of only 164 centrifuges.

"According to the experts that I consult, achieving -- getting 164 centrifuges to work is still a long way from having the capacity to manufacture sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon," Negroponte said in an interview with NBC News on April 20.

"Our assessment is that the prospects of an Iranian weapon are still a number of years off, and probably into the next decade," said Negroponte, who was appointed last year as the Director of National Intelligence, a new post that supplanted the traditional primacy of the CIA director as the head of the U.S. intelligence community.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/35707/

[Lerkfish]

1. weird. I'd have thought negroponte would be halfway up Bush's backside on

this issue.

[jmowreader]

2. If Iraq wouldn't have been an absolute debacle...

he probably would be.

John Negroponte is an intelligent man. Yes, he's evil as the day is long, but I know you've heard the term "evil genius." That's Negroponte.

Negroponte also knows that when Iraq blew up in Bush's face...oh, about 24 hours after Triumph of the Wimp...they dumped 100 percent of the blame on George Tenet. This won't happen to Negroponte.

Negroponte is currently laying the groundwork so that when Bush invades Iran and it blows up in America's face, Negroponte can go in front of Congress and say that this one's not his fault.

Tenet's problem is that he is too interested in being liked to be CIA director. You've got to be willing to piss your boss off on a regular basis to properly do that job. Tenet never wanted to do that.

[400Years]

3. good cop bad cop

if the arguement is "should we attack them now or should we attack them next tuesday" the outcome of that arguement is obvious: "we'll attack them at some point"