Analyst says Bushco has disregarded YEARS of intel on Iran's fear of

[Gloria]

a US attack...which is motivating their pursuit of nukes. Read on....

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32068

Fear of U.S. Drove Iran's Nuclear Policy
Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (IPS) - The George W. Bush administration's adoption of a policy of threatening to use military force against Iran disregarded a series of official intelligence estimates going back many years that consistently judged Iran's fear of a U.S. attack to be a major motivating factor in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Two former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials who were directly involved in producing CIA estimates on Iran revealed in separate interviews with IPS that the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) on Iran have consistently portrayed its concerns about the military threat posed by the United States as a central consideration in Tehran's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.

Paul Pillar, who managed the writing of all NIEs on Iran from 2000 to 2005 as the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, told IPS that all of the NIEs on Iran during that period addressed the Iranian fears of U.S. attack explicitly and related their desire for nuclear weapons to those fears.

"Iranian perceptions of threat, especially from the United States and Israel, were not the only factor," Pillar said, "but were in our judgment part of what drove whatever effort they were making to build nuclear weapons."

Pillar said the dominant view of the intelligence community in the past three years has been that Iran would seek a nuclear weapons capability, but analysts have also considered that a willingness on the part of Washington to reassure Iran on its security fears would have a significant effect on Iranian policy.

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*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.

[donco6]

1. It's easy to ignore intel when you have none.

Intelligence, that it.