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Iranian Atomkraft? Nein Danke!

Such a cute bumpersticker. Remember that? Can we get a Hebrew one?  Because Israelis who just won’t take “maybe not” for an answer are here trying to talk sense into the U.S. intel community:   

JERUSALEM - Israeli intelligence officers are in the United States to convince U.S. officials Iran is still developing nuclear weapons - contrary to the findings of a recent U.S. intelligence report, security officials said.

The new push against Iran came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet yesterday to tone down criticism of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, to keep the disagreement from getting out of hand. The admonition came after one of his ministers warned the NIE could trigger a regional war by reducing the world’s vigilance and emboldening Iran.

“Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analyzing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat,” Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency - said Saturday. “The American misconception concerning Iran’s nuclear weapons is liable to lead to a regional Yom Kippur war) where Israel will be among the countries that are threatened.”

President Bush has said Iran remains dangerous despite the NIE’s finding. The estimate concluded that Iran’s nuclear weapons program ended in 2003, but noted that uranium enrichment and missile development continue, and Iran could have nuclear weapons in two to seven years. Bush critics have cited it as evidence of a faulty rush to war by the administration.

Israel considers Iran a serious threat for the same reasons, as well as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated calls for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” For years, Israel has been urging action to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

It was not clear what material the Israeli intelligence delegation presented in Washington.

Topics: Intel, Iran, Israel

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:44 am on Monday, December 17, 2007

6 Responses to “Iranian Atomkraft? Nein Danke!”

1. RebeccaH Says:
   December 17th, 2007 at 11:59 am

   I don’t blame the Israelis for being upset, because I think they’re right.

2. saltydog Says:
   December 17th, 2007 at 4:23 pm

   The “intelligence community,” at least as it is represented by the analysts at the CIA, have made complete asses of themselves. The ploy is so obviously a political one that anyone with two brain cells left to rub together knows that that assessment is a load of disingenuous equivocations. The dangers involved are obvious and I do not believe that this report was produced innocently or merely to hand-cuff Bush.

3. Michael Lonie Says:
   December 17th, 2007 at 8:12 pm

   The CIA has been going downhill ever since 1975, when Angleton was purged. For over thirty years the CIA has paid little attention to Counterespionage and has been sucker-punched by its adversaries many times over that period. Now the Intelligence Community, so called, is forcing the hand of the elected officials to conform to the policy preferences of the IC. Stick a fork in the CIA, it’s done. We should rebuild a new espionage agency out of the military who have done so well in Iraq and elsewhere in gaining intel against the jihadists. A few CIA officers may remain, but there appears to be too many careerists and timeservers there, especially in the upper ranks. And the many layers of bureaucracy, including the latest additions, should be mostly stripped away and thrown out.

4. saltydog Says:
   December 17th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

   Once again, Michael, I say AMEN.

   The war has exposed the rot in our most important institutions. Just the fact that the likes of Al Q, or any of the rest, thought for one moment that they should go up against us tells us something disturbing. The enemy learned about the rot over several decades. They’ve played our weaknesses well–from the universities to the PC multicult definitions of racism, they’ve exploited our self-imposed disarmament. It is always a mistake to underestimate the enemy. Especially one we’ve been educating for years. The fact that none of this seems to penetrate the political walls protecting these self-appointed know-it-alls, is just one more example of the depth of the rot.

5. Michael Lonie Says:
   December 18th, 2007 at 9:01 pm

   You’re right, Salty, complacency, ignorance, and focus on internal partisanship rot our political system. Stupidity, complacency, lack of foresight, and ignorance rot our culture. Too many people cannot imagine that there will be a price to be paid for their foolishness, or what the magnitude of that price is likely to be. “Every little drummer ‘ad ‘is rights and wrongs to mind, and we ‘ad to pay for learning, and we paid.”

6. Jules Crittenden » Fine Print Says:
   February 25th, 2008 at 8:30 pm

   [...] big issue. Maybe, because it’s the Brits, it will carry some weight. As opposed to the Israelis. I wouldn’t count on it, though. there’s a lot of aspirational cognition out [...]

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