Image: Salvador Dali, Geopoliticus child watching the birth of the new man
Hard Rain Journal: "NIE on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgment"
By Richard Power
The Bush-Cheney regime's effort at forced relocation of the US intelligence services from the reality-based community to the fantasy-based community is still meeting with heavy resistance.
Despite the betrayal of Valerie Plame, and other outrages, some intelligence professionals who have refused to drink the kool-aid remain in place.
Conscience, rationality and patriotism is high in the ranks of military, intelligence, diplomatic and law enforcement professionals.
But there is very little time left. The Bush-Cheney regime's purges have taken a heavy toll, and if they are followed by Giuliani or some other crypto-fascist, those few last lights could be snuffed out.
Here is an important news story that highlights one dimension of this extraordinary struggle, which has gone on since before the invasion of Iraq, and indeed, since before 9/11:
The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear program. The aim is to make the document more supportive of Vice President Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts provided by participants in the NIE process to two former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers.
But this pressure on intelligence analysts, obviously instigated by Cheney himself, has not produced a draft estimate without those dissenting views, these sources say. The White House has now apparently decided to release the "unsatisfactory" draft NIE, but without making its key findings public.
A NIE coordinates the judgments of the US's 16 intelligence agencies on a specific country or issue.
A former CIA intelligence officer who has asked not to be identified told Inter Press Service (IPS) that an official involved in the NIE process says the Iran estimate was ready to be published a year ago but has been delayed because the director of national intelligence wanted a draft reflecting a consensus on key conclusions - particularly on Iran's nuclear program.
There is a split in the intelligence community on how much of a threat the Iranian nuclear program poses, according to the intelligence official's account. Some analysts who are less independent are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the alarmist view coming from Cheney's office, but others have rejected that view.
The draft NIE, first completed a year ago, which had included the dissenting views, was not acceptable to the White House, according to the former intelligence officer. "They refused to come out with a version that had dissenting views in it," he says. Inter Press Service, 11-9-07
Take heart. If Cheney had gotten his way, we would already be at war with Iran.
I urge you to go to Securing America, Vote Vets or Stop Iran War and join Gen. Clark, and other patriots, in this struggle to save the USA from making yet another terrible mistake in the Middle East.
Some Related Posts:
Hard Rain Journal 11-3-07: The Nuclear Threat is Grave, But It is Not Coming from Iran; It is Coming from Pakistan, & Perhaps from Within
Hard Rain Journal: 7 More Nails that the US Mainstream News Media Won't Pound into GOP's Coffin; False "Daddy" Meme Must Be Perpetuated At All Cost
Hard Rain Journal: Iraq, Iran, Insanity & An Ugly Secret about the US Electorate
Hard Rain Journal 9-27-07: Travesty after Travesty in the US Senate, Meanwhile Nuclear-Tipped Pakistan is in Danger of Falling to Al Qaeda & Allies
Hard Rain Journal 9-3-07: Update on the Coming "Confrontation" with Iran -- Will the USA Stumble From Stupidity to Insanity
Hard Rain Journal 2-21-07: This is Madness -- Bush-Cheney Target Saddam and then the Iranians -- Both Sworn Enemies of Al Qaeda, Meanwhile...
For an archive of Words of Power posts on 9/11, Terrorism, etc., click here.
For an archive of Words of Power posts on Corporate News Media Complicity, Power of Alternative Media, Propaganda & Freedom of Press, click here.
VoteVets.org,NIE, Iran, Mohamed ElBaradei, Iraq, Bush, Valerie Plame, Wesley Clark, Cheney, , Richard Power, Words of Power
