August 5, 2005

Politics and CIA forecasts

By James Lewis
The CIA's estimate of Iranian nuke development is "absurd," according to Henry Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, as quoted by the Christian Science Monitor. Sokolski notes that the US developed its nuclear weapons in less than a decade. "Are we saying the Iranians are further behind technically than we were in 1940? It's absurd." As several commentators have noted in these pages, there is reason to think that the new National Director of Intelligence, John Negroponte, was simply skunked, specifically by Valerie Plame's anti—proliferation outfit at CIA. Contrary to the CIA optimism, the Defense Intelligence Agency is said to estimate a two year deadline for Iranian nukes. That is about what Israeli intelligence suggested some time ago. Israel is likely to have far better human intelligence on the Iranian regime than we do. The CIA doesn't like to do HUMINT, while Israel's life is on the line. It cannot afford bureaucratic blind spots. The...(Read Full Article)