The NIE Iran Report

Below is from The Israel Project.org. I subscribe to their email newsletter.

• The new U.S. intelligence report [pdf] makes U.S. intelligence look like an oxymoron. If Iran isn't working towards nuclear weapons, why does it continue to violate international laws and hide its program from nuclear inspectors? Why would Iranian leaders risk more economic sanctions if they don't have a weapons program? Wouldn't they allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to fully access their sites if they weren't pursuing nuclear weapons?
• Iran claims to have 3,000 working centrifuges. If they continue to operate successfully they will create enough fuel for a nuclear weapon in a year. Why, given that the president of Iran has said he wants to dominate the world, would we think Iran’s nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes?
• Iran has been identified as the world’s leading state sponsor of international terrorism, funding Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas, as well as Shiite insurgent groups. Iran is even recruiting its youth and students across the Middle East for suicide operations against Western targets.
• Religious extremism, particularly Islamic fundamentalism, is one of the key dangers in the world today. The Iranian president is a religious extremist who believes that it is his destiny to trigger a period of chaos, war and bloodshed in order for Islam to dominate the world.
• Nuclear proliferation is one of the greatest dangers to world peace. We must act to stop Iran before it can develop nuclear technology, because the Iranian president has said that he would share nuclear technology with like-minded Muslim countries.
• The new NIE report is ambiguous, contradictory, and hardly reassuring, but it clearly states that the timeline for making a nuclear bomb has not changed.
• Most Western countries continue to offer strong support for using economic diplomacy with Iran, led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
• The president of Iran believes he is creating an Islamic “superpower,” which will bring down the West, including the United States. He says that he will have hundreds of millions of Muslim “holy raiders” eager to become martyrs.
• The Iranian president calls the Holocaust a “myth” and frequently calls for the destruction of Israel. If we do not act, we run the risk of placating an extremist and making the same mistake we made with Hitler, which led to World War II and the deaths of millions.
• We must act now, using more economic diplomacy and greater economic pressure, to help prevent a war.

If there is one international intelligence agency I trust above all others it would the Israels. Why? Because Israel is sitting right next door to Iran, and Iranian leadership wants to see Israel become extinct. They have a invested interest to get the best intelligence about Iran's intentions. This is not to say Israel's intelligence agency is perfect--no intelligence agency is. The intelligence agencies of France, England, Germany, Russia, America and yes Israel thought Iraq had WMDs. This was because Saddam Hussein bluffed countries into thinking he had them in order to bluff Iran. Even Saddam Hussein's top generals believed he had WMDs.

FYI: The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is made up of 16 intelligence agencies of America. The keyword here is estimate.