John Bolton is concerned that our CIA and intelligence apparatus are too politicized:
The NIE's first key judgment is "we judge with high confidence that in fall, 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." Most of the world, predictably, never got beyond that opinion. Only inveterate footnote hunters noticed the extraordinary accompanying footnote which redefined Iran's "nuclear weapons program" to mean only its "nuclear weapon design and weaponization work," and undeclared uranium conversion and enrichment activities. Card sharks -- not intelligence professionals -- could be proud of this sleight of hand, which grossly mischaracterizes what Iran actually needs for a weapons program.
The NIE later makes clear that Iran's nuclear efforts and capabilities are continuing and growing, that many activities are "dual use" (i.e., for either civil or military purposes), and that Iran's real intentions are unknown. Substantively, therefore, the NIE is not far different from the 2005 NIE, but its first sentence gives a radically different impression.
Here is the first question for Congress: Was the NIE's opening salvo intended to produce policy consequences congenial to Mr. McConnell's own sentiments? If not, how did he miss the obvious consequences that flowed from the NIE within minutes of its public release?
Bolton is missing the point. Sure, the NIE opened with a sentence designed to mislead. But the entire press world went along with it and our Left eagerly lapped it up! If we had a press corps that wasn't interested in promoting policy, the little sleight of hand would have been easy to spot.
But no, the press was not interested in reporting the news. The press read the first sentence and then stopped right there! Good grief, the published NIE was itself an executive summary of a huge document! And the press could only get through the first sentence? They can't be that dumb, can they? (I realize I am on weak ground with that assumption.)
As with any good scam, you need more than one party in on the game. A politicized intelligence apparatus would have been laughed out of town if we didn't have a politicized and sympathetic press corps, too.
UPDATE: Since the interpretation provided by our press reinforced a deep desire to ignore the Iranian nuclear threat, this clarification of the NIE will have no effect at all on the public:
The director of national intelligence is backing away from his agency's assessment late last year that Iran had halted its nuclear program, saying he wishes he had written the unclassified version of the document in a different manner. ...
The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program released on December 3 distinguished Iran's enrichment of uranium at Natanz and Arak from its formal nuclear weapons program, which it said had halted in 2003 after the American invasion of Iraq.
Yesterday, Mr. McConnell struck a different tone. "Declared uranium enrichment efforts, which will enable the production of fissile material, continue. This is the most difficult challenge in nuclear production. Iran's efforts to perfect ballistic missiles that can reach North Africa and Europe also continue."
He went on, "We remain concerned about Iran's intentions and assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons."
If people had actually read the NIE summary without extracting isolated sentences as the press did to support their already-held desire to shy away from facing the Iran threat, none of this would be necessary. We could press ahead to the question of what to do about Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions without detouring into a false debate over whether Iran is getting closer to nukes.
Or, more likely, Iran will detonate or use a nuke and then we'll know with absolute confidence.
NOTE: I corrected the title. Some time ago, I posted with a title conflating the terms fifth column and fourth estate. It seems that idea got stuck in my head, as you can see by looking at the address of this post ...
