Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE - CommonDreams.org

 

WASHINGTON — A 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, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency 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.                                                                   "Bastards Released the report!!"

A former CIA intelligence officer who has asked not to be identified told 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.

The NIE coordinates the judgments of 16 intelligence agencies on a specific country or issue.

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.

As recently as early October, the official involved in the process was said to be unclear about whether an NIE would be circulated and, if so, what it would say.

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi provided a similar account, based on his own sources in the intelligence community. He told IPS that intelligence analysts have had to review and rewrite their findings three times, because of pressure from the White House.

Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE - CommonDreams.org