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Iran's 'bomb' and dud intelligence
By Richard M Bennett
Apart from terrorism, hard information on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has for many years undoubtedly been at the very top of the "want lists" of the intelligence agencies of the leading Western powers.
Yet repeatedly, the major players in the field, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain's MI6 among them, have failed to deliver the required intelligence when most needed.
To add to the problems, in many cases the information that has been acquired has either been wrongly analyzed, of doubtful quality or has been simply ignored by their host government as an inconvenient irrelevance.
However, what is without question the most alarming aspect of

this continuing intelligence failure has been the number of times the CIA in particular has been deliberately misled by "trusted" sources, or through a surprising level of naivety has fallen victim to disinformation ploys either by its opponents or by those seeking political or financial gain.
Put simply, Western intelligence gets conned far too often.
Were these intelligence failings due to just a lack of experienced analysts or was it because the senior management of the most important national intelligence agencies cravenly gave in to pressure to simply report what their political masters wanted to hear?
Whatever the answer, to many a well-informed observer, this can be taken to be nothing less than a grave dereliction of duty by the intelligence services and indeed a gross breach of the trust placed in them by the peoples of both the US and Britain.
Little that has happened since September 11, 2001, would suggest that simply throwing huge sums of money at the problem, employing thousands of extra spooks and investing in highly expensive technological wizardry will provide any form of viable short-term solution.
The problem is further exacerbated by the willingness of governments in both Washington and London to appoint political cronies to positions of importance within the intelligence community. Porter Goss at the CIA and to some extent former British premier Tony Blair's pal John Scarlett at MI6 have been obvious examples.
It fits rather too closely to the growing suspicion that an immature Western political leadership appears to constantly reject intelligence, even when it has a high level of provenance that conflicts with preconceived policies and instead prefers to rely on often manipulated "facts" or even downright disinformation if it can be used to prop up some cherished political aims or further personal political ambitions.
The track record is not good, and while it cannot be denied that intelligence services have always suffered from the "successes stay secret, while failures become public" syndrome, it is still apparent that significant mistakes occur with what appears to be alarming regularity.
The most significant occasions in recent years include the complete misreading of the flow of information about Iraqi WMD before the invasion of 2003.
There was a stack of evidence that strongly suggested that Iraq retained no significant CBW (chemical and biological weapons) ability after the first Gulf war in 1991. No WMD or the means to deliver them. There was no hard evidence provided before 2003 and none of any importance discovered since, despite five years of searching to prove otherwise.
Yet the CIA chose to accept the poisonous whisperings and uncorroborated information provided by "Curveball" and other equally dubious sources.
Britain's much-vaunted MI6, in tandem with the Joint Intelligence Committee, far from providing a council of caution, instead blundered into the fray by producing the ludicrously amateurish report on Iraqi WMDs as decisive confirmation of the threat, even adding the absurd "45-minute" element much trumpeted in the House of Commons and elsewhere.
Discredited NIE report
In 2007, yet another confusing picture was presented to the world. The US intelligence community had appeared to be wholeheartedly, both in public and in many private off-the-record media briefings, behind the George W Bush administration's contention that Iran had a dedicated nuclear weapon research program up and running.
However, in late 2007, the flawed and now largely discredited NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) report, "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities", was published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in Washington and simply discarded years of supposedly hard intelligence.
Tehran, it seemed, had placed its WMD research and development on hold around late 2003, though no one, not agents in Iran, nor the vast resources of the CIA, the DNI, the signals intelligence of the National Security Agency or the spy satellites of the National Reconnaissance Office had noticed this.
It is reported that concrete proof of Iran's sophisticated disinformation came in mid-December 2006, when the CIA intercepted a conversation between two unidentified officials at the Defense Ministry in Tehran, reporting differences between the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and the Ministry of Defense.
One of the Iranian officials reportedly said, "Currently, as for the CTBTO [Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization], I think that the Ministry of Defense must have the last word, because they [the leaders of the AEOI] know that ultimately we intend to conduct tests."
Yet this damning evidence of deliberate Iranian deception was also discounted in the NIE findings.
So are the spooks value for money? On such evidence as this, one must think not.
Worse was still to come, for by this year the US intelligence community had already given the appearance of changing its stance once again.
The NIE report it seems was no longer to be taken as the "holy grail"; the facts were now in urgent need of reinterpretation and the US administration has now seemingly largely rejected the findings of the NIE report.
The United Nations Security Council had also largely ignored the NIE report and recently passed a third set of sanctions designed to force Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program.
It seems that few experts outside the rather credulous US intelligence community believed the so-called evidence of a hiatus in Iran's nuclear development and most chose to dismiss it as bogus.
Interestingly, Francois Heisbourg, the internationally renowned French defense expert and director of the Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique (Foundation for Strategic Research), after analyzing the findings of the NIE in December 2007, is quoted in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps as saying that this report's conclusion could be the result of revenge by some in US intelligence against a president who put them in a tough spot during the Iraqi crisis. He added, "Compared to the NIE report on Iran, even Mohamed ElBaradei looks like a hawk." ElBaradei is the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
It is important at this point to remember that despite being rarely reported, a number of IAEA documents also apparently point to the existence of an Iranian military nuclear research program.
On February 25, 2008, Olli Heinonen, the Finnish deputy director general of the IAEA, reportedly presented further evidence that strongly supports this contention.
The leading French newspaper Le Monde reported in March 2008 that newly discovered documents strongly suggested that Tehran still pursued a military nuclear program after 2003, contrary to what the NIE had stated.
These documents reportedly included a letter written in 2004 by Mahdi Khaniki, an official deeply involved with the IAEA and a former Iranian ambassador to Syria, to Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the vice president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
Le Monde claimed that Khaniki pointed out that the IAEA inspectors demanded to see the contracts for the purchase of spare parts used in the development of Iran's centrifuges and added that at a meeting held on January 31, 2004, in the presence of Dr Hassan Rohani, the chief negotiator of the Iranian nuclear program until the end of 2005, it was decided that these contracts should be prepared in accordance to the AEOI's wishes, so they would be ready to be delivered to the IAEA. Le Monde claimed that portions of these contracts were then crossed out with black lines and that the quantities did not appear.
Le Monde went on to cite sources close to an intelligence service, affirming that this letter also referred to "Project 13" (also known as "project for the disappearance of threats"), allegedly aimed at deceiving IAEA inspectors. To many expert observers, this letter represents clear evidence of the military character of this program and to continuing Iranian efforts to conceal it.
Controversially, China was also reported to have recently embarrassed Iran by providing the UN with intelligence on its close ally's efforts to acquire nuclear technology.
Concern over Tehran's secretive research program had been increasing over the past few months after officials at the IAEA discovered that Iran had indeed obtained the "know-how" to manufacture nuclear-armed weapons.
Beijing is only believed to have decided to assist the inspectors after documents seized from Iranian officials were found to include details of a program for the procurement of dual-use technology; blueprints for "shaping" uranium into warheads and the testing of high explosives used to detonate radioactive material.
Chinese designs for centrifuges that refine uranium into a "weaponized" state had been found previously in Iran, but these had been thought to have come exclusively through a network controlled by disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Much of this new material was then presented to the governors of the Vienna-based IAEA in February. That meeting is thought to have finally triggered China's change of heart, though this has since been vigorously denied in some circles

US intelligence back tracks - again

Faced with this barrage of criticism and contradictory intelligence, the US intelligence community simply had little choice left but to once again accept what any experienced observer already knew, that Iran most likely did still have an operational nuclear weapons program.
In fact, some suggest Tehran has actually accelerated research with the overt help of North Korea and China, and the covert assistance of others.
Perhaps the blinkered analysts stalking the dimly lit corridors of CIA headquarters at Langley may have become confused when it was reportedly discovered that Iran had closed down a number of home-grown nuclear research projects, but as it turned out, probably only because they were no longer needed.
The fractured and underachieving US intelligence community is still apparently reeling from the pressures of rebuilding its old clandestine muscle, shedding years of risk avoidance management, facing up to the demands for more positive action from the media and trying to duck continuing political interference from the administration.
So have North Korea and others simply provided nuclear weapons knowledge to Tehran for payment in oil? This would seem the most likely explanation, in the absence of any contradictory hard evidence.
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz recently disclosed that Israel is deeply concerned that North Korea has indeed transferred technology and nuclear materials to Iran to aid a secret nuclear weapons program. According to information reportedly obtained by both Mossad and apparently the CIA, this is exactly what North Korea has been doing for some years.
This leads many to believe that Iran remains a "clear and present danger" and a threat to much of the Middle East - something experienced US intelligence analysts have privately never seriously doubted.
Certainly, Israel has quietly expressed concerns and made rather more public preparations - its recent massive military exercises involved "preparing for heavy casualties" from Iranian retaliation should an attack be deemed necessary on Tehran's nuclear infrastructure.
Indeed, while Israel was conducting these home defense exercises, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the minister for national infrastructure, was quoted as saying. "An Iranian attack will prompt a severe reaction from Israel, which will destroy the Iranian nation." He added ominously that in a future war, "Hundreds of missiles will rain on Israel."
So just what does Tehran have hidden away in dozens of secret underground military bases scattered across its vast mountainous hinterland?
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad announced on April 8, Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, that Iran had begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its uranium-enrichment plant in Natanz. These are a crucial addition to the 3,000 centrifuges already operational at this highly secure facility.
It was widely seen as a show of open defiance to international demands to halt its nuclear program, which Tehran has always claimed is for peaceful purposes.
Expert observers suspect Iran is replacing its original P-1 centrifuges with the IR-2, a modified P-2 second-generation system which operates three to four times faster. Much of the technology for these new centrifuges was obtained from Pakistan or covertly via the Western nuclear "black market".
It has emerged that Pakistan and Iran agreed in about 1987 to a deal whereby a Pakistani centrifuge design (P-1) was provided as a stop-gap replacement for Iran's previous unsuccessful attempts to master uranium-enrichment technology. The transfer of Pakistani nuclear technology largely sponsored by rogue scientist Khan began in 1989 and probably continued until at least 1996.
While a total of 9,000 centrifuges still falls far short of the 30,000 many experts claim to be a minimum for even a low-level weapons program, it can be considered further supporting evidence for the view taken by a non-proliferation expert from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Mark Fitzpatrick, who stated in 2007 that "Iran has no intention of honoring the UN mandate that it suspend all enrichment-related activity".
However, Tehran has always claimed its right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop a nuclear program.
Significantly, Ahmadinejad paid a little reported visit in April 2006 to the research complex at Neyshabour in Khorassan. This top-secret and heavily protected facility ringed by the most advanced Russian air defense missiles is designed to eventually operate as many as 155,000 centrifuges.
While this does not mean than Iran will have a genuine nuclear weapons capability any time soon - or that it wants to - it still provides yet another startling counter argument to the complacency of the NIE report.
Not surprisingly, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps appears to play a leading role in the nuclear research program and to be in direct control of the most sensitive facilities through a section known as the "Pasdaran Construction Jihad".
These facilities reportedly include the main nuclear power plant at Bushehr; the vast advanced Nuclear Technology Center at Esfahan/Isfahan believed to have a staff of some 3,000 scientists, and the uranium-enrichment facilities at Natanz and Neyshabour.
Many analysts believe that what is probably the most positive evidence of a hidden weapons program is provided by the heavy water plant at Arak. Apparently Iran does not have the type of commercial reactor that needs heavy water to moderate the nuclear fission chain reaction. It could be used in the production of plutonium for a nuclear bomb.
Western intelligence failures over the exact nature of Iraq's WMD capability undoubtedly played a most significant part in the leadup to the invasion of 2003 and which has resulted in a bloody insurgency that shows no signs of ending five years later.
It can only be hoped that the continued intelligence failures and confusion over Ahmadinejad's nuclear program do not blindly lead the US and its allies into a far more dangerous war with Iran with untold possible consequences for both the Middle East and the Western powers.
Richard M Bennett, intelligence consultant, AFI Research.
AFI Research provides expert information on the world's intelligence services, armed forces and conflicts. Contact rbmedia@supanet.com

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs