That Can't be Right!

Every once in a while, I hear a news story that is so jarring, so out-of-sync with my body of knowledge, that it stops me in my tracks and I think - that can't be right! It will be a story that I can't believe people would take at face value.

The story that stopped me this week - that made me say That Can't be Right! - was the story, all over the media, the a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) given recently by the intelligence community to President Bush concluded that Iran had no nuclear weapons program because they had frozen it in 2003. What?????

How in the world does that story jibe with all of the previous 12 months of reporting on Iran's nuclear ambitions? With the President of Iran's oft repeated stated goals of getting a nuclear weapon and his defense in the media of his right to have one? With the many stories of Iran racing to get thousands of centrifuges - used for processing weapons grade uranium - up and running quickly? With the stories of Iran developing and testing missiles that can deliver a weapon with ranges to hit Israel and the U.S. How in the world does this one story jibe with all of that, and why would people take this one story at face value and repudiate all of the previous story?

The answer is Bush hatred, which makes people delusional and suspends their powers of judgement.

The immediate reaction to the story was howls from the Bush-hater community that the President was lying to the nation in his rush to war with Iran. The NIE story fits their pre-existing paradigm, and they're running with it to bash Bush. The problem is that in bashing Bush with this story, they are putting our country in a bad light with the rest of the world - claiming that our President would lie for his own nefarious purposes to rush us into an unjustified war.

Stop. Pause. Give this story some thought.

What is a NIE, how certain are they, and how do they get put together. If you want some insight into those questions, read - as I just did - George Tenet's excellent book on his experiences running the CIA called "At the Center of the Storm".

You'll learn that NIE's are put together, as a sampling of all of the various intelligence agencies, at the request of the President or influential members of Congress. (In this case, it was President Bush who requested, got, and released this NIE). You'll learn that they are far from "certain". They are negotiated consensus postions where the advocates from the various agencies make their assessment of a situation. They are "judgements" that reflect various levels of "certainty" - and include key findings that will say "we judge with a high degree of certainty", etc. They are best guesses.

Bottom line: Iran may have "frozen" an official nuclear weapons in 2003 due to "international pressure" (gee, do you think us attacking their two neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan was the pressure they needed to freeze their nuclear weapons program? Thank you George Bush!), but they are currently hellbent on essential elements of such a program - enriching uranium and building missiles to deliver the weapons. And they are not doing that because George Bush is lying to us!

Get a grip, people. Think through these news stories, and don't just accept them at face value.

If you're looking at a shockingly outrageous news story, like this NIE report, and thinking THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT - you are probably right.