Another fine post as usual.
Assuming for a second that the DOE experts were wrong and the tubes were for centrifuges...they clearly state that this would mean developing a whole new program from scratch. And yes just how long would that take...it certainly would appear to be longer than the mushroom cloud and he has in fact reconstituted his nuclear weapons and 6 month claim Cheney and Rice often filled the airwaves with...never mind the fact that why would the Iraqi nuclear scientist even try to reinvent the wheel so to speak. Did I mention how much I dislike non-scientific people (and politicians) who totally disregard the most respected scientists in our country in order to get their way.
Posted by emal at November 19, 2005 01:15 PMeR, I'm especially glad you drew attention to two important points:
"note the fact that unlike DOE that was sharing its assessments with the IC, the CIA (WINPAC) was hiding their intel reports from the broader IC"
and
"The DOE's position on this matter was actually unassailable, as becomes apparent by a reading of their actual report(s)."
I'll leave off further detailed comment, but both conclusions are crucial and are quite beyond doubt. As for the second point, the DOE's case alone -- let alone that of the IAEA, which was largely untouched by the SSCI report -- was so overwhelming and so completely devastating that it demonstrated not only that the CIA (DIA, NGIC) centrifuge arguments were utterly ludicrous from the get-go, but also that they were largely fraudulent and consistently and quite deliberately misleading -- and to this end strikingly used very many of the precise techniques of deceit the Bush Admin deployed in its broader case for war.
(This is a conclusion I hinted at in my comment in your last post. Just a coincidence? I think not.)
Posted by KM at November 19, 2005 02:13 PMemal, I think you're right to draw attention to that passage (though the question of the actual falsity of the centrifuge case is outside the immediate ambit of eR's post, it doesn't mean we can't talk about it). Aside from all of the endless specific objections the DOE raised against the CIA/DIA arguments, the passage you refer to includes two points from a big-picture perspective that suggest how much of a giant stretch the centrifuge case really was:
"According to the DOE assessment, the tube diameter was smaller than that of any known deployed centrifuge machine...."
"According to the DOE's assessment, 'A centrifuge machine using 81-mm aluminum rotors is different from any known centrifuge machine deployed in a production environment.... In our judgement, Iraq would need to undertake its development program all over again and address each aspect of centrifuge engineering anew at the reduced diameter and using the different rotor material.'"
And there are a few other, equally damaging general-level points made in the DOE case as outlined in the SSCI.
All of them leading to one DOE analyst's biting conclusion (SSCI, 114) that "if Iraq was really trying to make centrifuges out of these tubes that 'we should just give them the tubes'."
Posted by KM at November 19, 2005 03:31 PMKM, I plan to get to the substance of the DOE critique in a future post...your comments and that of emal are spot-on.
Posted by eriposte at November 19, 2005 07:46 PMI saw the Democrat Representatives of the intelligent committee today, on C-span, which was shown on C-span 3, last week, ,explaining that when the president or VP are attacking them for having the same intelligence that the WH had, is they did not use the word lie but wrong.
One of the representative, I did not remember the name, I am sorry, said that he could not sleep before giving bush the go ahead to invade Iraq because of all he had seen as a part of the intelligent committee, and heard for 1 years was different before the Idiot wanted to invade Iraq . Intelligence they were able to see did not show that Saddam had WMD’s or that we were in imminence danger. His memo was classified the next day after he sent it, therefore could not publish; they are unable to talk about it. This is sick. He voted against it.
The republicans Reps in control do not want anything that would put this administration in jeopardy and reveal as liars as they are. They are refusing to go ahead with the investigation. We have to regain the congress from the republicans, because the only thing they have done is for there own pocketbooks, we the middle class are becoming the slaves of the Fascist republicans in congress! They should be all kicked out of office. They are the most self interest spenders that this country as ever known.
Chalabi, the crook that this administrations are pushing will become another Saddam to keep his control, .same that we have done trough history of other nation. Elect people we like and do not care about the country!
Definitely another nice job, er. I just posted this comment on one of your earlier posts, but it seems appropriate to add it to this later post as well.
And here is another report from someone who really did know his stuff, Greg Thielmann, retired director of the INR (State Department Intelligence) from July 2003:
There is also a problem of cloaking areas of controversy in ambiguity. And to me the classic example of this is the aluminum tubes issue. The 27-page classified summary of the October National Intelligence Estimate, reported to the Congress and to the nation, if anyone was listening, that most analysts said that the intercepted aluminum tubes that Iraq was trying to acquire was for Iraq's nuclear weapons program to make centrifuges that would enrich uranium. And then almost parenthetically it noted that some analysts thought it was not; it was for other purposes. What the estimate meant to say, or to give you some sensitive information so you can break the code in the future, was that the larger agencies, CIA and DIA, supported this interpretation. Smaller agencies, like INR and the Department of Energy (DOE), did not. Well, there is no poll of intelligence analysts on these issues. We can't say "most analysts" and "some analysts." The relevant questions are, which analysts knew the subject, what was their opinion? And on issues like this there is a long and comprehensive and thorough vetting of the cases to be made, the evidence available, and it was somewhat disingenuous not to let the public know that the agencies like DOE, that knew the most about using aluminum for centrifuge enrichments, happened to be in that "some analysts" category.
So when they wrote the NIE, who did they listen to? The people who had the least knowledge of the actual area.
Posted by Mary at November 20, 2005 12:44 AM