NUCLEAR

Sohrab Ferdows, masoudA :

Sohrab Ferdows, masoudA : great observations and feedbacks. Lets take our voice back from these leftist allies of the IRI.

Are You Gay?!!!

What is the deal with that giant quasi-gay mustache? Are you a long lost member of the Village People?

Dear Sohrab Ferdows

You da man - Thanks for your patriotism.   I know you and many like you can go on and live a "B-Khial" good life in America - but thank god you don't.   We all owe it to Iran and generations of our forfathers.   

and to Mr. Anym666

You asked what gives us (Iranians who preferred to leave Iran rather tha living under the mullahs) the right to fight to kick yours and your masters asses ?   How about thousands of years of evolving genes ?   and - For the sake of making sure you and yours know what is about to hit you - It's us eyranians.   It's not the neo-cons - not the ISrealies,........ none of that - it's us eyranians - people like Sohrab.    There is so many of us and we will use everything we can use to kick your ass.   And as you can see there is a lot we can use - we have earned it.   

As the israelis say ... "akkkhhaaaa"

I'm wondering what those shysters will do now? Bush has got one more year to get into Iran, but his shyster neocon klan no longer has any credibility. I wonder what the other neocon lovin Giuliani or Clinton or Romney think about these things? Watch these shysters' campaign slogans slowly change. its hillarious that they don't really care about what's best for the US. Last thing, as someone else mentioned, can some posters please NOT post lengthy copy & paste BS?

Why such long comments?

To those who are so sad that can't write a proper article but instead, write a comment twice the size of an article: GET A LIFE!

NEA report on Iran

There is no doubt that Chaney & the neo-con party are the guard dog of the Israel interest & their mission is to officially annex U.S. to Israel - although in reality the Israelis are running US policies & the US general public is too self centered to notice &/or accept this; the Israelis also brain washed Bush some 40 odd years ago when he visited Israel - an injection or two (??).
So, unless the politically inept & uneducated Americans public wake up, the situation can only get worse; this is all for the control of world's wealth for the few.

Israel Agents Desperate!!!

Now what do they do? All the millions they put into lobbying the US government into hopefully destruction of Iran has failed. Thei agents running around in fear trying to do damage control by making it look like the NIE report is actually in their favor! These pathetic loosers can't get it through their thick skull that they can't keep all Middle East suppressed forever so that they can have their "democratic" existence. Tables have definitely turned! One more time it is time again to feel sorry for them. Or should we?

Vatan Foroosh half casts

I am really sick and tired of reading score upon score of Vatan foroosh American half-cast bustards to keep inviting an army as savage and inhumane os Americans to come and bomb my country destroy my home and kill my family.

So who the fuck do you mother fucker s think you are to invite US to bomb me and my country to destroy my home and kill my family. The day you left this land and took an owht of legion to US you stopped being an Iranian. So stop pretending

So why not stating in your residents in US and keeping you head in your American Akhor and keeping out of our business.

How do you like if we invite AL Ghaede to come and bomb you and kill your family and destroy your homes.

So what is if Iran was in a pursuit nukes. If it is good enough for Israel and the US then it is definitely good enough for us,unless you do not regard yourselves as Iranians.

Then you and your president can go fuck yourself

This is not reliable information

What kind of source is this? This is what you read in the source of author's claim about the time of availability of info:

"A former CIA intelligence officer who has asked not to be identified told Inter Press Service (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. "

someone who does not want to be identified told someone else who does not want to be identified who spoke to IPS and said the report was ready a year ago?! Is this info reported anywhere else?

Dear American,

It is very simplistic thinking to assume a man, whether Rafsanjani or any body else, can change the outlook of 16 elite intelligence agencies of the most advanced intelligence system in the world which employ thousands upon thousands of professionals with various expertise. Nobody knows what they are cooking. Bush could have easily stopped the publication of the recent report but he chose not to. However, we all can hope that the genuine anti-war efforts, by millions of Iranians around the globe and most importantly the Iranians inside of Iran, have finally caught the attention of the logical Americans.

Dear Goudarz !!

You appear to have a liberal agenda against George Bush - which is fine.   You also seem to care a lot about "Honesty" - Yet you fail to see the most significant dishonesty !!   The report says IRI stopped all activities related to their nuclear "arms" program in 2003 - what does that mean?   It means they had a nuclear "arms" program !!  and what does that mean ?  it means that the west can't afford to leave the mullah issue unresolved. 

 PS - The fact that an Iranian cries about "dishonesty" against the mullahs is utterly ridiculous. 

Could there be a link?

Did Saeed Mortazavi, the accused spy, have anything to do with the change in intelligence in the West? I wondered what the representative from Iran could have told the European diplomats when he was accused by the Ahmadinejad government. Saeed Mortazavi is a friend and support of Rafsanjani and Rafsanjani had released a letter indicating that Iran did have a nuke program in the past. Perhaps, Rafsanjani is involved in this change in the intelligence. It certainly diffused the imminent attack of Iran crisis.

When I listen to news, I try to understand what has happened and what impact events will have on international relations. Does anyone think there might be a link here?

Iran Relives the Shah Era

Iran Relives the Shah Era

December 05, 2007
The Financial Times
Harvey Morris at the United Nations

The American banker-turned-novelist Paul Erdman entered the bestseller lists in 1976 with “The Crash of ‘79”, a political thriller in which a demented Iranian dictator secretly obtains nuclear weapons and launches a blitzkrieg to dominate the Middle East.

The megalomaniac ruler – a semi-fictionalised Shah Reza Pahlavi – cripples the world’s oil supply in the process and brings the international financial system to its knees.

Fast-forward three decades, and Iran is once more portrayed as an irrational and aggressive power, out to obtain nuclear weapons with which to threaten its neighbours regardless of the cost to regional and world stability.

Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are now to consider what further measures to take to avert the second, real-life scenario.

Underlying their debate are questions about Iran’s true intentions. Does Iran really want the bomb, or is its nuclear programme a bargaining chip to gain some as yet undefined geostrategic advantage?

According to one western diplomat at the UN: “If we knew there was an alternative the Iranians really wanted, at least we could look at ways to try to give it to them.”

Erdman’s fictional scenario reflected the mid-1970s reality that the west was falling out of love with the Shah as he turned his US-appointed role as “policeman of the Gulf” into a platform for increasingly unsustainable self-aggrandisement.

Although the late Shah and the Islamic clergy that helped to overthrow him in 1979 were poles apart ideologically, the geopolitical outlook of Iran’s present rulers has much in common with that of the fallen monarch.

Like the Shah’s Iran, the country is hemmed in by potential enemies. In the Shah’s case it was the Soviet Union to the north, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to the west and suspicious Arab neighbours to the south.

Today, it is US and other foreign forces stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, the former Soviet central Asian states and the southern Gulf. To the south-east lies Pakistan, a nuclear power that could one day fall into the hands of Sunni Islamic extremists deeply hostile to Iran’s dominant Shia Islam.

Part of the Shah’s defensive strategy was to develop a nuclear “surge capacity” – the know-how and infrastructure to build a bomb at short notice if and when the need for the ultimate deterrent arose. He was overthrown before such a capacity was achieved.

“Iran’s rulers are following a strategy very much like that of the Shah,” says Gary Sick, a former US National Security Council adviser on the Middle East to Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. “Fundamentally, the strategy is very sensible.”

Mr Sick, now a senior research scholar at New York’s Columbia University, blames the Bush administration for not adopting a negotiating strategy with Iran over its nuclear ambitions that would take into account Iran’s strategic concerns.

Although Iran is overwhelmingly perceived as hostile to the west in the region, geopolitical concerns have frequently overlapped. Both feared Saddam Hussein’s ambition to dominate the region. And, during the era of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Iran worked quietly to contain the Sunni extremists while the US was ambivalent towards a regime that, post-9/11, it would eventually overthrow with Tehran’s co-operation.

Israel, which now raises the spectre of a second Holocaust if Iran ever gets the bomb, secretly maintained contact with non-Arab Iran for long after the revolution, even as its leaders were publicly preaching the destruction of the Jewish state. It supplied weapons to Iran during its 1980-88 war with Iraq and destroyed President Hussein’s nuclear facilities, a strategic benefit for both countries.

Some analysts believe Washington has not done enough to grasp diplomatic feelers from the Iranians that might have led to a rapprochement. “Iran’s help against the Taliban in Afghanistan was crucial,” says Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born Israeli analyst and biographer of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad. “The Bush administration responded by terming Iran part of an Axis of Evil and intensified its anti-Iran rhetoric and activities.”

Mr Javedanfar notes the Bush administration also rebuffed a “grand bargain” from Iran, offered shortly before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, that would have included discussion of its nuclear programme and co-operation on terrorism.

The offer reached Washington via the Swiss but was rejected because, according to Flynt Leverett, US National Security Council adviser at the time, “important power centers in the administration – the vice-president, the secretary of defence, and I think even in the end the president himself were opposed to this kind of diplomatic effort with Iran.”

The negative outcome added to the atmosphere of mutual distrust between Tehran and Washington that dated back to the hostage crisis of 1979-81 in which the new Islamic regime held 52 Americans captive for 444 days.

Mr Sick says the Iranians have crossed so many red lines in the face of previous sanctions and threats from the outside world that it is unlikely Tehran would bow in the face of another round of UN-backed measures.

link to original article

//www.ft.com/cms/s/1d1a68ba-a30b-11dc-b229-00...

Questions Raised by the NIE

Questions Raised by the NIE

December 04, 2007
Stratfor
Stratfor Geopolitical Diary

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released on Monday -- the little bombshell that says Iran has had its nuclear weapons program on hold since 2003 -- raises two fundamental questions. First, if Iran really does not have a military weapons program, why has it resisted international inspections? Second, why is the United States allowing this news to break?

The Iranian motive for resisting inspections should first be considered.

For the past five years, Washington and Tehran have been engaged in on-again, off-again negotiations over Iraq's future. In these talks the Iranians have been at a sizable disadvantage. The United States has more than 100,000 troops in the country, while Iran's leverage is largely limited to its influence with many of the country's Shiite militias. This influence is a useful tool for denying the United States the ability to impose its desires, though it is not a powerful enough one to allow the Iranians to turn their own preferences into reality.

Moreover, given that the majority of Iran's population is either in or behind the Zagros Mountains, Iran might be difficult to invade, but it lacks military expeditionary capability. Its infantry-heavy army is designed for population control, not power projection. Therefore, for Iran to have a lever in manipulating events in its region, it must develop other playing cards.

Its nuclear program is one of those cards. Iran has had a vested interest in convincing the world -- unofficially, of course -- that it possesses a nuclear program. For Iran, the nuclear program is a trump card to be traded away, not a goal in and of itself.

As to the U.S. motive, it also wanted to play up the nuclear threat. Part of Washington's negotiation strategy has been to isolate Iran from the rest of the international community. Charges that Iran desired nukes were an excellent way to marshal international action. Both sides had a vested interest in making Iran look the part of the wolf.

That no longer is the case. There are only two reasons the U.S. government would choose to issue a report that publicly undermines the past four years of its foreign policy: a deal has been struck, or one is close enough that an international diplomatic coalition is no longer perceived as critical. This level of coordination across all branches of U.S. intelligence could not happen without the knowledge and approval of the CIA director, the secretaries of defense and state, the national security adviser and the president himself. This is not a power play; this is the real deal.

The full details of any deal are unlikely to be made public any time soon because the U.S. and Iranian publics probably are not yet ready to consider each other as anything short of foes. But the deal is by design integrated into both states' national security posture. It will allow for a permanent deployment of U.S. forces in Iraq to provide minimal national security for Iraq, but not in large enough numbers to be able to launch a sizable attack against Iran. It will allow for the training and equipping of the Iraqi military forces so that Iraq can defend itself, but not so much that it could boast a meaningful offensive force. It will integrate Iranian intelligence and military personnel into the U.S. effort so there are no surprises on either side.

But those are the details. Here is the main thrust: Ultimately, both sides have nursed deep-seated fears. The Iranians do not want the Americans to assist in the rise of another militaristic Sunni power in Baghdad -- the last one inflicted 1 million Iranian casualties during 1980-1988 war. The United States does not want to see Iran dominate Iraq and use it as a springboard to control Arabia; that would put some 20 million barrels per day of oil output under a single power. The real purpose of the deal is to install enough bilateral checks in Iraq to ensure that neither nightmare scenario happens.

Should such an arrangement stick, the two biggest winners obviously are the Americans and Iranians. That is not just because the two no longer would be in direct conflict, and not just because both would have freed up resources for other tasks.

U.S. geopolitical strategy is to prevent the rising of a power on a continental scale that has the potential to threaten North America. It does this by favoring isolated powers that are resisting larger forces. As powerful as Iran is, it is the runt of the neighborhood when one looks past the political lines on maps and takes a more holistic view. Sunnis outnumber Shia many times over, and Arabs outnumber Persians. Indeed, Persians make up only roughly half of Iran's population, making Tehran consistently vulnerable to outside influence. Simply put, the United States and Iran -- because of the former's strategy and the latter's circumstances -- are natural allies.

On the flip side, the biggest losers are those entities that worry about footloose and fancy-free Americans and Iranians. The three groups at the top of that list are the Iraqis, the Russians and the Arabs. Washington and Tehran will each sell out their proxies in Iraq in a heartbeat for the promise of an overarching deal. Now is the time for the Kurds, Sunni and Shia of Iraq to prove their worth to either side; those who resist will be smears on the inside of history's dustbin.

Separately, a core goal of U.S. foreign policy is to ensure that the Russians never again threaten North America, and to a lesser degree, Europe. A United States that is not obsessed with Tehran is one that has the freedom to be obsessed with Moscow. And do not forget that the last state to occupy portions of Iran was not the United States, but Russia. Persia has a long memory and there are scores to settle in the Caucasus.

Back in the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy has often supported the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, favoring the weak against the strong in line with the broad strategy discussed above. A United States that does not need to contain Iran is a United States that can leverage an Iran that very much wishes to be leveraged. That potentially puts the Arabs on the defensive on topics ranging from investment to defense. The Arabs tend to get worried whenever the Americans or the Iranians look directly at them; that is nothing compared to the emotions that will swirl the first time that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.S. President George W. Bush shake hands.

We expect the days and weeks ahead to be marked by a blizzard of activity as various players in Washington and Tehran attempt both to engage directly and to prepare the ground (still) for a final deal. Much will be dramatic, much will be contradictory, much will make no sense whatsoever. This is, after all, still the Middle East. But keep this in mind: With the nuclear issue out of the way, the heavy lifting has already been done and some level of understanding on Iraq's future already is in place. All that remains is working out the "details."

Situation Reports

1246 GMT -- CHINA -- China is urging that negotiations take place to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue, and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi has spoken by telephone with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana regarding the issue, Agence France-Presse reported Dec. 4, citing a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman. The calls occurred following the release of a U.S. intelligence report that said Tehran's program has been halted since 2003. According to the spokesman, Yang hopes "the relevant parties continue to pursue a resolution by implementing negotiations and creating the conditions for a resumption of talks."

1240 GMT -- ISRAEL -- Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Dec. 4 that Iran likely restarted its nuclear weapons program, contradicting the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that concluded the program has been frozen since 2003. "It seems Iran in 2003 halted for a certain period of time its military nuclear program, but as far as we know it has probably since revived it," Barak told Army Radio. During their recent visit to Washington, Barak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni received an advance briefing on the NIE, Haaretz reported.

Yek suzan be khod, yek javalduz be digaran

Hey aghaye mosum be Mahmoud Ghaffari:

Call them whatever you want: surgical, precision, smart, etc. They are just as smart as the people who use them or encourage their use (= stupid).

What makes you think, civilians will not be killed by this scheme of yours.

I hope the first one hits the residence of the family who has raised such a traitor.

This is good news for the

This is good news for the all iranians, including monarchists, MKO, and all other oppositions. For the first time in 28 years, the world and the USA finally has woken up to the realties and the expansionist nature of the Islamic Republic and no longer just a threat to Isreal. The reformers nurtured and organized by the CIA lefties are exposed for the liars that they are and even the CIA lefties don't trust the Islamic Republic's reformists with or without nuclear weapon. The nuclear weapons issue is almost irrelevant at this point given the Islamic Republic's agenda and ideology for the middle east and the greater Islamic world.

The NIE report eliminates all need for talks and normalcy of relationship with the IR. IRI still remains illigitmate in the eyes of the world community and a threat to the world system. The world is telling IRI that no way in hell the world is going to recognize the thugs ruling Iran as statesmen or anyone they can reason with...IRI was installed by the US and it will be removed by the US...the mullahs know this better than anyone else.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has opened the first meeting of Islamic states' judiciary heads in Tehran, where the head of the judiciary in Iran called for the "establishment of an Islamic judiciary union by Muslim states". 57 Islamic states from Asia, Africa and Central Asia are participating.

"Iran believes that Islamic states have many points in common in legal and judiciary fields which could lead to further unity among Muslim nations and states." said Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi from Iran.

Ahmadinejad added that "respecting justice is the basis in all judiciary affairs," and that the formation of the international Islamic court "is a must."

"This will present to the world a pattern of justice-based judgment and free the Islamic states from referring to others," he said. "[S]ome international bodies, particularly the UN Security Council, were not based on justice," he added.
//www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-236/07120465...

It is only a matter of time...the world has finally on to the Islamic Republic even China and Britian. BTW, Britain just removed the MKO from its terrorist list...hahahaha

Are we being played?

Yes, according to Time columnist Robert Baer: Bush is behind the NIE report. See also my blog entry.

Where is the information....

I gave the reference to Gareth Porter report in the article, but again here is the link:

//www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IK10Ak01....

One solution fits this problem...~B~

Bombing the Islamic Republic is the only solution. The rest is details.

What Is Israel Going To Do Now?

Their huge propaganda machine has failed. They have lived in fear for 60 years or so and now their fear grows stronger again. Israel must keep the Middle East underdeveloped so that it can continue its pathetic existence. I wonder how they will try to destroy Iran now. Think about it. If any country in that area grows strong, it will speak against Israel. so their solution would have to be bomb any country that may become strong! And call it a war (or surgical strike) for freedom!

jWow... so the invasion of Iraq stopped Iran's nukes?

Iran was so afraid that they shut down there nuke program at the same time that Libya did? Is that right? Does that mean that the Invasion of Iraq was helpful to the West in unexpected ways?

Is Iran agreeing with this report? They had a nuke program until 2003 and shut it down because of Iraq?

I think this is huge news. I think we should increase pressure hoping that Iran will tell us what they intend to do with the processed nuclear material. This seems to be confirmation that Iran was trying to make nukes. They claimed that they were innocent and it seems they weren't.

Where is the information

Where is the information to confirm that US government intentionally delayed the report for the reasons that author has explained in this article? 

This is what Steven Hadley said about the report:

"Calling the new intelligence "complicated" National Security Advisor Steven Hadley explained the intelligence community has known for a few months there was "new information" with Iran's nuclear weapons program. 

President Bush was told in August or September that "new information" with Iran's nuclear program could be coming out but the president was only informed last Wednesday that the nuclear weapons program in Iran was halted in 2003.  Vice President Cheney knew a week before the President was informed because he sat in on preliminary meetings, according to Hadley.

Hadley said the President was told in August-Sept to keep using the same talking points as he was using before when speaking on Iran.  "He [Bush] was not told to stop talking about Iran's nuclear weapons program.  He was not told to change what he says about it.  What he was told was, we have new information; it is interesting; it is going to take us some time to understand it," Hadley explained.

This is part of the actual report:

"We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities wereworking under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.

• We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because ofintelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, DOE and the NICassess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a haltto Iran's entire nuclear weapons program.)

• We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weaponsprogram as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to developnuclear weapons.

• We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currentlyhave a nuclear weapon.

• Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determinedto develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessmentthat the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressuresuggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judgedpreviously.

B. We continue to assess with low confidence that Iran probably has imported at leastsome weapons-usable fissile material, but still judge with moderate-to-high confidence ithas not obtained enough for a nuclear weapon. We cannot rule out that Iran has acquiredfrom abroad—or will acquire in the future—a nuclear weapon or enough fissile materialfor a weapon. Barring such acquisitions, if Iran wants to have nuclear weapons it wouldneed to produce sufficient amounts of fissile material indigenously—which we judgewith high confidence it has not yet done.

C. We assess centrifuge enrichment is how Iran probably could first produce enoughfissile material for a weapon, if it decides to do so. Iran resumed its declared centrifuge enrichment activities in January 2006, despite the continued halt in the nuclear weaponsprogram. Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz, but wejudge with moderate confidence it still faces significant technical problems operatingthem.

• We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would betechnically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon is late 2009, but that thisis very unlikely.

• We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable ofproducing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.(INR judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because offoreseeable technical and programmatic problems.) All agencies recognize thepossibility that this capability may not be attained until after 2015.

D. Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that couldbe applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so. For example,Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. We also assess with highconfidence that since fall 2003, Iran has been conducting research and developmentprojects with commercial and conventional military applications—some of which wouldalso be of limited use for nuclear weapons.

E. We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willingto maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs itsoptions, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will promptit to restart the program.

• Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response tointernational pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefitapproach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, andmilitary costs. This, in turn, suggests that some combination of threats of intensifiedinternational scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve itssecurity, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might—if perceivedby Iran’s leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclearweapons program. It is difficult to specify what such a combination might be.

• We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgothe eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage manywithin the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran’skey national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran’s considerableeffort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons. In our judgment,only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective wouldplausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decisionis inherently reversible. 

enrichment activities in January 2006, despite the continued halt in the nuclear weaponsprogram. Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz, but wejudge with moderate confidence it still faces significant technical problems operatingthem.

• We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would betechnically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon is late 2009, but that thisis very unlikely.

• We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable ofproducing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.(INR judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because offoreseeable technical and programmatic problems.) All agencies recognize thepossibility that this capability may not be attained until after 2015.

D. Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that couldbe applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so. For example,Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. We also assess with highconfidence that since fall 2003, Iran has been conducting research and developmentprojects with commercial and conventional military applications—some of which wouldalso be of limited use for nuclear weapons.

E. We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willingto maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs itsoptions, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will promptit to restart the program.

• Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response tointernational pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefitapproach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, andmilitary costs. This, in turn, suggests that some combination of threats of intensifiedinternational scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve itssecurity, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might—if perceivedby Iran’s leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclearweapons program. It is difficult to specify what such a combination might be.

• We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgothe eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage manywithin the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran’skey national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran’s considerableeffort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons. In our judgment,only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective wouldplausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decisionis inherently reversible.

 //www.odni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf

I'd like to say one thing to

I'd like to say one thing to Bush.."LOOSER"

Bunch of lies . . .

This is not the first time that American public have been fooled. President Bush had no shame to appear in front of reporters and admit to the wrong doing. Regardless of what questions were asked, he said the same non-sense.

-

The sad thing about American media is that they repeat what the President said. There are fewer honest reporters in comparison to zillions who are on AIPAC payroll or serve their corporate masters such as Blackwater.

-

Stupid Mahmoud, you have lived too long in the US because you have become fool too. You idiot, sorry, you animal, sorry heif as havoon…

You disagree, you SOB!

This stupid Mahmoud G sounds like someone on the payroll of AIPAC.

You SOB, why don't you go back and sit in front of the bombs yourself and see how it feels being in your living room and hearing bombs over your head.

And you are Iranian?. Shame on you asshole.

Honest George!!?

Did anyone claim George and his buddies were honest, ever!?

This is a bunch of criminal crooks working for the Multinationals and AIPAC and will do anything and anything to please them.

Who made them the Police of the World, when their own laundry is so dirty and out in the open?

I disagree with the NIE Report

I think the NIE's mention that the Iranian regime was working on obtaining the Nuclear capability up until 2003 is daming in itself. Surgical attacks on Iranian Miliraty targets and Regime's assets owned by its top official is the only alternative the world has. On the one hand it would not be called a war, which would satisfy the dissenters in the UN, on the other would undoubtedly clear and run the leaders of the IRI out of power. The Iranian Nation will do the rest. We just need the spark, which should be provided by an American Surgical Military attack(s).

It is not as good a news as it seems

Buying the NIE report wholeheartedly has to be done with care since on the flip side the report clearly states that the Islamic Republic was after military application of nuke at least till 2003. That in itself is the most damning part of the NIE and not the part that they stopped something that they have always denied doing so. In another words as the report states they were at it and could restart it again at the time of their choosing again, the so called the serge point.