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Banned
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We are going to be subjected to this "theory", often in the coming days:
Quote:
bility on Iran, it's under fire. His own intelligence agencies downgrading Tehran's nuclear threat. So, why is Mr. Bush refusing to budge? We're watching the story....
...BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: The intelligence community is like generals fighting the last war. They got Iraq wrong and they're overcompensating by understating the potential threat from Iran.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., does he think the new report on Iran's nuclear activities was released for political purposes?....
....(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: President Bush is refusing today to downgrade his view of the Iranian nuclear threat. He says even if Iran actually stopped its nuclear weapons program four years ago, it still could start it up once again.
But will that newly declassified information sway others with a get-tough approach toward Iran?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: I'm joined now by the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. He's the author of the new book Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad.
Mr. Ambassador, welcome back.
BOLTON: Glad to be here.
BLITZER: Well, does it change your view about the threat coming in from Iran?
BOLTON: No. I think in the first place there is a artificial distinction in this estimate between so-called civil activities and military activities.
The estimate itself says Iran continues its uranium enrichment program. And what that means is Iran is building up an inventory of at least low-enriched uranium, that it's at Iran's discretion when to convert that fissile material into a nuclear weapon.
So I think there are a lot of questions about this estimate, which is only an analyst's judgment. And I don't think I would change my view of the threat that Iran poses.
BLITZER: But they specifically say that back in 2003, they have only recently confirmed and learned -- this is the 16 agencies involved in the U.S. intelligence community -- that back four years ago, the Iranians flatly suspended any nuclear weapons program that they clandestinely had earlier. That's new information, and it clearly would indicate that the president and all of his top advisers who were so worried about Iran's nuclear threat were wrong.
And I assume that includes you, as well?
BOLTON: Right. Well, that's one reason I'm suspicious about the conclusion here, that this took four years to find out.
And by the way, two agencies dissent from that conclusion. And even what was published says that the NIE itself only has moderate confidence that the suspension in 2003 continues today and that there are gaps in our intelligence. I think there's a real risk here of over-judging what the intelligence community found and that there is a real risk of disinformation on the part of Iran.
BLITZER: So let me just -- let me -- this is a significant point that you're raising. You're saying that this new NIE, the one that was just issued, 2007, is potentially wrong? Is that what you're saying? And that it was released for, what, political purposes?
<h3>BOLTON: Well, I think it's potentially wrong. But I would also say many of the people who wrote this are former State Department employees who, during their career at the State Department, never gave much attention to the threat of the Iranian program. Now they are writing as members of the intelligence community, the same opinions that they have had four and five years ago.</h3>
<h3>BLITZER: President Bush says he has confidence in this new NIE,</h3> and he says they revamped the intelligence community after the blunders involving weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He says there's a whole new community out there and he has total confidence in what the national intelligence director is doing.
<h3>BOLTON: Well, I have to say I don't.</h3> I think there's a very real risk here that the intelligence community is like generals fighting the last war. They got Iraq wrong and they're overcompensating by understating the potential threat from Iran.
I really think this is something the House and Senate intelligence committees need to get into in a very big way to probe as they can do behind closed doors how this estimate was put together. There is another issue here.
The only thing that has been made public are the general conclusions, two pages, not the 140 or 150 pages underlying it. Obviously, that information is very sensitive, but I would like to know what the decision was to allow the headlines to get out without the underlying facts for people to evaluate.
BLITZER: The president said he authorized the release of this NIE this summer and there will be hearings on the Hill.
A few weeks ago, I interviewed the director general of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, and he basically said then what the NIE says now, and I want to play this clip for you. I played it for you in the past.
Listen to what Dr. ElBaradei said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Do you believe there is a clandestine, secret nuclear weapons program right now under way in Iraq?
DR. MOHAMED ELBARADEI, IAEA DIRECTOR-GENERAL: We haven't seen any concrete evidence to that effect, Wolf. We haven't seen any information that there is a parallel, ongoing, active nuclear weapons program.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: The last time I played that clip for you a few weeks ago, you said he was an apologist for Iran.
Now, you want to revise or amend that comment? Because he now seems to be pretty much in line with the U.S. government's intelligence community.
BOLTON: Well, I don't want to revise it, and he's not in line, because the NIE itself says they did -- Iran did have a military program, at least until 2003, which ElBaradei still disagrees with and which the Iranians continue to deny. That's one of the reasons Iranian credibility is so much in question and why the prospect of disinformation I think is very real here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: The former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton speaking with me earlier...
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Taken from the transcript above:
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..Well, I think it’s potentially wrong. But I would also say many of the people who wrote this are former State Department employees who, during their career at the State Department, never gave much attention to the threat of the Iranian program. Now they are writing as members of the intelligence community, the same opinions that they have had four and five years ago....
-John Bolton
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Considering that Bolton was the president's ardent choice to be the senate approved US Ambassador to the UN, after he served a year long, recess appointment in that same position, I think his statments in this interview with CNN's Blitzer are outrageous....revealing him to be a man of very small stature,blinded by his own misconceptions, dispayed trying to save face by contradicting "his president" and by making incredibel, inaccurate and denigrating statements about the intelligence community that authored the NIE.
Last edited by host; 12-05-2007 at 10:47 AM..
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