Iran Halts Nuclear Weapons Development - Maybe

[BPSCG]

Link

Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 in response to international pressure, and while it continues to develop an enriched uranium program, it apparently has not resumed moving toward a nuclear capability, according to a consensus judgment of the U.S. intelligence community released today by Director of National Intelligence John M. McConnell.

The assessment states "with moderate confidence" that "Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program" as of mid-2007, but suggests that Tehran continues to keep that option open.

"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," according to one of the key judgments of the new assessment.

Two years ago, the intelligence community said publicly that it had "high confidence that Iran was currently determined to have nuclear weapons," a senior intelligence official said yesterday.

After that assessment was released, the community increased its clandestine and open collection of information about Iran's program, actions that led to today's reassessment, the officials said.

The major shift in the intelligence community's judgment about Iran's nuclear weapons intentions is contained in unclassified material from a new, classified National Intelligence Estimate sent to Capitol Hill today. The document represents the consensus opinion of the U.S. intelligence community

Dang. Gonna have to find another excuse to bomb them and steal their oil now.

Suggestions?

 

[Mycroft]

Link
Dang. Gonna have to find another excuse to bomb them and steal their oil now.

Suggestions?

Sure. We need to liberate the oppressed minority Baluch population.

 

[cloudshipsrule]

I'm sure they're still operating centrifuges somewhere in their country. We need to go to war, take them over, and then find those centrifuges!

 

[WildCat]

I'm sure they're still operating centrifuges somewhere in their country. We need to go to war, take them over, and then find those centrifuges!

They are still running the centrifuges, Iran doesn't even deny that. And there are 3,000 of them.

 

[cloudshipsrule]

Well now, then there's our reason!

 

[Darth Rotor]

Sure. We need to liberate the oppressed minority Baluch population.

Why do that?

Do they have hot babes there who would make righteous war brides?

Are their goats of some special and worthy breed?

If not, I vote "nay" to an invasion/liberation of Baluchistan.

(Didn't we discuss a recent article about US operatives aiding and abetting Baluchi resistance fighters, by Hirsch?)

DR

 

[Radrook]

Bush believes that Iran is still a threat. So the possibility of things getting militarily hot in that area are very real.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Bush believes that Iran is still a threat. So the possibility of things getting militarily hot in that area are very real.

Real, perhaps, but reduced for the time being.

I still think his "WW III" speech was a load of hyperbole.

DR

 

[Mycroft]

Why do that?

Do they have hot babes there who would make righteous war brides?

Are their goats of some special and worthy breed?

If not, I vote "nay" to an invasion/liberation of Baluchistan.

(Didn't we discuss a recent article about US operatives aiding and abetting Baluchi resistance fighters, by Hirsch?)

DR

Whoa, partner! The task was to find the excuse. Why is someone else's department.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Gonna have to find another excuse to bomb them and steal their oil now.

I'm sure those who have a hard on to bomb them aren't really going to worry to much about finding a different excuse. They'll just say better safe than sorry or something.

I'm sure they're still operating centrifuges somewhere in their country. We need to go to war, take them over, and then find those centrifuges!

Does it burn when you channel Ann Coulter like that?

I still think his "WW III" speech was a load of hyperbole.

Pish tosh. The president wouldn't use hypobole to whip up a portion of the country for a war would he? Oh.. wait...

Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I'm sure those who have a hard on to bomb them aren't really going to worry to much about finding a different excuse. They'll just say better safe than sorry or something.



Does it burn when you channel Ann Coulter like that?



Pish tosh. The president wouldn't use hypobole to whip up a portion of the country for a war would he? Oh.. wait...

Did you notice that he no longer has a rubber stamp Congress, and that his pit bull, Rummy, has been replaced by a realist Sec Def?

A guy named Gates.

A good article on him in Newsweek a couple of weeks ago (OK, it's Newsweek, take with a grain of salt. Or a shakerful. )

http://www.newsweek.com/id/36322/page/1

Bush is not about to suddenly reverse himself and embrace the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton commission (of which Gates was a member) that call for a troop drawdown in Iraq and an all-encompassing international peace conference on the Middle East. What has changed so far in Bush's administration is more a matter of style than substance—though new ways of doing business can sometimes produce tangible differences in outcomes.

"Rarely did it come out in a way we didn't expect," says Scowcroft, who describes Gates as a "cautious realist," less conservative than Cheney but more conservative than Scowcroft himself.

Gates has said to Rice that he believes the secretary of State has to be the voice of foreign policy; the role of the secretary of Defense, in Gates's view, is to weigh in on the military implications and risk of policy. Gates and Rice talk every morning for 15 minutes; Rumsfeld spoke to Rice maybe twice a week. (Rice and Gates are old comrades; Gates was a fellow Sovietologist and Rice's boss on the Reagan White House national-security staff.)

DR