Wednesday, April 13, 2005

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Drudge has a link to this interesting report from a newspaper in the United Arab Emirates. According to the paper (based on Israeli radio reports) an Israeli military attache presented aeria photos of Iran's nuclear facilities during the recent meeting between Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush.

Make no mistake, I have the utmost respect for Israeli intelligence; their military intelligence directorate is extremely competent professional, and the Mossad is among the world's best at old-fashioned, cloak-and-dagger spying.

But I rather doubt the Israelis did a PowerPoint briefing for the President during his talks with Mr. Sharon, for a couple of reasons. During my intel career, I worked a few exchanges with the Israelis. They are usually close-hold with their information, and typically offer data in hopes of getting us to share our information. Additionally, U.S. imagery capabilities are superior to those of Israel, and I'm not sure what additional details the Israeli images might reveal.

Iif the Israelis were playing show-and-tell at the summit, their "show" was likely aimed at getting us to tell more about our knowledge of Iran and its nuclear program.

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