No Smoking Gun

A senior Israeli government official says his country does not have a "smoking gun" that would force the U.S. to change its recently-released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program.

The unnamed official made his comment to the Jerusalem Post as an Israeli military intelligence team traveled to the U.S., for meetings with their American counterparts on Iran. It is not clear if the meeting is part of the routine "intelligence exchange" between the two countries, or if the session was added in response to the NIE, and its controversial conclusions.

Meanwhile, an Israeli diplomatic official tells the Post that it would be "very arrogant" or "naive" to think that his government had to only reveal one piece of information "to get the US intelligence community to say it erred and will "take it all back and follow Israel's line."

The official said it was clear that the Americans pretty much know what Israel knows about the Iranian nuclear program and that the difference is not over the facts but rather over their interpretation.

That assertion confirms what we've been saying from the start. Assessing the status of Tehran's nuclear weapons program, intel analysts from Israel, Great Britian and the United States used the same information, yet our intelligence community arrived at a vastly different conclusion, namely that Iran halted its weapons development effort in 2003, and there are no firm indications that the program has resumed. Israeli experts believe the 2003 pause was brief, and that Iran restarted its weapons program a year later.

As we noted previously, there will always be some degree of disagreement between intelligence analysts. A certain degree of dissent is healthy, even productive for the analytical process. But, working from the same data sets, it seems highly unlikely that American spooks could arrive at a vastly different conclusion than their British and Israeli counterparts. We'll stand by a point made in our recent NIE analysis for Pajamas Media: operating from the same information, it would be more likely for the three communities to reach the same conclusion--and get it wrong --than for the U.S. to disagree with two of its closest intelligence partners.

According to the Post, Israel is sticking by its own assessment of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. With enrichment activities continuing--and a resumption of weapons development effort--Israeli analysts believe that Iran is on track to obtain a nuclear capability by 2009 at the earliest, and 2012 at the latest.

We'd love to be a "fly on the wall" at that U.S.-Israeli intelligence exchange. While those sessions are normally conducted in a dispassionate, professional manner, this week's meeting has the potential to be rather contentious. The same holds true for talks between Israeli officials and Acting Undersecretary of State John Rood, who arrived in Israel on Saturday for talks on Iran. Mr. Rood, who runs anti-proliferation efforts at Foggy Bottom, is bound to get an ear-ful from his Israeli counterparts.

If You Need More Reasons to Reject the Iran NIE...

...We can think of at least three more, outlined in our commentary for Pajamas Media, which was posted this morning.

Fresh Eyes

Reviewing the rather startling conclusions from the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program, we suggested it might be appropriate for other analysts to look at the same information and offer their assessment. You may recall that the CIA tried that approach with their "Team B" in the 1970s, an effort that was criticized for over-hyping the threat. Never mind that Team B had it successes, most notably on the critically important issue of Soviet ICBM accuracy. Because the team challenged the analysis of so-called "intelligence professionals," it became an object of scorn, even ridicule within the community.

For another look at recent information on Iran's nuclear program, it may not be necessary to convene a latter-day version of Team B. According to the U.K. Telegraph, British spooks have reviewed portions of the NIE, and don't support the claim that Iran halted its nuclear program in 2003. As the paper reports:

British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Tehran.

[snip]

The security services in London want concrete evidence to allay concerns that the Islamic state has fed disinformation to the CIA.

The report used new evidence - including human sources, wireless intercepts and evidence from an Iranian defector - to conclude that Tehran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear programme in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.

A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.

The source said British analysts believed that Iranian nuclear staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. "We are sceptical. We want to know what the basis of it is, where did it come from? Was it on the basis of the defector? Was it on the basis of the intercept material? They say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white. They will say anything to throw us off.

"It's not as if the American intelligence agencies are regarded as brilliant performers in that region. They got badly burned over Iraq."

While the "pros" at Langley will dismiss the criticism as "second-guessing" from a few hardliners in the British intelligence services, we believe the British critique is valid, for several reasons.

First, U.S. and U.K. intel agencies have an extremely close working (read: information sharing) relationship, particularly in the fields of imagery and signals intelligence. American intel organizations share more data with the Brits than any other foreign partner, and rely on the U.K for expertise and analysis on certain "accounts," including Iran. For analysts on both sides of the Atlantic, evidence of this relationship is only a mouse click away; American spooks can readily access British intelligence reporting on INTELINK, the intel community's classified intranet, and U.K. systems provide similar access to a wide range of U.S. assessments.

Obviously, the U.S. doesn't share everything with Britain (just as MI5, MI6 and GCHQ don't provide their total "haul" to American spy agencies). But the U.S.-British intel relationship is both extensive and expansive. Bottom line: British analysts had access to vast majority of data used in formulating the recent NIE, but doubt its key judgments.

Secondly, the Brits recognize the potential impact of Iranian deception efforts on allied intel collection and reporting. Though Tehran is often judged less proficient in denial and deception than say, Russia or China, the Iranians have demonstrated an ability to carry out elaborate deception schemes in the past. During the Iran-Iraq War, Tehran used a variety of information sources, ranging from mosque sermons to phony radio nets, to convince Saddam Hussein that a pending offensive would be aimed toward Baghdad. When the came in the south, at Khorramshahr, the Iraqis were completely surprised, and their defenses almost collapsed.

Could the U.S. be as easily fooled? That depends on a variety of factors, including execution of the potential deception effort, the amount of resources devoted to the campaign and our own willingness to accept what the Iranians are offering. Put another way: we are not immune to deception, as illustrated by various intelligence failures over the past 70 years. Tehran is well aware of that fact. It would be quite interesting to know what the NIE says--in detail--about the possibility that Iran's nuclear "pause" is nothing more than a strategic deception campaign.

Finally, the Brits aren't alone in the skepticism. Israeli intelligence, which, presumably, has access to similar information (and its own sources in Iran) believes that Iran's nuclear program remains active. Admittedly, Tel Aviv doesn't have the vast array of technical sources available to the U.S. intelligence community, but their analysis on Iran is extremely good. It's also worth noting that the Israelis were apparently the first to detect that nuclear facility in Syria, which was subsequently destroyed by the IAF.

Believing the NIE's key judgements means that both the Brits and the Israelis are wrong in their assessments of similar intelligence. The odds that one country got it wrong are low; chances that both missed the boat are exceedingly small. It would be more likely for the U.S., British and Israeli agencies to concur--and blow--the assessment than for one to get it right, and the others to get it wrong. It is extremely rare for the U.S. to disagree with two of its closest intelligence partners when all have access to similar sources and information.

All the more reason for our intel community to take another look at the conclusions of the Iran NIE. Non-concurrence among British and Israeli intelligence officials is another danger sign that the estimate is potentially flawed. Given the gravity of that assessment--and its impact on western policies toward Iran--a fresh set of eyes on the raw data wouldn't hurt.

Sources and Methods

The growing imbroligo over the Iran NIE is raising new concerns about the intelligence sources and methods used to produce the document--and its controversial judgments.

Individuals familiar with the assessment suggest that "new" information led analysts to conclude that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003. That represents a sea change from the previous NIE (issued in 2005), which concluded that Iran was actively pursuing nuclear weapons.

While there are legitimate concerns about the personal biases and suspected political agendas of the study's primary authors, Americans should also worry about the quality and reliability of the information used in formulating the assessment. To paraphrase Michael Ledeen, believing the NIE's key judgments means that the evidence has to be awfully good. And evidence of that quality has been in notoriously short supply, both from our sources in the Middle East, and the spy agencies tasked with sorting it out.

This much we know: the full version of the NIE covers 150 pages, including appendices and other supporting documentation. The report's key judgments section, declassified earlier this week, runs only four pages, including a chart that highlights key changes between the latest assessment and the 2005 version. Without the declassification of some supporting data, we can only accept the conclusions of an intelligence community with a poor track record on WMD matters, particularly among rogue states.

As with any National Intelligence Estimate, we assume the new Iran assessment makes use of the full array of intel sources and methods--SIGINT, HUMINT, IMINT, MASINT and even open-source reporting. But we also recognize that information from these same sources led to a dramatically different conclusion just two years ago. Moreover, the volume and quality of collection from these platforms has not improved dramatically--as far as we can tell. Technological refinements in our intel systems are offset by the adversary's own advances, and their attempts at denial and deception.

Consider the example of signals intelligence, or SIGINT. The National Security Agency (NSA) remains the preeminent SIGINT organization in the world. But agency veterans will tell you that the SIGINT environment has become increasingly challenging, thanks to the proliferation of fiber-optic technology and low-cost encryption devices. Phone calls and other communications that once bounced between relay towers are now routed over fiber-optic cable; intercepting them means tapping into the line, a difficult proposition in places like Iran, Syria or North Korea.
The problem is further compounded by wide availability of personal encryption devices. Complex cyphers that were once the exclusive property of governments and intelligence services can now be downloaded from the internet. Increased use of these systems and devices slows the decrypt of adversary communication--and the flow of information to decision-makers.
What about cell phones, you ask? They operate on a tower-based line-of-sight system. True, but intercepting those transmissions (usually) means getting inside hostile territory, further complicating the collection task.

And SIGINT isn't the only intel discipline facing such challenges. In the internet era, there are scores of websites that offer information on the orbits and potential collection "windows" for spy satellites. Today, an effective satellite warning program is just a few keystrokes away--and there's little we can do about it.

HUMINT? The Robb-Silberman Commission Report (released in 2005) deplored the state of our HUMINT capabilities, noting the meager haul on Saddam's WMD programs in the run-up to the war, and the wholesale lack of reporting on Iraqi leadership intentions. Similar problems are said to exist with the Iranian "target," which presents similar challenges. Clearly, there have been no major "breakthroughs" in traditional collection methods over the past two years.

What changed (apparently) was the receipt of new information from well-placed sources that forced a revised assessment. We maintain that the most likely source for this information was General Ali Rez Asgari, who defected to the west earlier this year. As the long-time commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (and a Deputy Defense Minister), Asgari had access to a wide range of highly sensitive programs, including his country's nuclear efforts. Officials who spoke with Bill Gertz of the Washington Times have also hinted that Asgari was the source for the new information.

If General Asgari's reporting is the primary reason for the revised assessment, it's almost certain that he smuggled reams of information out of Iran. Having been burned by "single sources," before, it's unlikely that the intel community would assign such credence to his data--unless Asgari had documentation to support his claims. That raises obvious concerns about plants, deception and double agents, but (so far) General Asgari's claims have apparently withstood scrutiny.

We should note, however, that the defector may not be the primary source for the new NIE and its startling judgment. In his latest dispatch for Newsmax, Kenneth Timmerman offers this disturbing revelation:

[The NIE's] most dramatic conclusion — that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program in 2003 in response to international pressure — is based on a single, unvetted source who provided information to a foreign intelligence service and has not been interviewed directly by the United States.

Newsmax sources in Tehran believe that Washington has fallen for “a deliberate disinformation campaign” cooked up by the Revolutionary Guards, who laundered fake information and fed it to the United States through Revolutionary Guards intelligence officers posing as senior diplomats in Europe.

And whatever the source, the information prompted a rapid change in the intel community's views on Iran's nuclear program. As Thomas Joscelyn reports at the Weekly Standard (H/T: Ed Morrissey), one of the NIE's key authors offered a completely different take on Tehran's nuclear efforts just five months ago. Testifying before Congress on 11 July of this year, Thomas Fingar of the NIC stated that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons:

Iran and North Korea are the states of most concern to us. The United States’ concerns about Iran are shared by many nations, including many of Iran’s neighbors. Iran is continuing to pursue uranium enrichment and has shown more interest in protracting negotiations and working to delay and diminish the impact of UNSC sanctions than in reaching an acceptable diplomatic solution. We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons--despite its international obligations and international pressure. This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.

Compare that to key judgments from the NIE that Mr. Fingar helped prepare:

"We judge with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Iran halted its nuclear weapons program."

"We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years."

[And]

"We assess with moderate confidence that Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently plans to develop nuclear weapons.

Obviously, any intelligence estimate is only as good as the information it's based on. Political agendas and personal biases aside, it's clear that the bottom-line assessment of the new NIE raises questions about the quality and reliability of its source data. No one can reasonably expect the intel community to reveal all sources and methods that were used in generating the report. However, it is not unreasonable for lawmakers--and the public--to demand a more detailed explanation as to how intelligence analysts arrived at their astounding conclusion, and the data they used to support that assessment.

Maybe it's time for another exercise in competitive analysis. Intel vets will groan about the inaccuracies of the CIA's "Team B" in the 1970s--and they certainly have a point. But it's also worth remembering that Team B was right on more than a few counts. Simply stated, we cannot afford to be wrong on the Iranian nuclear issue. Maybe it's time for another set of eyes to take a look at that revelatory information that prompted the new assessment.

The Politics of Intelligence

With more details emerging on the recently-declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program, it seems clear that the assessment--like so many aspects of the intel community--has been affected by partisan politics and individual bias.

To be fair, we should note that the nation's intel apparatus (like any government bureaucracy) is subject to political influence. And the work of intelligence analysts will always be affected by their personal views and biases. However, in something as important as an NIE, every effort should be made to minimize those influences. Sadly, that wasn't the case with the Iran estimate.

In our initial post on the NIE, we noted a New York Sun editorial which (rightfully) challenged the objectivity of Vann Van Diepen, one of the principal analysts who authored the assessment. A CIA employee, Mr. Van Diepen has, according to the Sun, "spent the last five years trying to get America to accept Iran's right to enrich uranium." You don't need a Top Secret security clearance to understand that Van Diepen's position represents a minority view in most intelligence circles. So, why was he assigned to the NIE team?

A similar question might be asked about other intel officials who played key roles in producing the assessment. The Iranian document, (indeed, all NIEs) are produced under the auspices of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which leads community efforts in that area. The current chairman of the NIC is none other than Tom Fingar.

Does that name ring a bell? It should. As Ken Timmerman at Newsmax reminds us:

Fingar was a key partner of Senate Democrats in their successful effort to derail the confirmation of John Bolton in the spring of 2005 to become the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations.

As the head of the NIC, Fingar has gone out of his way to fire analysts “who asked the wrong questions,” and who challenged the politically-correct views held by Fingar and his former State Department colleagues, as revealed in "Shadow Warriors."

In March 2007, Fingar fired his top Cuba and Venezuela analyst, Norman Bailey, after he warned of the growing alliance between Castro and Chavez.

Mr. Timmerman describes Fingar as part of a "coterie of State Department officials brought over to ODNI by the first director, career State Department official John Negroponte." Another member of that group was Kenneth Brill, another key contributor to the Iranian estimate.

At one time in his foreign service career, Mr. Brill served as U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It appears that Brill was a good match for the organization, which has never been particularly aggressive--or successful--in discovering nuclear programs among rogue states. As today's Wall Street Journal notes, Brill's performance in Vienna was unimpressive, at best:

For a flavor of their political outlook, former Bush Administration antiproliferation official John Bolton recalls in his recent memoir that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage "described Brill's efforts in Vienna, or lack thereof, as 'bull--.'" Mr. Brill was "retired" from the State Department by Colin Powell before being rehired, over considerable internal and public protest, as head of the National Counter-Proliferation Center by then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

In his book "Shadow Warriors," Ken Timmerman describes Brill as a man who steadfastly refused to address the issue of Iran's nuclear program, despite evidence to the contrary:

“While in Vienna, Brill consistently failed to confront Iran once its clandestine nuclear weapons program was exposed in February 2003, and had to be woken up with the bureaucratic equivalent of a cattle prod to deliver a single speech condemning Iran’s eighteen year history of nuclear cheating.”

Negroponte rehabilitated Brill and brought the man who single-handedly failed to object to Iran’s nuclear weapons program and put him in charge of counter-proliferation efforts for the entire intelligence community.

The collective contributions of Messrs. Van Diepen, Fingar and Brill may explain the NIE's "diplo-centric" perspective and its optimistic outlook on Iran's nuclear program. And that brings us to another point. Media coverage of any NIE invariably highlights the assessment as the "consensus" of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies.

Well, almost. One of the dirty little secrets of the NIE process is that some organizations have a greater say (and influence) than others. For example, while representatives of the Coast Guard intelligence and the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MICA) may have been invited to the initial meeting on the Iran report, it is virtually certain that no "coasties" or Marines were involved in the final preparation. Iran's national nuclear program is beyond the purview of many intelligence organizations, so they have no input in the final report.

So, who was actually responsible for the NIE? Well, obviously the NIC (which controlled development of the assessment), along with the CIA, NSA, DIA, NGA, State Department and the Department of Energy. The bulk of the information--and analytical expertise--came from only six of the sixteen intelligence agencies.

The delineation of labor goes something like this: CIA leads community efforts in WMD and counter-proliferation, and they controlled the defector reporting which (reportedly) prompted the revised assessment. NSA provided SIGINT information used in formulating the NIE; DIA analysts offered expertise on links between Iran's nuclear program and its military, and NGA's imagery products were used in tracking changes at facilities associated with Iran's nuclear program. Among the other key players, the State Department furnished analysis on the diplomatic aspects of Tehran's nuclear effort, while the Energy Department provided critical assessments on Iranian nuclear research, technology and related matters.

While most (if not all) intel agencies were given an opportunity to review--and critique--draft versions of the NIE, most of the actual work on the assessment was done by the "Big 4" intel agencies (CIA, NSA, DIA and NGA), with key assistance from NGA, the State Department and DOE. That isn't surprising; collectively, the three organizations control much of the nation's intel analysis, and a good chunk of our collection capabilities.

What's more surprising is that the document's preparation was largely entrusted to three individuals who have, to varying degrees, opposed existing U.S. policies in the Middle East and prevailing perspectives within the intelligence community. While honest dissent among intel analysts is welcome--even necessary--we can only wonder if the Iran NIE was influenced more by new information, or by the prevailing biases and political agendas that affect portions of our intelligence community.