If You Doubt the MANPAD SAM Threat...

A VH-60N, which carries the "Marine One" callsign when the President is onboard.

...Take a look at this article, posted a short time ago at the WorldTribune.com:

"Bush travel plans in Israel changed at last minute due to missile threat"

TEL AVIV — The United States revised travel plans by President George Bush because of the threat of a Palestinian missile attack.

Israeli sources said the U.S. Secret Service canceled Bush's plans to travel by helicopter from Ben-Gurion Airport to Jerusalem on Wednesday. The sources said the Secret Service determined that Bush's helicopter could be targeted by an attacker with a surface-to-air missile.

"There was an intense last-minute discussion about the possibility of a SAM attack," an Israeli source said. "When the Israeli side agreed that this could not be ruled out, the Secret Service decided to cancel the helicopter flight."

[snip]

The Secret Service assessment marked a departure from an earlier CIA report that Palestinians in the West Bank could not threaten Ben-Gurion airport with SAMs. The CIA assessment was issued in 2005 during talks with Israel on plans to build a security barrier some five kilometers into the West Bank, located adjacent to the airport.

All choppers assigned to Marine Helicopter Squadron One (which provides transport for the President and other senior government officials) are equipped with an advanced self-protection system, designed for the MANPAD threat. The helicopters assigned to Mr. Bush's Middle East trip are capable of handling the threat that might exist in the West Bank--mostly Soviet-era SA-7s/14s/16s.

Still, the White House and the Secret Service can't afford the image of Marine One maneuvering against a potshot from some Palestinian gunner, particularly in light of recent Al Qaida threats against Mr. Bush. So, the decision to cancel the president's chopper flight was a prudent one, even if it cause severe traffic problems for Israeli commuters.

Today's decision provides another reminder of the growing MANPAD threat to VIP and civilian aircraft. As we noted in a recent post, older shoulder-fired SAMS are readily available on the arms market, sometimes for only a few hundred dollars. More advanced MANPADS can also be acquired, at prices up to $100,000. That's a relatively cheap price, considering the economic--and political--damage that could be inflicted with a single, successful MANPAD attack.

The same missiles available in the West Bank, Gaza (and elsewhere in the Middle East) could be easily smuggled into the United States. That's why the cancellation of Mr. Bush's helicopter ride should re-ignite the debate on self-defense systems for U.S. commercial jets. The Department of Homeland Security will mount defensive gear on three American Airlines jets this spring, part of a test to determine maintenance and fuel costs. Installing anti-missile suites on most commercial jets is still years away--and the airlines are fighting the proposal.

Mr. Bush's last-minute change in transportation plans should serve as a wake-up call for domestic security officials and U.S. air carriers. The threat that forced the president to travel to Jerusalem by car--rather than helicopter--will arrive on our shores, and sooner, rather than later. Actively preparing for that eventuality (by installing defensive systems on commercial aircraft) cannot wait until the first jetliner goes down in flames.

Changing the Assessment on Iran

Official Washington and the chattering class are abuzz over the recently-declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which assesses that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program three years ago.

The latest NIE on Tehran's nuclear efforts--released only one day before a scheduled Presidential news conference--declares with "high confidence" that the Iranian weapons program remains on hold. The assessment also says with "high confidence" that the pause was "directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure."

As the International Herald-Tribune reports (from a NYT article):

The estimate does not say when American intelligence agencies learned that the weapons program had been halted, but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public "since our understanding of Iran's capabilities has changed."

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states that Iran's "decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.

The latest assessment comes two years after the last NIE on Iran's nuclear ambitions, which stated that Tehran was working "inexorably" toward obtaining a nuclear bomb. And, the new intelligence estimate was released only weeks after President Bush and Vice-President Cheney warned of grave consequences if the Iranian government didn't abandon its weapons program.

So, why the stunning reversal?

The answer probably lies in a single name: General Ali Rez Asgari.

General Asgari is the former Deputy Iranian Defense Minister and Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander who defected to the west earlier this year. Asgari is the highest-ranking Iranian military defector in decades; it is widely believed that he has detailed knowledge of Tehran's most sensitive operations, including its sponsorship of Hizballah, and information on Iran's nuclear program.

While General Asgari retired from active duty several years ago, he remained a key player in military and political matters. At the time of his defection, Asgari was on an "official" trip to Syria, for discussions on matters of mutual interest, including upcoming weapons deliveries by Russia, and continued support for Hizballah.

But Asgari never made it to Damascus; he disappeared during a stopover in Turkey and was spirited out of the country by the CIA or the Mossad, with likely assistance from Ankara's intelligence services. In a colossal display of ineptitude, Iranian counter-intelligence officers missed signs of the planned defection. General Asgari sold his home in Tehran last year, and his family joined him on the Syria trip, allowing them to escape as well.

Since his defection, Asgari has reportedly been sheltered in CIA safe houses in the U.S., where he has undergone extensive debriefing. Information supplied by Asgari allowed American intel services to check their information against the defector's account. The (apparent) result is a vastly different picture of Iran's nuclear program than the one offered by the intelligence community just two years ago.

Indeed, the dramatic change in assessments could be viewed as another, damning indictment of our intel services. Reading between the lines of the 2005 and 2007 NIEs, it seems likely that the first estimate was based almost entirely on national technical collection. Information gathered by overhead platforms and other high-tech sensors suggested that Iran was actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

However, the earlier estimate apparently lacked an important detail--corroboration by human intelligence (HUMINT) sources--insiders who could "fill in the details" on the Iranian effort and its long-range goals. Sad to say, but the new estimate suggests that western intelligence never had a credible source at the highest levels of the Iranian government until Asgari defected (emphasis mine).

Information from the general's debriefs provided fresh data for U.S. analysts, allowing them to compare his information with that obtained from other sources. And, apparently, his information suggested that our intelligence services had missed the mark (again).

Officially, no one in the intelligence community has identified Asgari as the source for the "new" information that prompted the revised assessment. Mr. Kerr's claim that "our understanding has changed" is little more than tacit acknowledgment of new information--or, more correctly a new source with information that was previously unavailable and cannot be refuted (so far). General Asgari certainly fits the profile for that type of source.

If we assume that the defector provided much of the information behind the new assessment, that will raise inevitable questions about his veracity--and the possibility that Asgari is some sort of double-agent. In fairness, we should note that intel agencies (principally, the CIA) work very hard at establishing the reliability of defectors and their information. At a minimum, Asgari would have been subjected to multiple polygraphs and a series of exhaustive debriefings that covered key points over and over again. So far, Asgari's accounts seem to be standing up to scrutiny.

But even Asgari's cross-checked claims might not be enough to prompt that a major reversal of an NIE. That's why we believe that the general brought much more out of Iran than his personal recollections and memories. In his posts as IRGC Commander and Deputy Defense Minister, Asgari was in a position to access classified information on Iranian programs and policies across the political-military spectrum. We're guessing that scores of letters, e-mails, memoranda, spreadsheets and other documents were saved by Asgari, and have been turned over to the CIA. Analysis of that material, coupled with the general's own personal account, was enough to force a change in the NIE.

While the assessment casts a different light on Tehran's nuclear ambitions, it does not give Iran a clean bill of health. The report notes that Iran is still enriching uranium, and could still develop a bomb between 2010-2015, if it so chooses. Also disturbing--at least from the intelligence perspective--we still don't know all the reasons behind Iran's apparent decision to freeze its program, or what might trigger its resumption. That reminds us that there are limits to any source's knowledge, and once they defect, the information becomes dated.

Bottom line: there are still serious gaps in what we know about Iran's nuclear program. According to the AP, the CIA (which leads development of most NIEs) considered at least six alternatives to explain the freeze, including the possibility that the halt is nothing more than a ruse. Some of the other scenarios may have included an "outsourcing" of Tehran's weapons program (a claim that is partially supported by Israel's discovery--and bombing of a nuclear facility in Syria), and the possibility that Iran planned to buy finished weapons from another source, perhaps North Korea.

While some Congressional Democrats praised the "independence" of the new NIE, the report is also evidence of the continuing war between the CIA and the White House. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were briefed on the new assessment (and its conclusions) last week, but interim reports on the Asgari debriefing were available for months--almost from the day he defected. It would be interesting to know how much of this information (if any) was included in the daily intelligence briefings for the President and Vice-President, given their frequent comments on Iran's nuclear program.

If President Bush and Vice-President Cheney ignored early "warnings" from Asgari's debriefings, shame on them. But, given the long-running hostilities between the CIA and the White House, it is possible that much of the data from the debrief and the NIE formulation process was suppressed until the assessment was complete.

How could that happen? It's quite simple, really. Bury the defector reports in routine HUMINT reporting, or simply withhold the biggest "bombshells" for the NIE. Remember: the intel community is responsible for determining what is briefed to the president and members of his senior staff. By sitting on information (as part of the NIE preparation process), or parceling out information in normal HUMINT reporting, anti-Bush factions in various intel agencies could pull another "gotcha" on the Commander-in-Chief, forcing him to rely on the 2005 NIE as the basis for his remarks on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Mr. Bush is expected to field a lot of questions on the intel assessment at today's news conference. The MSM won't pose these queries, but they should be asked, nonetheless:

--"Mr. President, when were you first briefed on General Asgari, and how many updates have you received since his defection?

--"In updates provided on the defection, were you ever briefed on new information regarding Iran's nuclear program? When did you first receive that information?

--"Considering the disparity between your remarks on Iran's nuclear ambitions--and the information in the NIE--do you believe the intelligence community withheld information from the White House, or downplayed the significance of recently-acquired information?

The answers to those questions would probably confirm our worst suspicions--relations between the administration and the CIA are as bad as ever, and unlikely to change until the next president takes office.

And, for what it's worth, we would not want to be in General Hayden or Admiral McConnell's shoes this morning.

Bush Blows It

We're learning that President Bush consulted with few advisers before commuting the sentence of former Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis Libby. In a decision announced late yesterday, Mr. Bush determined that Libby would not serve jail time for his conviction on perjury and obstruction of justice charges in the Valerie Plame case. However, the President left the conviction intact, meaning that Mr. Libby must spend the next two years on probation and pay a $250,000 fine. The conviction also means that Libby, an attorney, will likely lose his law license, greatly eroding his future earnings potential.

The Libby commutation is consistent with the worst choices of the "Great Decider," a vague stab at some sort of consensus (as we saw in the failed immigration bill), or a spur-of-the moment, "I can do it because I can" decision, a la the Harriet Miers nomination. In both cases, Mr. Bush only managed to infuriate opponents at both ends of the political spectrum, and further erode his own base, and that of the Republican Party.

Ditto for the Libby decision. Commuting his sentence--while allowing the conviction and fine to stand--were some sort of sop toward the jury's decision, while keeping Mr. Libby out of a federal prison. Whatever. If it's true that a competent prosecutor can persuade a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, let's just say that the panel which convicted Mr. Libby would have dispatched the same snack to a federal jail. You may recall their week of tortured deliberations before finally deciding that Libby was guilty, then expressing regret over their verdict, opining that the "wrong guy" was on trial.

And, lest we forget, Mr. Libby was not convicted of the alleged "crime" which spurred his multi-year investigation--the alleged disclosure of a CIA agent's identity. We say "alleged" because there's ample evidence that Valerie Plame's cover was blown long before she became a topic of conversation between White House officials and members of the press. Bill Gertz of the Washington Times discovered that Plame's CIA affiliation was known to Russian intelligence in the mid-1990s, and by Cuban agents a few years later--assuming they hadn't been tipped off by their friends in Moscow.

Making matters worse, the "company" for which Ms. Plame worked was well-known as a CIA front, and the agency never bothered to update her non-official cover. There is also ample evidence that Ms. Plame and her serial liar husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, were sloppy (at best) in protecting her identity. Their "Who's Who" entry listed the CIA as her employer; she gave campaign contributions to Al Gore as an employee of a known agency front company, and Mr. Wilson purportedly blew her cover (again) in an interview with liberal journalist David Corn, about the time of Bob Novak's original column. In short, Valerie Plame's affiliation with the Central Intelligence Agency was one of the nation's worst-kept secrets, one reason that Special Prosecutor Peter Fitzgerald could never indict anyone for that "crime."

Instead, Mr. Libby was indicted--and convicted--for the crime of a faulty memory. It was a verdict that stunned much of the legal community, earning Libby support from scholars ranging from Robert Bork to Alan Dershowitz. As Professor Dershowitz--no friend of the Bush Administration--noted that he and Judge Bork agree on virtually nothing. But both recogized the travesty of the Libby case.

Critics would argue that lying to investigators and obstruction of justice--the crimes for which Libby was convicted--are serious offenses, worthy of a 30-month prison sentence. But justice also requires a measure of fairness and proportionality. Not too many months ago, another former, high-ranking White House official stood in the dock, accused of stealing and destroying classified documents. For that offense, former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger received no jail time, and, amazingly, he'll regain his security clearance in only three years.

Mr. Bush had an opportunity to rectify the Libby outrage, but elected (instead) for the half-a-loaf approach. If Mr. Libby wants to clear his name, he must continue a long--and expensive--legal appeal. By some estimates, the former White House aide's legal bills are approaching $2 million, and growing by the day. Good legal help doesn't come cheap. True, there may be a book or movie deal down the road, but that's little consolation for a man whose life has been destroyed by an over-zealous prosecutor, the poisonous atmosphere that lingers inside the Beltway, and a President that was (apparently) too timid to do the right thing.