Intelligence on Iran nuclear threat seen as inadequate

[cal04]

The United States doesn't have enough good intelligence to know whether or not Iran will be capable of producing nuclear weapons in the near future, top congressional intelligence committee members said on Sunday. Iran said earlier on Sunday it would not abandon its work on nuclear enrichment, which the United Nations has demanded it halt, and was prepared to face sanctions from abroad.

Asked on Fox News Sunday when Iran might be capable of producing nuclear weapons, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican, said: "I'd say we really don't know.

"We're getting lots of mixed messages," Hoekstra said. "We've got a long way to go in rebuilding our intelligence community. .... We don't have all of the information we would like to have. Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, concurred. "Our intelligence is thin," she told Fox News. "I don't think we have enough sources, I don't think our analysis is sharp enough."

Washington has said it wants a diplomatic resolution over Iran's nuclear ambitions but has not ruled out military action, a step its allies, as well as Russia and China, oppose. "This is not a time to be saber-rattling in our government," said Harmon. "Just the fact that the Iranian government is making a lot of noise doesn't prove their capabilities.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-04-23T153510Z_01_N23207139_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-INTELLIGENCE.xml

[Rose Siding]

1. Harman gave Wallace a case of indigestion

HARMAN: Well, I hope the White House is listening to what Pete Hoekstra just said. We don't know. Our intelligence is thin. I don't think we have enough sources. I don't think our analysis is sharp enough.

I'm not comfortable that even if we knew more that the White House would be listening clearly to the intelligence case. They apparently did not in Iraq. It was not a very strong case.

But those who tried to speak truth to power were shut out. This is not a time to be saber-rattling in our government, talking about the military option. We don't know enough.

And my view is at our peril, we risk any good outcome if we don't join with the world, especially China and Russia, and try to help the U.N. or at least the group of concerned nations isolate Iran if we don't have full transparency into its nuclear capabilities.

Just the fact that the Iranian government is making a lot of noise doesn't prove their capability. Remember, the Iraqi government made a lot of noise, and they had nothing.

WALLACE: Congresswoman Harman, let's change subjects.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192734,00.html

[catmandu57]

2. Given their track record on Iraqi intelligence

I'd have to look for myself if my government told me the sun was shining, I don't trust anything from them.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Inadequate information didn't stop * before with Iraq. Can't imagine

why it would be an obstacle regarding Iran.

[struggle4progress]

7. In a recent Los Angeles Times poll, 54 percent of respondents said ..

they did not trust President Bush to "make the right decision about whether we should go to war with Iran," compared with 42 percent who did. Forty percent said the war in Iraq had made them less supportive of military action against Iran. But Americans are being systematically deprived of any alternative view of the Iranian threat, the consequences of American policy choices or the real intentions of the Bush Administration. http://www.alternet.org/story/35352/

[Buns_of_Fire]

4. Intelligence? We don't need no stinkin' "intelligence!" (n/t)

[Ghost Dog]

5. "We've gone a long way destroying our intelligence community"

more like the truth.

(And Dick and Rummy want to go much, much further).

ed: (And young Anthony).

:-(

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. After exposing Plame and her WMD-tracking network, what.....

...did idiots like Hoekstra expect?

Stupid comments like this make me want to throw up.