The SFRC Iran nuclear program report is being attacked as "tainted" by "Israeli propaganda"

[beachmom]

For some reason, I missed seeing the actual report the SFRC released. Read it here:

http://foreign.senate.gov/Iran.pdf

It is worth a read, and isn't too long.

Here is the attack, which is re-published in all kinds of places. Here it is in the Huff Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/03/iran-nuclear-assessment-m_n_210971.html

WASHINGTON, Jun 3 (IPS) - A report on Iran's nuclear programme issued by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month generated news stories publicising an incendiary charge that U.S. intelligence is underestimating Iran's progress in designing a "nuclear warhead" before the halt in nuclear weapons-related research in 2003.

That false and misleading charge from an intelligence official of a foreign country, who was not identified but was clearly Israeli, reinforces two of Israel's key propaganda themes on Iran - that the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is wrong, and that Tehran is poised to build nuclear weapons as soon as possible.

But it also provides new evidence that Israeli intelligence was the source of the collection of intelligence documents which have been used to accuse Iran of hiding nuclear weapons research.

Frankly, the article itself sounds like propaganda, since it is so sure that the charge is "false and misleading". The truth is no one knows. The writer of the article is here:

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

Looking at Google search, this article appears in Iranian and Asian publications, as well as American anti-war publications. I just don't think Kerry would sign a report that trumped up Iran nuclear capabilities, and wonder about this Gareth Porter.

When the report was released, I think CNN did a great job summing it up:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/07/iran.nuclear/index.html

Nevertheless, if you search for the report, Gareth Porter's article is at the top of the list.

[karynnj]

1. It is funny - but I found the Kerry report easier to read than Porter's article

To me, the Kerry report seems an attempt to lay out everything various intelligence people (or anyone) have and to then try to pull it together intelligently. Therefore, a claim of uncertain validity, is followed by any additional information - which often diminishes the claim. This does serve a purpose, but here the danger is that Kerry and his staff need to write something op-ed size to counter Cherry picking which ignores the words that reduce the claims.

The CNN article takes the controversial information out of context - in essence cherry picking the most drastic bits and ignoring any information that counters it. (If I wanted to be a conspiracy nut - I would say that they are pushing the RW Israeli neo-con view. Here are two examples:

On the research, the report says:

Intelligence analysts and nuclear experts working for foreign governments
agreed in interviews with committee staff that Iran had
stopped its weapons work in late 2003. {b]Some of these officials said
in unclassified briefings that by that time, however, intelligence indicates
Iran had produced a suitable design, manufactured some
components and conducted enough successful explosives tests to
put the project on the shelf until it manufactured the fissile material
required for several weapons.
Many have doubts about whether Iran has a design for a workable
nuclear warhead. In early March, Defense Secretary Robert
Gates said that there is still time to persuade Iran to abandon its
suspected nuclear weapons program. ‘‘They’re not close to a stockpile,
they’re not close to a weapon at this point, and so there is
some time,’’ he said.
One danger associated with the opacity of Iran’s program is the
perception of other countries of how much progress Tehran has
made toward a weapons capability. Admiral Blair told the Senate
Armed Services Committee in March that the U.S. and Israel have
the same basic intelligence about Iran’s nuclear efforts, but he said
the Israelis ‘‘take more of a worst-case approach,’’ which he suggested
could lead to an Israeli-Iran conflict.

Here, they took just the bolded part - ignoring the next sentence that starts with "many doubt" and they ignore Blair's caution.

Then CNN says -

A foreign intelligence agency and some U.N. officials estimated that Iran could reconfigure its centrifuge cascades and produce enough weapons-grade material for a bomb within six months."

the report does say this about Natanz - but then says:

Natanz is monitored by the IAEA and a shift from producing the
permitted low-enriched uranium (LEU) to the prohibited highly enriched
uranium would likely be discovered.

(It then goes on to speak of newer and planned facilities that are not monitored. )

The Porter one is harder to follow - and as you say seems very vested in saying the charge was false - does say that report questioned the accuracy as well. The part on whether there was a blueprint for a nuclear war head in the laptop or not is a good question. (Here is a case where - if this source is contradicted by other information - that should have been included and the report should be faulted if this were the case - even though they did earlier question the laptop's info in general.)

The last sentence is:

The Senate report said senior United Nations officials and foreign intelligence officials who had seen "many of the documents" in the collection of alleged Iranian military documents had told committee staff "it is impossible to rule out an elaborate intelligence ruse".

[beachmom]

2. I guess I gave CNN good grades for extensively quoting the report.

Of course, as a news site, they are going to sensationalize things with the most riveting parts of the report, as should be expected. But they didn't go as over the top as Porter (in the opposite direction). I find the most compelling article was to actually read the report itself.

[karynnj]

3. I quite agree that the Kerry report was most compelling

It is scary - but mostly because of the admissions of what we really do not know. I think the hearing, was fascinating in both the realistic hope in the second panel and the incredible detective work of Morgenthau's office in the first. To me, the proof that they were more serious than the earlier intelligence showed was not from the possibly discredited report, but the fact that they were able to get components via the fraudulent bank transactions.

Porter was over the top, but so caught up in details that the rest of us don't know, that he was hard to read and follow.