THE PLANK DECEMBER 9, 2007
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The Los Angeles Times has a big story today on Iranian defectors. Here's the lede:
The CIA launched a secret program in 2005 designed to degrade Iran's
nuclear weapons program by persuading key officials to defect, an
effort that has prompted a "handful" of significant departures, current
and former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the operation say.The previously undisclosed program, which CIA officials dubbed "the
Brain Drain," is part of a major intelligence push against Iran ordered
by the White House two years ago.
This would certainly explain the NIE's turnabout. This bit, later in the piece, didn't make sense, however:
In the two years since it was launched, the program has led to
carefully orchestrated extractions of a small group of Iranian
officials who operated in the mid- to upper tiers of the Islamic
Republic's nuclear programs.None of those who defected was considered essential to the nuclear
program, nor were they able to provide comprehensive descriptions of
Iran's efforts, officials said."Did they have replacements for these people? Any country would have,"
the former official involved in the operation said. "But we did slow
the program"
Hmm, the defections happened in 2005. According to the NIE, and the article, Iran froze its nuclear program in 2003. How could defections in 2005 have slowed a program that was supposedly frozen? Theories welcome!
--Isaac Chotiner
5 comments
Isaac, I assume he means they slowed the enrichment program, which is still ongoing and has been plagued by problems.
- theferrarigirl
December 9, 2007 at 1:12pm
If history is any guide with this Administration, they said something like: "Ouch! That smarts!"
- myzaguirre
December 9, 2007 at 2:59pm
It's simple, Isaac. We want them to think that we think they've stopped the program. They want us to think that they think we think they haven't. So if we get scientists to defect from a program we think is stopped, they'll think we think it's not.
Or, maybe the new NIE report is like most of the other ones--a nearly worthless collection of guesswork, half-truths, wishful thinking, and politically motivated spin that no self-respecting official would take very seriously except as a way to cover their ass, or as an example of CIA politicization.
- Robert Powell
December 9, 2007 at 3:14pm
Actually, one of the most senior figures in the whole Iranian military establishment defected last year, if I recall. Both we and the Israeli and probably the Russian, French, German, and British governments likely know more about the actual state of Iranian program than even the wacko President of Iran. But, since we do not disclose how we know what we know, there is a lot of room for different governments to spin the opacity.
Here the opacity will be spun for more parochial domestic political effect. In any case, ...
A "nuclear establishment" includes a lot of scientific, engineering, industrial, and other componets. Moreover, any country with such an establishment is going to keep it going, even if this or that program starts. We have and only need a pretty tiny nuclear establishment today to either maintain or upgrade our arsenal. But, have we reduced our nuclear establishment at all?
No, we "make work" for both LASL and LRL, the "Democratic" and "Republican" duplicate laboratory and pork-barrel establishments.
- JRBehrman
December 9, 2007 at 10:08pm
Yes, RP, it's so far unclear to me why I should believe this NIE that they've stopped (although not stopped enrichment efforts), as opposed to believing the 2005 NIE, same topic that insisted they were working away at weaponization.
My vote is a combo of CIA analytic butt-covering, with a splash of anti-Bush politics thrown in. What's especially precious is the reaction of people who, since the Iraq WMD NIE, have called the IC a bunch of idiot clowns, while today it turns out that the IC is wise, very wise. Who knew?
- butchie b
December 10, 2007 at 2:48pm