The December report by the U.S.’s top spy office stating Iran had abandoned its effort to build nuclear weapons was one of the biggest U-turns in the recent history of U.S. intelligence. Behind the scenes in Washington, it marked a reversal of a different sort… The authors of the Iran report — career officials in the intelligence and diplomatic corps — are among the same people who were on the losing side of the Iraq and Iran debates during the first Bush term. In 2002, some argued that Iraq didn’t have an active nuclear-weapons program. They were sidelined by the more-hawkish foreign-policy strategists on the Bush team.
Now, the more-cautious intelligence camp is grabbing the reins. … In the case of the Iran report, the about-face was made possible in part by a 2004 restructuring that gave intelligence chiefs more autonomy. New procedures for vetting and authenticating reports also helped insulate analysts from White House involvement. …
Few publicly question the underlying intelligence behind the report. But a number of critics are challenging the analysts’ conclusions. Some counterproliferation experts and diplomats see Iran’s efforts to develop a nuclear-fuel cycle as a more important assessment than the revelation that Tehran stopped seeking to develop actual weapons. They say once the fuel cycle is accomplished, weapons can be developed in a matter of months. Access the full article>>