You Can Always Bank on the CIA Being Dead Wrong

Here we go again:

A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.

The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House. Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered proof, that Tehran is moving determinedly toward a nuclear arsenal. The new estimate could provide more time for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. President Bush has said that he wants the crisis resolved diplomatically but that "all options are on the table."

The new National Intelligence Estimate includes what the intelligence community views as credible indicators that Iran's military is conducting clandestine work. But the sources said there is no information linking those projects directly to a nuclear weapons program. What is clear is that Iran, mostly through its energy program, is acquiring and mastering technologies that could be diverted to bombmaking.

The estimate expresses uncertainty about whether Iran's ruling clerics have made a decision to build a nuclear arsenal, three U.S. sources said. Still, a senior intelligence official familiar with the findings said that "it is the judgment of the intelligence community that, left to its own devices, Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons."

At no time in the past three years has the White House attributed its assertions about Iran to U.S. intelligence, as it did about Iraq in the run-up to the March 2003 invasion. Instead, it has pointed to years of Iranian concealment and questioned why a country with as much oil as Iran would require a large-scale nuclear energy program.

Oh, those impertinent facts always getting in the WashPo's way!

That's the rub, isn't it---the mullahs' silly claims to want nuclear capability for purely peaceful applications is undercut a bit by the fact that they get oil and natural gas for close to free, isn't it?

If these nuclear reactors are for peaceful application, why are they putting the facilities deep, deep underground? Isn't that a bit inconvenient? And expensive?

It is also more than a little stupid to claim we know when the mullahs will get a core component they need, especially given the Russian and Pakistani bent toward selling nuclear components to the highest bidder.

That's our intelligence community for you---always willing to share their wisdom widely, provided it hurts America to do so.

We need to gut Langley now. What's Negroponte doing?

Update:

Michael Ledeen, a man far, far more knowledgeable on this topic (and many others) than me, agrees.