Iran Intell Report Released Because Analysts Ready to Go Public On their Own and Risk Jail-time

[JPZenger]

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2007/12/the-senate-and.html

The following is from the blog of retired military intelligence officer Colonel Patrick Lang:

"I am told that the reason the conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate were released is that it was communicated to the White House that "intelligence career seniors were LINED UP TO GO TO JAIL if necessary" if the document's gist were not given to the public. Translation? Someone in that group would have gone to the media "on the record" to disclose its contents.

It is no wonder that the American Enterprise Institute crowd and their congressional helpmates are running around with their hair on fire over this estimate. In sharp contrast to the ease with which the neocon Jacobins were able to control the content of the October 2002 NIE on Iraq, this time they failed utterly to use a national intelligence estimate as a propaganda tool."

----
My question: Who are the true patriots in that situation?? My namesake, newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger, was thrown in prison in the 1730s as he defended the right to criticize government officials.

-----
Similarly, the CIA's announced that they destroyed videotapes of US interogations that likely involved torture. Guess what - they only announced it after the New York Times called and said they were ready to print the story. Otherwise, it would still be a secret.

[99th_Monkey]

1. I never thought I'd see the day when I was rooting for the Joint Chiefs & the CIA

but I am now ... Centcom Commander says "not on my watch" re: attacking Iran, now scores of CIA lining up publicly to fall on swords to expose Bush/Cheney LIES ... this is a big deal.

indeed these are Chinese proverbial "interesting times" ... everything turned on its head, and inside out ..

This quiet .. and daily becoming less and less quiet ... virtual mutiny against the WH warmongers is indeed a HUGE historical
event, and may go down as the first of it's kind...

[alstephenson]

2. I figured as much...

Thanks for the post.

[rockybelt]

3. The closer we get

to election time, the more information is going to come out. The neocons are getting paranoid about what is going to come down and they are trying to save their own asses before it's too late. Thee number of documents starting to surface is increasing with every week.

Come on boys--save your asses and bring out the paperwork and tapes so we can all have a gander at 'em.

[Esra Star]

4. Paul McCartney wrote these words 40 years ago.

I think they fit.



The Fool On The Hill



Day after day,
Alone on the hill,
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still,
But nobody wants to know him,
They can see that he's just a fool,
And he never gives an answer,
But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning 'round.
...........

[Ghost Dog]

5. Note, from the WAPO piece linked from the link in the OP:

... Although administration officials say they are very comfortable with the intelligence that produced the new NIE, conservative commentators challenge its veracity. Norman Podhoretz, a commentator who has advocated air strikes on Iranian sites, said he does not think the NIE is "very credible because it is a 180-degree turn in two years based on new discoveries. I don't see any strong reason why in two years they won't reverse themselves."

Podhoretz especially faulted the estimate for guessing at Iranian intentions about a weapon while not significantly changing the estimate for when Tehran could acquire a weapon: "The summary strikes me as more of a political document as distinguished from an intelligence document." He said a review of the intelligence by a special commission is "a very good idea" because it is "entirely possible" that others would come to different conclusions.

Critics of the NIE have seized on the fact that career government officials who had battled with conservatives earlier in the administration on policy issues have now migrated to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which coordinated the writing of the estimate.

"The problem is not the nature of the intelligence, it's the nature of the presentation. This NIE was presented with a clear intention to deceive and to redirect foreign policy," wrote Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute, in an e-mail. "I have no doubt that these people believe they are protecting the nation from the President, but our constitution doesn't contemplate the non-proliferation center at the ODNI governing U.S. national security policy."

/... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120602457.html