Norman Podhoretz is p*ssed about the recently released NIE showing Iran isn't developing a bomb! Not only does he assert the NIE is the result of some shady anti-Bush intelligence effort (as predicted), calls into question the ability of the intelligence agencies who created the assessment:
I must confess to suspecting that the intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view (including as is evident from the 2005 NIE, within the intelligence community itself) that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons. I also suspect that, having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal.
A couple of things to remember:
--If the accusations that the intelligence agencies were actively trying to thwart a Bush-led attack on Iran were true, that's a good thing. Given the president's history on Iraq, his administration's deceptiveness, his complete bungling of the war, and his apparent and complete ignorance of Middle East politics, culture, and history, giving him the green light on Iran would be a bad thing.
--There was no one more wrong about Middle East policy and intelligence than Podhoretz and his neocon pals.
You're going to see a whole lot of questioning of the NIE from the cheerleaders for war with Iran. It's easy to see why: whatever tatters of their credibility that remains after Iraq is at stake. Me? I don't think we should go to war to save Podhoretz' ego.
