Commentary
Just how far is Iran from the
bomb? The short and honest answer is: No one knows. Not the United
States, despite an intelligence community that swallows up $40
billion a year in taxpayer money. Not the Israelis, who fear they
will be on the receiving end. And least of all, the International
Atomic Energy Agency, which is only allowed to see those facilities
in Iran that the Iranian government chooses to let it see, and has no
mandate to investigative weapons programs.
The uncertainties and gray areas are
so many that virtually any answer about Iranian nuclear weapons
development has supporters within the U.S. intelligence community.
Therein lies a grave danger to our national security.
A recently completed National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, leaked to a reporter hostile to
the administration before its key policy-makers saw it Tuesday,
appears to take issue with statements by President Bush and other
administration officials who have warned of a coming nuclear showdown
with Iran.
The published account of the NIE is
headlined "Iran is judged 10 years from nuclear bomb" and suggests
the intelligence community is backing off earlier, much nearer-term
estimates. But the NIE doesn't say that, according to a senior
intelligence official and others familiar with the highly classified
report.
The NIE judged Iran will not be able
to produce enough fissile material to make a weapon before "early to
mid-next decade," these sources said. "That's virtually identical to
earlier timelines" of Iran's nuclear weapons development, they
added.
The vagueness of that answer,
however, reveals how little insight the U.S. intelligence community
has into the inner workings of Iran's Islamic regime. It also shows
how skittish the intelligence community has become in the wake of
errors made in pre-war intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs.
Rather than look at Iranian
capabilities and warn policymakers of their potential security risks
to the United States, there seems to be an emphasis now on finding
"creative" explanations why those capabilities might be entirely
innocent. That is a deadly approach to national security.
¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý¬ÝThe president
and top policymakers need to know worst-case and best-case scenarios.
The president's job, after all, is to defend our nation from grave
potential risks. There can be no room for sugarcoating the threat
from Iran. But according to officials familiar with the hand-wringing
that went into this latest NIE, the product has just turned into
mush.
Iranian officials have never hedged
their own intentions. In 1995, Iran's top arms control official
stunned a panel of international nuclear weapons experts at a
conference in Castiglioncello, Italy. "While I do not believe Iran is
actively seeking nuclear weapons, at the same time Iran is not going
to renounce that option," the official said. His government was
"keeping its nuclear options open."
One clear sign of Iran's nuclear
intentions was mentioned in this latest NIE, though downplayed in
press reporting. This was new intelligence, including technical
drawings, from an Iranian missile technician who defected to a
Western intelligence agency.
The drawings provided by the defector
detailed a new design for the re-entry vehicle of the Shahab-3
missile that would allow it to accommodate a nuclear warhead.
"Clearly, if Iran is reconfiguring the Shahab-3 to carry a nuclear
bomb, that assumes that they already have a bomb design," said an
administration official familiar with the intelligence. But the
National Intelligence Council refused to draw that conclusion.
For nearly 20 years, Iran has worked
hand-in-glove with infamous Pakistan nuclear impresario A.Q. Khan,
who became an adviser to Iran's Atomic Energy Organization in 1987.
If the Iranians used the equipment the IAEA now knows they bought
from the Khan network, today they could have enough fissile material
to produce between 20 and 25 nuclear weapons.
The Iranians claim they spent huge
sums to purchase this equipment on the black market, just to keep it
in crates in a warehouse. Both the IAEA and the National Intelligence
Council apparently buy into that Persian fairy tale.
Tuesday, Iran broke the seals on its
uranium processing plant and announced it would resume enrichment
work, violating its own pledge to the IAEA. Even the French have seen
the light and threaten to take Iran to the U.N. Security Council.
The only good news is that we now
have a United Nations representative who has seen through these
Persian fairy tales. Ambassador John R. Bolton arrived in New York as
the nuclear showdown with Iran begins in earnest.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20050804-083245-9861r.htm
Kenneth R. Timmerman is president
of the Middle East Data Project Inc. and author of "Countdown to
Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran" (Crown Forum).