U.S. intelligence: Iran is not working on a bomb; but W says they're still a threat

[antechinus]

@lowbrass

But shouldn’t the burden of proof here be on those who claim that Iran is building a bomb? So if they’re “moderately” sure the program has not re-started, should it not then require very solid proof indeed to make the claim that they are building a bomb? I think in this case, the burden of proof for a positive claim ought to be much higher than that for a negative claim, since a potential war hangs in the balance.

Wow, déjà vu.

You mean rely on evidence? Some people, eg bush and finnagain, BELIEVE Iran poses a threat to the USA. To them evidence just muddies the waters.

Your right lowbrass. A level of confidence is placed on any evidence obtained - just like everything else, there are only levels of certainty. There must be a very high level of confidence before military action is taken. Keep looking until you find that “green rock in the locked box”, but make sure it isn’t really lichen covered basalt.

**Stranger **- has your idea about the poisoning the fuel with a neutron-absorbing element been more widely discussed? Is that something the international negotiators have considered? Sounds like a great idea to me, though IANANP.

[FinnAgain]

@antechinus

You mean rely on evidence? Some people, eg bush and finnagain, BELIEVE Iran poses a threat to the USA. To them evidence just muddies the waters.

Funny, being that my position is based on evidence (eg. Iran’s actions and continued sponshorship for groups like Hezbollah) and your position is based on blind faith (eg. you believe that Iran is no threat to America, so it aint.)

The hypocrisy is rather amazing, yes? Especially since I already cited some of that very evidence, right here just a few posts ago, but your faith that Iran is no threat to us would just be ‘muddied’ by the evidence?

@antechinus

Your right lowbrass. A level of confidence is placed on any evidence obtained - just like everything else, there are only levels of certainty. There must be a very high level of confidence before military action is taken. Keep looking until you find that “green rock in the locked box”, but make sure it isn’t really lichen covered basalt.

Luckily I haven’t suggested military action, now have I?

@antechinus

**Stranger **- has your idea about the poisoning the fuel with a neutron-absorbing element been more widely discussed? Is that something the international negotiators have considered? Sounds like a great idea to me, though IANANP.

Iran has refused offers for having its power supplied to it if it means that it has to drop its internal nuclear enrichment program. Come on, is it really that hard to read up on the issue before posting on it?

@lowbrass

I think you’re splitting hairs. In the vernacular, I would say those two sentences mean the same thing.

The NIE went to great lengths to point out that they were using specialized terminology, deliberately, and that it wasn’t vernacular.

@lowbrass

But shouldn’t the burden of proof here be on those who claim that Iran is building a bomb

No. The burden of proof is one those who make any definitive claims. Either “Iran is working on a bomb” or “Iran is not working on a bomb.” All the intelligence experts can tell us is that it is moderately probable that Iran is not working on a bomb, but that Iran has actively resisted full disclosure. Full stop.

@lowbrass

So if they’re “moderately” sure the program has not re-started, should it not then require very solid proof indeed to make the claim that they are building a bomb?

Have I claimed any such thing? Or have I stated, correctly, that those who deliberately ignore the NIE’s own caveats in order to pretend that the NIE has said, simply and without caveat, that Iran is not building a bomb are deliberately abusing the NIE report for their own ends?

@lowbrass

I think in this case, the burden of proof for a positive claim ought to be much higher than that for a negative claim, since a potential war hangs in the balance.

Yes, if politics are more important than truth. (There is also virtually no chance that the US could launch a war, we simply don’t have the troops for it anyway).

The fact of the matter, the cold hard undeniable fact, is that the intelligence experts from the IAEA to the NIE have all taken great pains to point out, specifically and deliberately, that they cannot certify Iran’s intentions and actions largely because Iran has been hiding details of its program. To ignore that and claim that they have certified Iran’s peaceful intentions and actions, because one opposes war, is as dishonest and to claim that they have certified Iran’s warlike intentions and actions because one supports war.

Both positions are deliberately and wilfully ignorant.
Both positions are deliberatel, agenda-driven dishonesty.
Both should have the opposition of Dopers whose first loyalty is to the truth and to fighting ignorance, rather than partisan politics.
That is still the board’s missions, fight ignorance, seek truth? Right?

Is it really that hard to treat the data honestly? Or has hysteria over a war that the US can’t even launch anyway caused people to say “to hell with the truth, we have to stop a war!”

[FinnAgain]

I mean, not to beat a dead horse into glue here, but… is it really “splitting hairs” when the NIE takes an entire page, a full 1/8 of the whole PDF, to clarify terminology and what they mean when they say certain things? Is ignoring their deliberate attempt at clarification and treating their clarified, specific statements as unclarified vernacular statements an accurate way to read them?

If the NIE spends an entire page, an entire 1/8 of a document making it quite clear that ‘moderate certainty’ means that something is “plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence”, is it accurate to then start treating it as if it the NIE didn’t say it was plausible, but true with a high degree of confidence?

Don’t you think that the NIE itself knew what it was writing, and why, and when they took such deliberate effort to point out that ‘moderate certainty’ was only something that was ‘plausible’, that they were definitely and deliberately putting a very fine point on their statement so that it wouldn’t simply be spun as if it was common vernacular? How is it ‘splitting hairs’ to point out that the NIE took specific and deliberate steps to avoid having a statement that it was plausible that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program, spun into ‘Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program?’

Do you contend that the NIE deliberately drew the distinction for no purpose? That they designated certain findings as moderately certain rather than highly certain by accident? That the designation any assessment received wasn’t essential to considering whether or not it was a firm statement that something was the case, or a qualified statement with caveats that a certain interpretation was plausible?

If it really is just splitting hairs and the NIE meant what many posters in this thread claim they meant, why did they deliberately and methodically explain that wasn’t what they were saying?

@lowbrass

I do not think “Iran is not working on a bomb” is at all an inaccurate paraphrasing of the intelligence assessment.

Except that would represent a statement made with high confidence and this was one made with only moderate confidence, one in which the NIE specifically said that it was “plausible” but not as certain as a blanket “they suspended their weaponization program” would be.

The point is that there is no need to paraphrase the NIE statement, as they defined all their terms clearly. They made a moderately certain assessment that Iran suspended all of its nuclear weapons programs. According to them, a moderate assessment is only plausible, but that since it was not a high certainty assessment, then it was not “possible to render a solid judgment” because a moderately certain assessment is “not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence”. Saying ‘Iran stopped all its weaponization programs’ is obviously a “solid judgment”. One that the NIE clearly and deliberately said it was not making. So saying that the NIE had made such a “solid judgment” is at best ignorant, and at worst dishonest, deceptive, and wilfully ignorant.

It’s all there, all terms defined, all clearly laid out by the NIE.
They clearly stated that their conclusion was not a high confidence assessment. Thus, ‘paraphrasing’ it to leave out all the ‘cautions and assessments of probabilities, all the competing interpretations, and presenting the resulting cherrypick as unanimously-agreed facts’ is a clear distortion of the specified terminology that the NIE made perfectly clear it was using. Isn’t it somewhat disturbing that ignoring cautions, probability, caveats, etc… is bad if Bush does it, but good if anti-Bush folks do it? Isn’t it ironic that those who place partisan politics above integrity will bemoan the OSP doing something, and then turn around and engage in the exact same methodology? Doesn’t it show that their real objection wasn’t to what Bush did, but that it was that Bush was successfully using such tactics instead of them? Isn’t a double standard like that the lowest point of partisan politics, and certainly not in the service of fighting ignorance?

Why ignore what the NIE actually said, the distinctions they drew, the definitions they explicitly used, in order to inaccurately paraphrase something as if a specific intelligence report was simple vernacular English? Is treating a specific and clearly defined set of terms used in an intelligence assessment as if they were vernacular English an act of elucidation, or obfuscation?

Isn’t the mission statement of this board to fight ignorance, not spread it if it supports a political position?

[BrainGlutton]

@flickster

How much real faith can any of us put into a US Intelligence Agency Report after the number of years they beat the drum about WMD in Iraq (including pre-Bush)?

Even they can learn from their mistakes.

The starkly different view of Iran’s nuclear program that emerged from U.S. spy agencies this week was the product of a surge in clandestine intelligence-gathering in Iran as well as radical changes in the way the intelligence community analyzes information.

Drawing lessons from the intelligence debacle over supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell required agencies to consult more sources and to say to a larger intelligence community audience precisely what they know and how they know it – and to acknowledge, to a degree previously unheard of, what they do not know.

[PatriotX]

@FinnAgain

Again it’s binary, and again you show that honesty isn’t high up on your list of priorities.
Yet again, it’s binary.

Quite a set of histrionics in your post there.
That means a lot coming from me. I’ve seen plenty.

But I thought I should comment on your conclusions re “it’s binary.” If there’s anything I learned in the War Debate is that this binary-ism you promote doesn’t exist. Otherwise it would be “binary” that the Bush Admin lied. Yet, as I now know, there’re quite a number of shades of statements and intentions that preclude even deliberate misrepresentations from the category of lies.

And, that said I should also note that saying that someone concluded X when they said they had moderate confidence in their conclusion of X is just as honest (if not seemingly more so) than saying that they did NOT conclude X merely because they said that they had moderate confidence.

All IMVHO

OYMMV

[BrainGlutton]

Relevant article.

A successful policy on Iran must begin by reassessing some basic assumptions:

<snip>

3. *Iran is inherently anti-American. *

Not quite. To Iran anti-Americanism is a means, not an end. Iran believes that its size and power position it to play a major role in regional affairs. This aspiration, however, clashes with America’s aim of isolating and containing Iran. As long as public opinion in the Middle East remains largely critical of the United States, and as long as Washington continues to seek a regional order based on excluding Iran, Iran will likely play on anti-Americanism to make Washington’s policy of exclusion as costly as possible and to rally existing anti-American sentiment around Iranian objectives. But if the strategic environment in the region changes–with a different relationship between Tehran and Washington as a result–the utility of anti-Americanism will fade away.

4. *Enrichment equals a nuclear bomb. *

Not necessarily. The current nuclear impasse is partly rooted in the questionable assumption that zero enrichment is the only route to avoid an Iranian bomb. While the optimal situation is one in which Iran does not enrich, this goal is no longer possible. But that does not mean that a small-scale Iranian enrichment program is tantamount to a nuclear bomb. According to nuclear experts like Bruno Pellaud, former deputy director general and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Department of Safeguards, intrusive inspections is the best tool to ensure that Iran doesn’t divert its civilian program into a military one. Yet these inspections can only take place as part of a package deal with Iran that includes some level of enrichment. This makes reassessment of the zero-enrichment objective all the more important.

5. *Iran seeks Israel’s destruction. *

False. As I explain in my book Treacherous Alliance, the Iranian clergy have strong ideological antipathy toward Israel, but ideology is not the primary driving force of Iranian foreign policy. The major shifts in Israeli-Iranian relations, from pragmatic entente in the 1960s and '70s to strategic rivalry in the 1990s, have occurred because of changing strategic–not ideological–realities. Whenever Iran’s ideological and strategic imperatives have clashed–as was the case in the 1980s, when the common threat from the Soviet Union and Iraq prompted Iran and Israel to pursue clandestine cooperation–realpolitik has prevailed. Today, Iran’s ideological and strategic imperatives largely coincide. Israel is seen as a strategic and an ideological threat, and as a result Tehran has actively confronted Israel. But Iran does not seek Israel’s destruction, nor does its attitude toward Israel lack pragmatism. In 2002 Iran signaled that it was prepared to adopt a “Malaysian profile” on Israel in return for an end to Israeli and American efforts to isolate Tehran. Iran would, much like Malaysia, be an Islamic state that would not recognize Israel and would occasionally criticize it but would not directly confront the Jewish state. Iran and Israel would simply recognize each other’s spheres of influence and stay out of each other’s hair. The message was communicated to Israel through various channels, including a presentation by a senior Iranian military figure at a conference in Europe attended by several Israelis. Ze’ev Schiff, the late military affairs editor of Ha’aretz, told me that the consistency of Tehran’s message “made it more clear that this was a policy” and not just empty talk. Though Iran has a new and more radical president today, it is still ruled by the same Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the concept of a “Malaysian profile” still enjoys support in the Iranian National Security Council–President Ahmadinejad’s venomous rhetoric notwithstanding.

[PatriotX]

@John Mace

At any rate, I think we need to step back from this a minute and look at this new info for what it is-- an Intelligence Estimate.

AFAICT, it is an estimate. Yet, it is the best estimate available. If you know of some more reliable source, please share it it with us and the rest of the World.

As the best estimate available, it seems that it is the info we should be using to make our decisions. Unless there’s some compelling reason why we should use something other than the best info available at the time. If there is, please present it.

[marshmallow]

Why are we hemming and hawing and wringing our hands over whether Iran may or may not have a nuclear weapons program? Since when does the U.S. government need to sell mechanized violence to the public as a solution to a problem which may or may not offend all senses of civility? What happened to the good old days? “Hello, this is the POTUS. Today’s bombing is endorsed by Merrill Lynch.”

For god’s sake, we’re being slapped around by the likes of Iran and Venezuela. Venezuela, people! Their currency is the Bolívar. How sad is that? By this time next year Liechtenstein will be busting our chops. What have we become? We need strong leadership moving forward. This is why I am so happy to see that the next person to come off the bench will either be Mrs. Clinton or Giuliani.

Just find a reason and stick with it, OK? Stop being wishy washy, Bush 43. Terrorism, nukes, whatever. Go with it.

@Little Nemo

All he needs to do is stage some pushy military exercises along the Iraqi-Iranian frontier and eventually Ahmadinejad (who isn’t the most restrained world leader around) is going to snap at the bait and launch an attack of his own.

…

All Bush has to do is trick Ahmadinejad into striking the first blow and he’s got his war.

Whoops! You are slightly confused. You’ve mistaken Ahmadinejad (the President of Iran) for this fellow. It should be difficult to do, considering one is a strapping middle aged tanned man who wears suits and wants to convert baby Jew brains into jello and the other is a surprisingly white old man who is dressed to the nines in the fashionable religious cloaks and turbans and tends to be slightly more reserved and, you know, controls the military and the state media and the courts and anything that matters in Iran. But don’t worry. It’s a common ailment which afflicts many. Are you a reporter for a major news outlet or member of the U.S. government who talks to the public, by chance?

[Squink]

@PatriotX

As the best estimate available, it seems that it is the info we should be using to make our decisions.

Yup. The US lost a lot of credibility yesterday because our leaders couldn’t give up the habit of presenting their worst fears as ‘factual truths’.
That behavior has really damaged the world’s ability to deal with Iran’s nuclear programs. Those programs need to be kept under scrutiny, and kept from moving in dangerous directions, but no one can really do that when the biggest kid on the block allows its paranoia full reign, and insists that others share it.

[FinnAgain]

@PatriotX

But I thought I should comment on your conclusions re “it’s binary.” If there’s anything I learned in the War Debate is that this binary-ism you promote doesn’t exist. Otherwise it would be “binary” that the Bush Admin lied.

It is. They had to stovepipe intel and Bush knew that it wasn’t “certain” even while he was claiming that it was. Surely you remember years and years of debate on this very message board where the same people who are now arguing for false-to-facts certainty then argued that Bush doing the same thing was a lie and/or grounds for impeaching him? Something tells me that with a few minutes of searching I could find some posters in this thread who are displaying the same exact behavior, while castigating Bush for acting as they’re acting. Heck, Elvis takes exception to ignoring probabilities, caveats, competing interpretations and cherrypicking intel, except when he does it. I don’t think I’d have to look all that hard to find a few other hypocrites. Do you?

@PatriotX

Yet, as I now know, there’re quite a number of shades of statements and intentions that preclude even deliberate misrepresentations from the category of lies.

No matter how many layers you peel into an onion, it’s still an onion. Pretending that something which is not certain is certain is a lie, no matter how you peel it. Either that or someone truly is unaware that something isn’t certain while they represent it as being such.

In that respect it is binary.

@PatriotX

And, that said I should also note that saying that someone concluded X when they said they had moderate confidence in their conclusion of X is just as honest (if not seemingly more so) than saying that they did NOT conclude X merely because they said that they had moderate confidence.

No, it isn’t. If they didn’t conclude X, then they didn’t conclude X. That’s just a fact. Claiming that they did is dishonest. Stating that they did not is a fact. Especially if we’re talking about the NIE report where the difference is betwen reaching a strong conclusion “Iran’s nuclear weapons program has stopped” and reaching a moderately certain conclusion “It is plausible that Iran’s nuclear weapons program stopped but the intel is not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.”

Pretending that the latter is the former is not more honest than accurately stating that the former is the former and the latter is the latter, and they’re fundamentally different statements.

Pretending that the NIE “concluded X” when they specifically and deliberately took pains to point out that they were not concluding X cannot possibly be honest, as it is a lie. How can a lie be honest? Unless, of course, someone was simply ignorant of what the NIE spent an entire 1/8 of their report clearing up. But after it’s been linked to, cited and quoted… how likely is that?

How do you see “the NIE said that Iran’s nuclear weapons program stopped” (which the NIE itself went to great lengths to point out that it was not saying) as not only something other than dishonest, but actually more honest than “the NIE said that it was plausible that Iran’s nuclear program stopped but they said they could not come to any definite conclusions, so their conclusion was not definite?” (which they went to great lengths to say that they were saying?)

Honestly, how is there any possible confusion? Did the NIE or did they not say as a definite statement and or one with high certainty that all of Iran’s nuclear weapons programs stopped? If they did not, how is it not a lie to say that they said any such thing?

Did the NIE or did they not say, as a moderately certain statement, that it was plausible that Iran’s nuclear weapons programs stopped but that their intel was not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence? If they did, how is it not a lie to claim that they said something else?

[vibrotronica]

@FinnAgain

You seem to be making of habit of this type of worthless post. And last time simply left rather than backing up your absurdity. Or retracting it.

Can you quote, anywhere, even a single word, where I say that we should kill anybody, at all? No? Are you just parroting the absurd talking point that anybody who doesn’t buy into the lies about how we are certain that Iran has no weapons program must, then, be an evil warmonger?

Can you honestly not cope with the fact that we aren’t sure and most likely can’t be sure as long as Iran continues to block the IAEA’s investigations? Are facts that difficult to swallow? Luc doesn’t feel that he needs to be ashamed of constantly lying to support his political position. Do you, too, believe that telling the truth about Iran’s nuclear program is somehow a bad thing?

Are loaded rhetorical questions the only thing that can save us now?

But while we’re talking about posting history, yes, I think you’re a warmonger and I think you’re heartbroken that this intelligence estimate makes it less likely that the US will go to war with Iran. I think your entire embarrassing performance in this thread is a last-ditch effort to prop up a failed ideology.

And when did you say you wanted to kill people? When you advocated bombing Iran. in case you were not aware, bombing kills people. You need to honestly cope with the fact that the world is not a video game. You need to honestly cope with the fact that the President and Vice President were trying to lie their way into yet another war, and that this release sets the record straight. You need to honestly cope with the fact that you have believed the lies of liars. You need to honestly cope with the fact that there is no imminent threat from Iranian nukes. You need to honestly cope with the fact that aggressive war is morally wrong.

[John_Mace]

@PatriotX

AFAICT, it is an estimate. Yet, it is the best estimate available.

Is it? How do you know that?

[elucidator]

Not quite a fair question, John, since you were invited to bring an alternative estimate for consideration. If there is only one, then it is, by definition, the “best” available estimate. It is also, of course, the “worst”, by the same token. That’s binary.

And BG, next time leave some wiggle room in your thread title. Words like “probable”, “likely”, that sort of thing. It will, we are hopeful, avoid the noisesome spectacle of a poster rolling around on the floor, screaming and tearing his hair.

Just a suggestion, mind you, its only moderately plausible.

[John_Mace]

@elucidator

Not quite a fair question, John, since you were invited to bring an alternative estimate for consideration.

Well, I don’t really know what point he was trying to make, so I asked a simple question. The fact that he “invited” me to bring another estimate is meaningless in the face of his assertion-- which I’m not obliged to disprove.

Even if it is the best estimate we have, just how good is it? I don’t think any of us knows that. And that’s all I’m trying to say.

[FinnAgain]

@vibrotronica

But while we’re talking about posting history, yes, I think you’re a warmonger and I think you’re heartbroken that this intelligence estimate makes it less likely that the US will go to war with Iran.

Sure, if you’re going to make shit up, why not go all out? How about, I’m not only a warmonger, I’m an evil satanic warmonger who wants to drink baby’s blood?

But if you contend that you’re not just shoveling bullshit, find a single post of mine that says we should go to war with Iran. Just one.
One.
Can’t, can you?
Funny, that.

Do you find it at all interesting that you have to prop up your weak argument by making shit up about me? Doesn’t that intrigue you? Isn’t is simply fascinating that those who hold your position seemed compelled to do things like lie about what the NIE says, and that y’all actually seem to believe that not lying, or someone telling the truth, leads to war?

@vibrotronica

I think your entire embarrassing performance in this thread is a last-ditch effort to prop up a failed ideology.

The failed ideology that… lying is bad?
I will admit, with you and your fellow travelers, that ideology has indeed failed, and yes, one of us should be pretty embarrassed.

You think I should be, for pointing out that the NIE specifically and explicitly stated that a moderately certain finding was only plausible and that it didn’t have enough support for stronger certainty. You also pretend that even though I’ve never said that we should go to war with Iran and have, in fact, said that we should merely maintain a defensive stance, that I really want war. If you think I should be embarrassed because you’re slinging patently obvious lies at me that you cannot possibly back up, because you’re simply making shit up, that certainly says much more about you than me.

@vibrotronica

And when did you say you wanted to kill people? When you advocated bombing Iran. in case you were not aware, bombing kills people.

Mmm hmmm. Which would be a slam dunk for you, if you weren’t lying through your teeth.

Quote me, anywhere, advocating bombing Iran?
Can’t, can you?
Lying, aren’t you?

Go figure.

@vibrotronica

You need to honestly cope with the fact that the President and Vice President were trying to lie their way into yet another war, and that this release sets the record straight.

As it is functionally impossible and we don’t have the troops to launch another war, never mind the fact that our military isn’t making preparations to attack Iran, I don’t think I have to “honestly” “cope” with the fact that you have a very active imagination.

@vibrotronica

You need to honestly cope with the fact that you have believed the lies of liars.

Something tells me that I can’t exactly trust you to accurately represent my position.
What lies, exactly, did I believe?
And doesn’t the irony just smack you in the face that you have lied several times in this one post, and you are trying to take me to task for believing lies? Especially when you have to make shit up in order to claim that I’ve believed “the lies of liars?”

@vibrotronica

You need to honestly cope with the fact that there is no imminent threat from Iranian nukes.

You need to honestly quote me saying, anywhere, that there is.
Or admit that you’re just flinging some more bullshit.

@vibrotronica

You need to honestly cope with the fact that aggressive war is morally wrong.

Same as above. You need to honestly deal with your compulsion to lie. You need to find, somehow, an imaginary quote of mine that doesn’t actually exist, where I have “advocated bombing Iran” (you will have a hard time linking to a post that exists only in your imagination, but knock yourself out).
You need to be honest enough to admit you lied through your teeth, and introspective enough to analyze why you felt the need to lie in such a manner.

I shouldn’t hold my breath, should I?

[elucidator]

@FinnAgain

…I shouldn’t hold my breath, should I?

Dare we hope?

[you_with_the_face]

Hand wringing and phrase parsing aside, can we all agree that the take home message of this news is that:

• We have little or no evidence that Iran is working on a nuclear bomb.

• Based on this info, the claim that Iran poses a threat to the US is not sufficiently supported to be considered factual, contrary to what the admin and others has been telling us.

• All of this is eireely reminescent of the months leading up to our foray into Bagdad, which happened four years and several thousand lives ago.

• You can not prove a negative. Yeah, so the NIE report doesn’t conclusively say that Iran is NOT working on a bomb. Pointing this out over and over again only makes for a great display of foolishness, nothing more.

Not knowing what there is to argue about, frankly. Seems real obvious to me that shenanigans are going on, and I’m having de ja vu like a mofo.

[Ravenman]

@FinnAgain

How is it ‘splitting hairs’ to point out that the NIE took specific and deliberate steps to avoid having a statement that it was plausible that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program, spun into ‘Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program?’ [jump to subsequent post] Especially if we’re talking about the NIE report where the difference is betwen reaching a strong conclusion “Iran’s nuclear weapons program has stopped” and reaching a moderately certain conclusion “It is plausible that Iran’s nuclear weapons program stopped but the intel is not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.”

I find it interesting to note that amid all your parsing of language, you’re starting to lose sight of what the NIE actually said.

It doesn’t say that our intelligence agencies have moderate confidence that Iran’s program has stopped. It says “Judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program. Judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (DOE and the NIC have moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.) Assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

Reading your most recent posts, one would think that there was a consensus in the IC that there was only moderate confidence that there was any stop in the program at all, when it is two agencies that do not go so far as to have high confidence in that particular judgment. The fact is that the NIE reports a consensus judgment with high confidence that there was a stop in the program, and there are two dissenting agencies who have moderate confidence in that judgment. If you’re going to nitpick people’s language to death, at least you ought to be accurate in how you phrase things yourself and stop implying that the judgment of those two agencies is reflective of the whole NIE.

I don’t disagree with your basic point – that the judgments of the NIE are opinions, not fact, and opinions of varying degrees of confidence for that matter. But you’re going to such extraordinary lengths to make that point that unless you’ve suddenly become a pedant on the nature of truth, you certainly have a larger, perhaps substantive point that you’re simply not talking about yet. So just spit it out, already.

[you_with_the_face]

@FinnAgain

If the NIE spends an entire page, an entire 1/8 of a document making it quite clear that ‘moderate certainty’ means that something is “plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence”, is it accurate to then start treating it as if it the NIE didn’t say it was plausible, but true with a high degree of confidence?

No one here has said it’s implausible, so that’s a strawman. Feel free to quibble with the precision in the OP’s title all you want, but let us not lose sight of the main matter at hand.

We don’t have a strong reason to believe that Iran is working on a bomb. They could be, but then so could my grandma in Gary, Indiana. For some reason, in the absence of evidence, we have been led to believe that Iran is blossoming into a dangerous threat to the US. Much fuss has been made over potential bombs and such. Potential bombs that are not in evidence.

If you can not see the parallels to Iraq by now, then something might be wrong with your eyes.

[squeegee]

@Sevastopol

Thank you. Do you have an insight on his stance towards Iran?

Neocon ‘godfather’ Norman Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran