Given old boy Karl's departure from the White House, it appears Mr. Bolton has been assigned the job of chief fecal creator.
First allow me to quote Mr. Bolton from his Thursday's Washington Post written opinion piece concerning the U.S. State Department Lackeys:
Fifth, many involved in drafting and approving the NIE were not intelligence professionals but refugees from the State Department, brought into the new central bureaucracy of the director of national intelligence. These officials had relatively benign views of Iran's nuclear intentions five and six years ago; now they are writing those views as if they were received wisdom from on high. In fact, these are precisely the policy biases they had before, recycled as "intelligence judgments."
That such a flawed product could emerge after a drawn-out bureaucratic struggle is extremely troubling. While the president and others argue that we need to maintain pressure on Iran, this "intelligence" torpedo has all but sunk those efforts, inadequate as they were. Ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions in an essentially unmolested fashion, to the detriment of us all.
LINK
Most interesting however, the NIE Report itself is quite informative concerning how it is assembled/created, by whom, and how vetted prior to its issuance.
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATES AND THE NIE PROCESS
National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are the Intelligence Community’s (IC) most authoritative written judgments on national security issues and designed to help US civilian and military leaders develop policies to protect US national security interests.
NIEs usually provide information on the current state of play but are primarily "estimative"—that is, they make judgments about the likely course of future events and identify the implications for US policy.
The NIEs are typically requested by senior civilian and military policymakers, Congressional leaders and at times are initiated by the National Intelligence Council(NIC). Before a NIE is drafted, the relevant NIO is responsible for producing a concept paper or terms of reference (TOR) and circulates it throughout the Intelligence Community for comment. The TOR defines the key estimative questions, determines drafting responsibilities, and sets the drafting and publication schedule. One or more IC analysts are usually assigned to produce the initial text. The NIC then meets to critique the draft before it is circulated to the broader IC. Representatives from the relevant IC agencies meet to hone and coordinate line-by-line the full text of the NIE. Working with their Agencies, reps also assign the level of confidence they have in each key judgment.
IC reps discuss the quality of sources with collectors, and the National Clandestine Service vets the sources used to ensure the draft does not include any that have been recalled or otherwise seriously questioned. All NIEs are reviewed by National Intelligence Board, which is chaired by the DNI and is composed of the heads of relevant IC agencies. Once approved by the NIB, NIEs are briefed to the President and senior policymakers. The whole process of producing NIEs normally takes at least several months. The NIC has undertaken a number of steps to improve the NIE process under the DNI. These steps are in accordance with the goals and recommendations set out in the SSCI and WMD Commission reports and the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Prevention of Terrorism Act. Most notably, over the last year and a half, the IC has:
• Created new procedures to integrate formal reviews of source reporting and technical judgments. The Directors of the National Clandestine Service, NSA, NGA, and DIA and the Assistant Secretary/INR are now required to submit formal assessments that highlight the strengths, weaknesses, and overall credibility of their sources used in developing the critical judgments of the NIE.
• Applied more rigorous standards. A textbox is incorporated into all NIEs that explains what we mean by such terms as "we judge" and that clarifies the difference between judgments of likelihood and confidence levels. We have made a concerted effort to not only highlight differences among agencies but to explain the reasons for such differences and to prominently display them in the Key Judgments
NIE LINK
With respect to the professionalism and quality of the individuals and 16 spy agencies that are charged with compiling the report, I will allow you to do your own research to determine if the assembly of the NIE Report was done by unqualified agencies inexperienced in the matter of foreign intelligence.
National Intelligence Council
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATION INTELLIGENCE
SIXTEEN AMERICAN SPY AGENCIES charged with assembling and contributing to NIE Report.
The balance of Mr. Bolton's criticism rings similarly hollow:
First, the headline finding -- that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 -- is written in a way that guarantees the totality of the conclusions will be misread. In fact, there is little substantive difference between the conclusions of the 2005 NIE on Iran's nuclear capabilities and the 2007 NIE.
Mr. Bolton's criticism here disregards that the vast majority of the report, believed to be in excess of 150 pages, is classified, and I assume, contains the hard data, facts, confirming the conclusions referred to by Mr. Bolton. As to whether Mr. Bolton has seen the entire report, I am unsure, but interestingly, Mr. Bolton does not share this information with us.
Second, the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux.
Mr. Bolton's criticism concerning the NIE Report's alleged internal contradictions and that it is insufficiently supported assumes the only reason Iran would halt its nuclear research/ambitions is a result of American bravada/threat, i.e., yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux. The reality may well be there are a bevy of reasons why Iran may have abandoned its nuclear program/ambitions. It is also questionable whether the "why" is essential to a valid report conclusion. I suggest the primary issue/question concerns whether Iran has abandonned its nuclear ambitions, at least on a temporary basis.
Third, the risks of disinformation by Iran are real.
Again Mr. Bolton's suggestion here is nothing other than the spy agencies charged with assembling the NIE report have done so negligently and without regard of due diligence.
Fourth, the NIE suffers from a common problem in government: the overvaluation of the most recent piece of data.
Concerning this criticism, I hope someone will remind Mr. Bolton of just two words "Yellow Cake". He and w should well know that if indeed the spy agencies that assembled the NIE Report are guilty of this. Mr. Bolton should be reminded that the appointment of Mike McConnell, current Director of National Intelligence, was done so with the goal of preventing what Mr. Bolton suggests has occurred.
Mr. Bolton has prepared a right wing swift boat attack on career intelligent professionals. May America know better and refuse to drink this right wing neocon kool aid.