Credibility

Taking into account the record of the Bush Administration over the past 4 years, I take little stock in any "official" news coming from its apparatus. This piece from CNN illustrates how desperately the executors of Bush's strategy, I use that term lightly, are to portray any type of progress in Iraq. Unfortunately this deliberate misrepresentation extends to not only Iraq, but also many domestic issues such as the Economy (tax cuts, employment). From the article:

"the U.S. military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders in the Baghdad area last month, the U.S. command said Monday...The decision to include only victims of drive-by shootings and those killed by torture and execution, usually at the hands of death squads, allowed U.S. officials to argue that a security crackdown that began in the capital August 7 had more than halved the city's murder rate."

From this deliberate omission of material facts (simply: lie) one can draw parallels to other follies from the American mission in Iraq. In conversations I have had regarding Donald Rumsfeld's execution of the invasion/occupation of Iraq I have heard persons defend Rumsfeld's plan because he was using the information provided to him by his military commanders. With all due respect to the Military, Commanders can be sucked into the political machine (military career or political aspiration) in order to tailor strategies and provide intelligence that meets the goals and aspirations of their political civilian bosses. It seems that either the military commanders that compiled the data were either desperately trying to impress the American people and their civilian bosses, or were "forced" to by their civilian leadership in order to convince the American people that this Administration can do something right ahead of the November elections. Either way it appears to echo what transpired with the intelligence community leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

Now the spin machine has set its sights on Iran. I believe that any nation has a right to civilian nuclear technology, I also believe that any nation has an inherent right to military nuclear technology. However, I take a realist perspective in this situation: while Iran has the right to pursue military nuclear technology, if it does so under a unreliable and aggressive regime, other nations should seek to eliminate that ability. Currently according to public intelligence estimates, Iran is at least 8 years away from possessing the technology to create a nuclear weapon. That time buffer allows the international community time to pursue solutions to this issue beyond military ones. If the capability were measured in months rather then years I would be advocating on these pages a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. However, what we have is the usual suspects banging the war drum while creating their own dubious intelligence estimates. This is dangerous because while it undermines the credibility of this administration, it limits the ability to bring our allies to the table when the situation will necessitate real action. At this point the Administration is somewhat like the "boy who cried wolf." This report from Reuters:

IAEA protests "erroneous" U.S. report on Iran
By Mark HeinrichThu Sep 14, 5:51 AM ET
Reuters

U.N. inspectors have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest," according to a letter obtained by Reuters.

The letter recalled clashes between the IAEA and the Bush administration before the 2003 Iraq war over findings cited by Washington about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that proved false, and underlined continued tensions over Iran's dossier.

Sent to the head of the House of Representatives' Select Committee on Intelligence by a senior aide to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the letter said an August 23 committee report contained serious distortions of IAEA findings on Iran's activity.

The letter said the errors suggested Iran's nuclear fuel program was much more advanced than a series of IAEA reports and Washington's own intelligence assessments have determined.

It said the report falsely described Iran to have enriched uranium at its pilot centrifuge plant to weapons-grade level in April, whereas IAEA inspectors had made clear Iran had enriched only to a low level usable for nuclear power reactor fuel.

"Furthermore, the IAEA Secretariat takes strong exception to the incorrect and misleading assertion" that the IAEA opted to remove a senior safeguards inspector for supposedly concluding the purpose of Iran's program was to build weapons, it said.

The letter said the congressional report contained "an outrageous and dishonest suggestion" that the inspector was dumped for having not adhered to an alleged IAEA policy barring its "officials from telling the whole truth" about Iran.

Diplomats say the inspector remains IAEA Iran section head.

The IAEA has been inspecting Iran's nuclear program since 2003. Although it has found no hard evidence that Iran is working on atomic weapons, it has uncovered many previously concealed activities linked to uranium enrichment, a process of purifying fuel for nuclear power plants or weapons.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said: "We felt obliged to put the record straight with regard to the facts on what we have reported on Iran. It's a matter of the integrity of the IAEA."

Diplomats say Washington, spearheading efforts to isolate Iran with sanctions over its nuclear work, has long perceived ElBaradei to be "soft" on Tehran.

"This (committee report) is deja vu of the pre-Iraq war period where the facts are being maligned and attempts are being made to ruin the integrity of IAEA inspectors," said a Western diplomat familiar with the agency and IAEA-U.S. relations." Reuters