Snitchin'

How is it that a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran wound up getting released when it was (a) made the administration look ridiculous, (b) pissed off the administration's key pyschotic warmonger allies, and (c) the administration has stated earlier that NIEs weren't going to be released in the future? Well, Pat Lang has some rumor-mongering that aligns perfectly with my armchair speculation:

The "jungle telegraph" in Washington is booming with news of the Iran NIE. I am told that the reason the conclusions of the NIE were released is that it was communicated to the White House that "intelligence career seniors were lined up to go to jail if necessary" if the document's gist were not given to the public. Translation? Someone in that group would have gone to the media "on the record" to disclose its contents.

Did that really happen? Who knows. But it certainly seems to me that this is the correct and honorable way to behave for people who find themselves in possession of important information that's being kept classified for illegitimate reasons. The motives of the "leaker" can always be called into question, but a person willing to take a stand -- or as we may be seeing here, even a person willing to say he or she is willing to take a stand -- publicly and bear the consequences carries a lot more weight.

Comments

Note also Hoagland's OpEd piece in the WP, particularly the last few graphs. Rumor has always had it that Hoagland has tight connections with the spies.

Posted by MattF | December 9, 2007 10:59 AM

Doesn't this article tend to support the Norman Podhoretz contention, which Mr. Yglesias commented on a day or two ago, that the release of this report was a plot by intelligence operatives to undermine the Bush administrations' Iran policy? Mr. Yglesias and many of the commentors called Mr. Podhoretz a nutcase at that time. Apparently, in the Yglesias world, Mr. Podhoretz is a nutcase but Mr. Lang is a reputable commentator.

Posted by SLC | December 9, 2007 11:33 AM

But did it really happen? Who knows.

Right. If it did, it goes in the "politicized intelligence" file with Plame/Wilson and the Downing Street Memo.

Anyone whose ever worked on putting a NIE together, or who has read them over any length of time, is put in mind of sausage-making analogies. I welcome the recent one "on Iran", but also welcome the thought of "intelligence career seniors...lined up to go to jail...".

Posted by Robert Powell | December 9, 2007 11:44 AM

Interesting if true. It would be a complete confirmation of everything the right-wing has said about the CIA for the last 4 years: the CIA's main purpose in life is to undermine the White House.

And so, Pat Lng provides more evidence for what I think we all know is true: the CIA is not a professional intelligence organization - it is a subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee.

Posted by Al | December 9, 2007 11:52 AM

The story seems pretty plausible to me.

And given the tremendous---and mostly successful---efforts which the Bush/neocons had previously made to suppress previous "contrary" intelligence, I *still* say the key factor was probably the turmoil in nuclear-armed Pakistan, which made quite a number of American patriots within the government realize the utterly horrific consequences of the intended attack on Iran, and decide they had to risk their personal freedom to avert it.

It seems to me the if these patriotic Americans would risk going to prison to save our country from total disaster, we should certainly provide the same opportunity to a whole bunch of very treacherous ones as well.

I think a very large number of neocons should end having a chance to become "close personal friends" with all those Black Muslims and Aryan Brotherhood members who supposedly control most of America's prison cell-blocks...

After all, we all know the importance of "multiculturalism" in our American society.

Posted by RKU | December 9, 2007 11:57 AM

...the release of this report was a plot by intelligence operatives to undermine the Bush administrations' Iran policy?

...the CIA's main purpose in life is to undermine the White House.

No notice taken by the trolls that the White House policy towards Iran, if allowed to progress unchecked, would be a disaster as large or larger than Iraq.

If someone armed to the teeth with AK-47's and Glocks were prevented from entering a school, I'm sure they would be horrified by the abrogation of second amendment rights, too.

Posted by DMonteith | December 9, 2007 12:14 PM

Doesn't this article tend to support the Norman Podhoretz contention, which Mr. Yglesias commented on a day or two ago, that the release of this report was a plot by intelligence operatives to undermine the Bush administrations' Iran policy?

How about this? The release of the NIE was a plot by intelligence operatives to mitigate war disaster number three.

Couldn't be patriotism, could it? No logic in your brain.

Posted by the neighbor | December 9, 2007 1:16 PM

Al said:

"Interesting if true. It would be a complete confirmation of everything the right-wing has said about the CIA for the last 4 years: the CIA's main purpose in life is to undermine the White House."

In this instance, what the senior intel people were doing was stopping the administration from launching ANOTHER WAR, another war based on cooked and false information, and one that would be even more disastrous than the Iraq War.

If this is true, these guys are heroes.

Undermine the White House? Sure - undermine a group of war criminal fanatics who were trying to start a war for reasons that THEY KNEW DARN WELL WERE FALSE.

Posted by JoyceH | December 9, 2007 1:30 PM

So seriously, if you work in the government and the Executive tells you to make up a bunch of bullshit to sell a war, that's a species of treason? Is that the complaint here?

Posted by Ed Marshall | December 9, 2007 1:45 PM

"So seriously, if you work in the government and the Executive tells you to make up a bunch of bullshit to sell a war, that's a species of treason? Is that the complaint here?"

No no no, it's only treason when you REFUSE to make-up bullshit for your superiors, and instead say that you're willing to go to jail unless they agree to put out an assessment that isn't bullshit, thus preventing your superiors from having you to blame when they lie the country into another disastrous war and screw it up.

For those on the Right, the only loyalty is party loyalty, and everything else is just so very pre-911.

Posted by Tony J | December 9, 2007 2:17 PM

...what I think we all know is true: the CIA is not a professional intelligence organization - it is a subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee.
Posted by Al

Holy crap! That consarned Ted Kennedy's the one what funded the Contras, and flew weapons to them genociders in Guatemala, and ran that mujahedeen thing in Afghanistan, and paid them thar 'freedom fighters' in Angola and Mozambique!

Dagnabbit!!! All this time I thought it was Reagan and the same guys who ran the latest invasion of Iraq!

Posted by El Cid | December 9, 2007 2:29 PM

I just malformed that sentance, I meant to throw a "if you refuse" in there.

Posted by Ed Marshall | December 9, 2007 2:33 PM

And hey, I guess now I needs to calls me up my MoveOn.org and Democracy For America crazy fringe dirty hippie left wing extremists so's I can quite my private industry job and get me a cushy position with the C.I.A., where we all just sit around and smoke dope and figger out ways to undermine our brave right wing chickenhawks who's a meanin' to saves Our Nation from all kindsa country's they's meanin' to bombin'!!! Hallelujah!

Posted by El Cid | December 9, 2007 2:39 PM

It is unconstitutional for the CIA to set policy. Only elected officials can set policy - those who answer to the people. To whom does the CIA answer? Only themselves.

Posted by Linda | December 9, 2007 6:13 PM

Linda, by releasing the information to the public, doesn't it enable them to critique the policy of elected officials?

CIA has set no policy. It released information. If the policy the public supports because of that released information is contrary to those of the elected officials...

...well too fucking bad.

Okay, perhaps the CIA did set policy--that of telling the truth to the citizenry.

Posted by MNPundit | December 9, 2007 11:12 PM

I agree with Scott Ritter's assessment that the NIE may have been released in the form it was because it is intended to preempt the IAEA report due in a couple weeks about Iran's compliance at clearing up past issues.

But it does more than that.

As I've pointed out repeatedly, the NIE states two conclusions, both of which are intended to CYA the intelligence agencies involved. The first, claiming that Iran HAD a nuclear weapons program - with zero evidence of this outside the mostly discredited and in any event inconclusive "laptop" - is intended to provide cover for Bush, Cheney and Israel as being right in the general case. The second - that Iran stopped that program - is intended to provide cover for the intelligence communities when the IAEA clears Iran of having such a program NOW - while providing cover for the Administration and the Israelis to charge that Iran has or will restart said program.

The NIE is by no means an excuse to think that war on Iran has been put off. While the media and public effect may be to make people think that Iran is not an IMMEDIATE threat - and therefore, to some degree, make it harder for Bush and Cheney to start an IMMEDIATE war ON THAT BASIS - it does nothing to resolve the overall issue.

Since Bush and Cheney have been citing other Iranian "misdeeds" as justifications for attacking Iran, and the Israelis are claiming the whole NIE is wrong, clearly nothing of actual significance - except the perceptions of various MSM and blogosphere types - has changed.

The Europeans were loath to go for more extreme sanctions on Iran anyway, due to pressure from their financial centers, so the NIE merely gives them some breathing room to hesitate on going forward with said sanctions.

The Russians and Chinese get more breathing room to oppose further sanctions.

Meanwhile, Cheney's formulation of the NIE puts pressure on the Israelis to start the war, which is what Cheney wants to bypass the US Congress and the US public. Israel, seeing the reactions of the US Congress and public and media, may feel it has to comply with Cheney's wishes or the war may not be started.

Nothing is over.

Meanwhile, this spin that the CIA is "out to get Bush" is just the cover they need to satisfy Cheney. The CIA isn't going to be harmed by this perception to any significant degree. It diverts from Cheney's influence. The NIE gets people to let down their guard in general. It keeps the propaganda for an Iran war coming. Everybody is perfectly willing to believe the CIA is conducting a "coup" because that's what they do. This leads to everyone believing the opposite of the NIE conclusion that Iran has stopped the program, while believing the impression that Iran had a program.

All in all, it's a disinformation campaign that is likely to achieve its goals, based on the nonsense I've read over the last few days in the MSM and on these blogs.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 10, 2007 12:31 AM