Israel Matzav

This passes for intelligence?

They're staring at something black and insisting that it's white.

“Iran today has the technical, scientific and industrial capability to eventually produce nuclear weapons,” Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the US Armed Services Committee. “While international pressure on Iran has increased, including through sanctions, we assess that Tehran is not close to agreeing to abandon its nuclear program.”

He also said that Iran had the capability to close “at least temporarily” the Straits of Hormuz, a major passageway for global oil shipments, and could launch missile strikes and terror attacks against the US and its allies in retaliation for any attack on its nuclear facilities.

“However,” he said, “The agency assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict.”

Huh? They're not close to abandoning the program, they could close the Strait of Hormuz, but you assess they're unlikely to do it? Based on what? And what if they 'only' give Hezbullah a dirty bomb and maintain 'plausible deniability'? That's okay?

And then there's this from the guy who calls the Muslim Brotherhood 'secular.'

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who testified alongside Burgess Thursday, assessed that to date Iran has not yet decided whether to build a nuclear weapon, though it was acquiring some of the means to do so.

“We believe that the decision would be made by the Supreme Leader himself and he would base that decision on a cost-benefit analysis,” he said. “I don’t think he’d want a nuclear weapon at any price, so that I think plays to the value of sanctions.”

...

Clapper also said that while he agreed with the assessment of US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that Iran could construct a nuclear bomb within one year, it would likely take longer.

Again, based on what?

Oh - and Clapper isn't worried about Israel striking Iran either. He claims that Panetta's assessment that Israel would strike in April, May or June was based on the weather. Really.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: intelligence, Iranian nuclear threat

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:21 AM