Military Defense: Nuke Threat: Iran 4-9 yrs away from missile nukes, Negroponte says

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An Israeli news-source, YNet News reports the estimate by John Negroponte, US Director of National Defense and former US Ambassador to the United Nations and then to Iraq, of a 4-9 year horizon for mullocratic Iran to achieve ballistic missiles armed with nuclear bombs, for the extermination of Israel and the thwarting of America's power in the free world. But also, I would argue, to dominate the Gulf and thus to prevent any Gulf-states-based forces from crippling the shipping lanes being developed from Iran to China. China is currently setting up fortified ports along the route, in order to protect the shipment of vital oil and gas. The deal between Iran and China must contain, I would assume, a primissory provision by Iran for it to secure its end of the line of commerce between the two allied states.

YNet's Yitshak Behorin reports the US National Intelligence Director's claim regarding Iran's nuke development in Time magazine (Apri18,2k6). The interviewers, Michael Duffy and Timothy J. Burger, under the headline (labelled as an "exculsive") "Spy Chief: CIA Detainees Will Be Held Indefinitely," cover a range of topics based on researching the state of affairs in the USA inteligence community / bureaucracy in Washington.

To me the headline alerts us to good news, and informs of the intention to keep these terrorists under wraps until terrorist hostilities, by their comrades still at large, cease.

Rookmaker Club geostrategic analysis:

But, of course, one can understand the mainstream media (MSM) focusing its headline sensationalistically for its value in trumping other sources of info that can be spun collectively into a further mindless attack on Prez Bush (in the end, a gang-bang).

Yet the real news in the Time interview, selected out for emphasis by the wiser journalism of YNet - selected out from the interview's multitude of topics covering several important issues, some juicier than others, some more meaty for the defense of North America - is the nexus of the Iran-nuke timeline and the overall USA intelligence horizon as both relate to the organizational rebuiliding necessary to bring the CIA, the FBI, and the Pentagon's several intelligence departments into tandem with one another.

I should add that American intelligence is in a major process of rebuilding after the mess left behind by the Clinton Administration which filled the ranks with what one wag, Steven Meyer, labelled "moderate Republicans," while others insist that the swells have been leftwing softies, bureaux turf-protectors, and nested book authors hoping to write the most devestating tome on foreign polcy ever writ, and decidedly anti-military. I tend to believe the latter more skeptical view of what Bush inherited from the Clintclan, while acknowledging Prof Meyers' (political science, National Defense University) charm.

Only in tandem, with necessary internal debates that are focussed toward operational results, can a better overall overhauled intelligence resource be obtained as the USA and its friends face Iran, after the debacle of bad intelligence fed Bush by these Clinton-leftover agencers regarding Iraq. A situation which also produced the Plame-Wilson cell that produced partisan propaganda for the Kerryites, instead of reliable intelligence.

In a wider vein, it's valuable to take a few minutes to read and some more to ponder the important article by John Hughes in Christian Science Monitor, "Bush had good reason to believe there were WMD in Iraq - Bush may have been misled by the information he had, but he did not lie" (Apr12,2k6). By the way, CSM is arguably, and in my mind is, America's best daily newspaper and its online version, superb (Hughes, a former editor of CSM, is now editing Deseret Morning News, Salt Lake City, Utah.)

While Bush may have been badly misled by his own intelligence and other sources, he did not lie. He believed, and had good reason to believe, that the weapons existed.

From thousands of official Iraqi documents captured by American forces, and dozens of interviews with captured senior military and political leaders, a picture is now emerging of the world of delusion in which Hussein lived when he was in power. It is being chronicled in magazines such as Weekly Standard and a forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs and books such as Cobra II. Written by New York Times reporter Michael Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor, the book is being hailed as one of the most comprehensive accounts of the war in Iraq.

All these points speak to the issue of the crediblity of the President, his Director of National Intelligence, and the estimates coming forward now regarding Iran's military build-up and race to have full deployment of nuclear weapons as soon as possible. On the key issue at hand, upon which YNet dwells in its report, Negroponte is said not to exaggerate.

In an exclusive interview, Negroponte, a career diplomat who has been a senior White House official and a UN ambassador, told Time that the intelligence is "improving and we intend to improve it some more. We're off to a good start. But I don't want to make exaggerated claims here because this is a job that's going to take some time."

Nor did Negroponte exaggerate the claims about the quality of US intelligence on Iran, which this week announced that it is accelerating its production of enriched uranium, which Western countries fear is a step on the road to building nuclear weapons. Negroponte told Time the US had good but not perfect intelligence on the state of Iranian nuclear facilities. "Certainly, we know where the key installations are. Are there others that we're not aware of at all? You don't know what you don't know."

In the meantime, the case against passivity in the face of Iranian moblization of its conventional armed forces, its crowing about each advance in its military technological prowess (largely to fr+ten the Gulf States into Iran's orbit, or at least to neutralize them against further cooperation with the USA and the West generally), its massive infiltration of Iraq, and the more realistic appraisal of its nuke timeline by Negroponte; all these lines of evidence and reflection lead us to consider the analysis of the geostrategics of Iran's nuke project and its world-security implications, includingly most recently the analsysis in a National Review editorial. I recommend you read it. Its political, diplomatic, military and overall geostrategic dissection of the situation today is h+ly credible. - Politicarp

To Bomb, or Not to Bomb - that is the Iran question by Reuel Marc Gerecht (Apr24,2k6, Weekly Standard Volume 011, Issue 30; and Daily Standard online now.

Target: Iran - Yes, there is a feasible military option against the mullahs' nuclear program by Thomas McInerney, Weekly Standard (Apr24,2k6); and Daily Standard online now.