Two levels of change:
The director of national intelligence said Tuesday he does not plan to make public any of the key findings of a soon-to-be-completed assessment on Iran’s nuclear program.
Mike McConnell said to do so could expose U.S. intelligence capabilities and enable Iran to change its practices.
Iran threat assessment won’t be released, intelligence chief says,
CNN, Nov. 14, 2007
Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015, a U.S. intelligence report says.
A declassified summary of the latest National Intelligence Estimate found with "high confidence" that the Islamic republic stopped an effort to develop nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003.
U.S. report: Iran stopped nuclear weapons work in 2003,
CNN, Dec. 3, 2007
First level: What changed between the above news releases?
- Who decided why to now release the NIE conclusions when it was explicitly not planed to be released 18 days ago?
- Why does the release now not "expose U.S. intelligence capabilities and enable Iran to change its practices?"
- Did Cheney die?
Second level: Changes in the 2007 NIE vs. 2005
- The International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA has, to my best knowledge, never assessed that Iran had or has a nuclear weapon program. Why does the NIE differ from that?
- The NIE is backtracking from a 2005 NIE that assessed with ‘high confidence’ that Iran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure" while the new one assesses with ‘high confidence’ that "we do not know whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons" and "in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." This seems to express that the 2005 NIE was wrong. Why then should we believe the 2007 NIE is right on the issue?
- Is the new NIE just an attempt to keep the meme of an ‘Iranian nuclear weapon program’ alive by assessing that it has stopped? (That is – could the next NIE conveniently assess it as restarted.)
Materials:
National Intelligence Estimate summary (PDF)
The Arms Control Wonk on the issue.