December 6, 2007: Cheney, Kaplan Back New Iran NIE

Fred Kaplan. [Source: ForeignAffairs.com]Both Vice-President Dick Cheney and Slate’s Fred Kaplan back the accuracy of the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that says Iran’s nuclear program ended in 2003 (see December 3-6, 2007 and December 7, 2007). Cheney is asked by a reporter from the online news magazine The Politico, “[D]o you believe the new [NIE] that’s out—or is there a reason to question those conclusions?” Cheney replies: “I don’t have any reason to question the—what the community has produced, with respect to the NIE on Iran. Now, there are things they don’t know. There are always—there’s always the possibility that the circumstances will change. But I think they’ve done the best job they can with the intelligence that’s available to give us their best judgment on those issues.” [White House, 12/6/2007] Kaplan refutes a claim that three State Department officials, at least one hostile to Bush, wrote the NIE, saying: “[T]he NIE is not ‘a team of three in the State Department.’ It’s the product of all 16 US intelligence agencies. From all accounts, this was a very elaborate process involving thousands of new pieces of information, including intercepts, human intelligence, and so forth. It also seems to have been scrubbed meticulously, subjected to ‘red team’ exercises—the works.” [Slate, 12/6/2007]