The only possible way the latest National Intelligence Estimate could come out with the news that Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons and that the program has "been on hold" since 2003 is that Dick Cheney was unable to get the intelligence changed. Past NIE's -- badly flawed -- have erred badly thanks, in all likelihood, to tampering by the well-known master bureaucrat. Cheney must be somewhere in the Middle East, in a dank cell.
The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program, and they come in the middle of a presidential campaign during which a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear program has been discussed.
The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”
Wherever they've got the vice president, let's hope they keep him there indefinitely.
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