Wednesday 12 December 2007

US Intelligence Report on Iran in the International Herald Tribune

Not surprisingly, the International Herald Tribune's coverage of the newly released intelligence report on Iran has been extensive. No one at this NYT's property wants a repeat of the Judith Miller fiasco, that's for sure.

John Vinocur was in fighting form on this subject in his Politicus column on 10 December, 2007 (On Iran, U.S. stumbles and Europe grumbles http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/10/news/politicus.php?page=1)

This is what he had to say:

‘An unnamed senior official described by The New York Times as close to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN organization often derided as a soft on Iran by the Bush administration, scorned the U.S. agencies' estimate as mushy."To be frank," the official said, "we are more skeptical. We don't buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran."In France, where the government of Nicolas Sarkozy, acting in coordination with Washington, has made vast efforts to enact separate European Union sanctions going beyond those of the UN Security Council, the report was characterized by an expert on nuclear proliferation as occasionally brushing close to the "hallucinatory."’

IHT reader and blogger Arnon Grunberg (http://www.arnongrunberg.com/?post=1237) went one step further, and I think he might be right:

'In my modest opinion the new American National Intelligence Estimate can be only be understood as the result of secret negotiations between the US and Iran.'

Over to you John.

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