Fine People, Doing Hard Work

The attempt to discredit, revise away, or ignore our intelligence community's estimate on Iran's nuclear capability is well underway. Here's Donald Rumsfeld's response to Laura Ingraham's version of a high hard one on her radio show last week (sidenote: read the transcript to see how Rumsfeld defines the current chaos in Iraq as "an awkward period in a democracy," casually comparing it to the uncertainty of the Florida recount during the 2000 presidential election!):

INGRAHAM: Are you confident that that estimate of a few days ago of being five years or perhaps even ten years away is realistic and accurate given the fact that in the past we've certainly underestimated nuclear capabilities?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: No.

INGRAHAM: No which part?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: No, I'm not confident.

INGRAHAM: Uh huh.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: I think it's a very difficult target for our intelligence community. They work hard at it and they're fine people, but it's a difficult thing to do. Our visibility into their circumstance is imperfect. I would add that if one is asked the question how long would it take them to do certain things totally, alone, on an indigenous basis without assistance from other countries you'd get one answer. If you said to them, if you said what if they were able to get ballistic missiles from North Korea, as they have, and what if they were able to acquire fissile material from somebody? How long would it take? I think you'd get a somewhat different answer.

Ah yes, they're "fine people," but "it's a difficult thing to do." They have the best of intentions, but it's hard work, after all. Certainly they can't be faulted for getting it wrong.

Meanwhile, John Negroponte---perhaps constrained by his current job title---had a momentary lapse of hysteria. Here's his response to a question at the National Press Club on Thursday:

The developments in Iran are -- clearly they're troublesome: the fact that they had an undeclared nuclear program for a number of years until they were discovered; the fact that they have resumed enrichment activities and have now got these 164 centrifuges spinning, with a view to enriching uranium to a level that is -- can be used as fissile material for a nuclear weapon.

I think there's also concern about the new leadership of Iran, particularly President Ahmadinejad and some of the extreme statements that he has made during the course of -- the tenure of his presidency. So there's a whole host of reasons to be concerned about the behavior of Iran at this particular point in time.

But I would say and I would add that by the same token, our assessment at the moment is that even though we believe that Iran is determined to acquire or obtain a nuclear weapon, that we believe that it is still a number of years off before they are likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into or to put into a nuclear weapon, perhaps into the next decade, so that I think it's important that this issue be kept in perspective.

Who to believe?