re: "Fred Fleitz: Leftist Legacy of Bad Intel Estimate on Iran"

Secure Freedom Radio at Big Peace hosted an interesting guest.

Money quote(s):

"(F)ormer CIA Intelligence Officer Fred Fleitz shares his concerns with the U.S. Intelligence community’s scandalous refusal to “make an honest call” on the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Fleitz explains the biased nature of U.S. Intelligence’s 2007 assessment that concluded Iran halted its program in 2003, even as experts have widely concluded the existence of an active program."

From the outside, it's hard to conclude anything but that this NIE's conclusion was politically-motivated.

re: "A Foolish Consistency"

Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy!") takes us into some "inside baseball" at the high end of the intelligence community.

Money quote(s):

"For years, intelligence agencies at home and abroad have watched the nuclear program in Iran with growing concern. In 2007, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided to policy makers by the intelligence community deprecated that threat, saying that Iran had stopped work on its weaponization program in 2003. There were concerns at the time that the NIE had been deliberately shaded by members of the IC to forestall a rumored attack on Iranian nuclear sites by the George W. Bush administration in its waning years."

This was hardly the first NIE whose conclusions seemed policy- (or politics) rather than intelligence-driven, but it's one of the more prominent ones.

"(A) veteran CIA analyst critical of the agency’s 2011 NIE says that the agency has prevented him from revealing the names of outside analysts who reviewed the draft"

Why is that important?

Outside analysts such as academics, think-tankers, and former intelligence officials are used as a form of outside validation. Publicizing those names makes them accountable for that validation.

"Critics have long claimed, with little supporting evidence, that the Bush administration deliberately politicized intelligence in order to justify the Iraq war. At worse, the intelligence community in 2002 was guilty of “confirmation bias”: Told to look for evidence of an Iraqi WMD program, analysts found what they were looking for in the tangled mess of pre-war all-source data and disregarded what didn’t fit the picture. It was a costly, if understandable mistake. Using outside analysts to endorse a position on Iranian nuclear weapons which is clearly at odds with the evidence, and who have evident biases of their own may be just as costly, if not more so."

It's nice to read something outside the specialist literature that touches on the problems of cognitive bias in intelligence analysis. Confirmation bias isn't something you set out to have, although it's something you maybe could have perhaps avoided.

re: "Today's Good News (Chas Freeman Bows Out)"

George Smiley at In From the Cold ("Musings on Life, Love, Politics, Military Affairs, the Media, the Intelligence Community and Just About Anything Else that Captures Our Interest") is happy with this decision.

Money quote(s):

"In our view, Mr. Freeman's positions in support of China (and against Israel) were enough to disqualify him for the NIC job. Lest we forget, the council is supposed to provide policymakers with unvarnished and unbiased information. Given his obvious biases, any National Intelligence Estimate coordinated under Freeman's watch would have been suspect, at best.

But there was another (and equally important) reason to reject Ambassador Freeman as the next council chair: his lack of intelligence experience. As a career diplomat, Mr. Freeman is a long-time consumer of intel information, but he has virtually no expertise in the underlying trade craft."

re: "Chas Freeman and John Bolton"

Charles at Undiplomatic ("dedicated to covering the intersection of diplomacy, global issues, U.S. politics, and pop-culture") contrasts the nominations of two former ambassadors.

Money quote(s):

"(T)here has been quite a storm brewing over President Obama’s appointment of Charles W. “Chas” Freeman, Jr. to head the National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing the often important but sometimes off-the-mark National Intelligence Estimates."

"Freeman has come under fire for his often critical views on Israel, his sympathetic attitude towards the Saudis, and his opinion that the Chinese should have cracked down earlier on the Tiananmen protests. Freeman is a hyper-realist, believing that the use and conservation of hard power should trump any and all other considerations. He clearly is an unconventional thinker, and his views have often placed himself outside the mainstream of conventional foreign policy views.

Freeman brings to mind another famous free-thinker on foreign policy, John Bolton. "

"Although both believe in American power, Bolton sees it as something to project while Freeman regards it as something that should be conserved. Bolton views certain American allies, particularly Israel, as so indispensible that they should be forgiven for any and all transgressions, while Freeman, as the current controversy demonstrates, believes that Israel has made significant mistakes and should be held to account. Interestingly, the two switch sides when it comes to China, with Bolton far more critical of the current regime and Freeman more likely to tolerate its excesses."

&

"I think there are serious and important differences between the Bolton nomination and the Freeman appointment, enough so that I have less of a quarrel with those who support Freeman than I do with those who oppose him. But I think it is at best inconsistent and at worst intellectually disingenuous to suggest that Freeman’s past statements are irrelevant if you also were one of those who argued that Bolton’s past statements were damning."

re: "Just whose side is he on?"

Melanie Phillips at The Spectator ("Champagne for the brain") doesn't think much of this appointment.

Money quote(s):

"Chas W Freeman has now been confirmed as Obama’s pick for the chairmanship of America’s National Intelligence Council. This appointment, to a post which oversees production of America’s National Intelligence Estimates and shapes America’s understanding of the threat posed by the world’s rogue regimes and terror organisations, has caused even Obama supporters to choke into their cappuccinos."

&

"Given this man’s closeness to the enemies of America, doesn’t his appointment to the heart of American intelligence compromise the security of that intelligence – and at a time of maximum danger from the regimes with which he is involved, threaten all of us in the free world as a result?"