America’s Not Buying NIE
Only 18% of the American people believe that Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program. Why?
The latest Rasmussen poll shows that the American people aren’t buying the latest NIE assessment with regards to Iran. Only 18% of those asked by Rasmussen believe that Iran has, indeed, stopped its nuclear weapons program. In contrast, 66% of those asked believe that Iran has not put its weapons program to a halt.
All in all, 67% believe that Iran remain a threat to the national security of the US, against 19% who disagree.
And the bad news for Democrats and liberal bloggers: “Twenty-nine percent (29%) of liberal voters believe that Iran has stopped its weapons program but 54% disagree.” Among conservatives those numbers leave even less room for doubt: “just 8% believe Iran has stopped and 81% disagree.”
This poll is celebrated by some conservative bloggers but I think it’s important to ask the following questions:
- how well are these Americans informed about the NIE assessment?
- isn’t this more of a sign that Americans distrust their intelligence agencies than anything else?
- is the majority always right?
- does this mean that there should be a second assessment or does this simply mean that those with knowledge have to educate the American people?
Now, those questions aside: it seems to me that many questions remain. Israel has already told the US that it wants to share its intelligence with regards to Iran’s nuclear program. The US has, of course, accepted the offer. We’ll see what’ll come of that. What’s more, the NIE seems to have changed its position quite radically and quite some conservatives have pointed out that some of the authors if the latest report may have had political reasons for minimizing the threat Iran poses to the US.
Should the NIE assessment be disregarded? No. If accurate it means that the West has more than enough time to force Iran - by diplomacy - to change its behavior and that the use of force in 2008 will be premature. O, and unnecessary. On the other hand, too many questions have been raised the last couple of days to take it all on face value. It seems to me that experts should take a second look at the NIE and at what Iran is doing.
Also more at Jules Crittenden’s place.
I bet if the readers at the three conservative sites were asked some technical questions about Iran’s enrichment program they would be clueless. What the poll ignores is the constant news and Whitehouse spin in regards to Iraq. Ask the blow hards at Hot Air to explain in regards to enrichment and bomb programs NPT, U235, U238 and implosion and 29% might know what their talking about.
Polls don’t ask qualifying questions to determine the pollees knowlege on a subject. I wonder how many people still think Iraq and Saddam were responsible for 9-11?
A search of Hot Air for "implosion" resulted in one commenter and one post, seem the Hot Air bunch is full of Hot Air.
http://hotair.com/?s=implosion
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/10/09/video-bush-on-north-korean-nuke-test/#comment-68394
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/08/26/surprise-iran-opens-heavy-water-production-plant/
Rudi, I don’t think very many people believed Hussein was responsible for 9/11 - ever.
And that has nothing to do with Iran, a nation that would like to have nuclear weapons and has the money and connections to get the raw materials.
The NIE is good news as it indicates that hasn’t happened yet. But as you point out, intelligence can be badly wrong.
Also, there’s no justifiable reason for the west to think that our intellect is so superior to the Iranians that they could not do today what we did over 60 years ago.
Whether I know how to build an A-bomb isn’t relevant. That in the absence of opposition Iran could is.
Rudi - I don’t see where anything you’re talking about is relevant to the issue. You don’t need to know how to build a nuclear bomb in order to know that letting an Islamist with delusions of ushering in the Apocalypse have one is in no way a good idea. Nor does that knowledge have anything to do with trusting an intelligence community that has, to put it charitably, throw a few off-target in the past couple of decades.
Usa Today March 2003 - "Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe it is likely that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, says a poll out almost two years after the terrorists’ strike against this country. "
Newsweek June 2007 - "A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed "gaps" in America’s knowledge of history and current events. Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered ‘Yes’ to the question "Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?"
Further, a majority of people couldn’t identify Saudia Arabia as the country of origin of most of the 9/11 hijackers, even given the question in multiple choice format. 20% answered Iraq, while 14% believed the hijackers came from Iran."
Marc, you were saying?
Regards, C
They did take a second look… and then some. That’s why it took so long to be released and we’re only finding out about it now.
Dustin: that remark - I can understand it - but it’s not sufficient. Experts are looking at it now and saying "that’s nonsense."
This isn’t ‘finished.’ Too many concerns and buts and ifs have been raised.
One of the thigns that makes the NIE less than fully credible is that one of the authors testified in front of Congress that nearly the opposite of what the NIE said was true. He didn’t reference this NIE because it hadn’t been released yet, but he contradicted it nonetheless.
It’s hard for the American people to listen to all the conflicting information coming from the analysts themselves and take the assessment seriously. How could they? The story doesn’t read like an honest dispute over intelligence analysis but a family squabble between the White House and a CIA that doesn’t much like having this President in charge of it.
Marc hers’s some links to backup the Saddam link.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/us/politics/17web-elder.html
Packaging 9/11, Terror and the War in Iraq
By JANET ELDER
Published: October 17, 2007
The language used to talk about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the language used to take the nation to war in Iraq have been so interlaced that polls show they are inextricably linked in the minds of a substantial number of voters.
Other things may be at play, too, but for some voters, terrorists, terrorism, the war in Iraq, 9/11, Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda are all part of the same multi-headed hydra.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Poll_41_of_Americans_believe_Saddam_0624.html
Number of Americans who believe Saddam-9/11 tie rises to 41 percent
Josh Catone
Published: Sunday June 24, 2007
A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed "gaps" in America’s knowledge of history and current events.
Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered ‘Yes’ to the question "Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?"
That total is actually up 5 points since September 2004.
On the Iran nuclear issue, an uniformed public is/was buying into the Iran threat. But HEU won’t go on a bomb attached to a ballistic missile. A miniturizes implosion device is required. So how is Iran 4% U-235 an imminent threat that hawks in the US and Israel claim?
The opinions of brainwashed propagandized plebs do not change instantly by the stroke of a magic wand.
Give it some time.
I bet, there are plenty of Americans who still think that Russia is an enemy.
And how many year passed since the cold war?
This pretty much sums up what’s been going through my head about the right-wing reaction to the NIE:
"Norman Podhoretz, horrified and petrified that the consensus of our intelligence agencies "just dealt a serious blow" to his desire for a new war, unloads what he aptly calls his "dark suspicions" that this is all just a ruse by our dishonest intelligence community "to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations" [...]
Podhoretz’s predictable attack also underscores one of the most dishonest maneuvers one has seen in some time. It was, of course, Podhoretz, Cheney and their friends who incessantly pressured and manipulated the intelligence community to conclude that Saddam had WMD so that they could start the war they desperately wanted for so long. And now, they use the false conclusions which they foisted on the intelligence community to cast doubt on the credibility of intelligence officials with regard to Iran — as though neoconservative warmongers were the victims of the pre-war intelligence failures rather than the perpetrators. [...]"
From Glenn Greenwald: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/04/elbaradei/index.html
Interestingly enough, the current NIE’s findings were backed this week by uber war hawks like VP Dick Cheney– who never trusted the CIA’s analysis leading up to our invasion of Iraq.
Glenn Greenwald is about as trusted an analyst as my cat. He’ll dispute that, of course, using several different sock puppets in your comment section.
Jimmie,
My guess is that you’re personally attacking Greenwald because you have no reasoned response to his post.