Despite growing international concern about Iran's nuclear program and its regional ambitions, most U.S. intelligence shared with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has proved inaccurate and none has led to significant discoveries inside Iran, diplomats here said.
The officials said the CIA and other Western spy services have provided sensitive information to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency at least since 2002, when Iran's long-secret nuclear program was exposed. But none of the tips about supposed secret weapons sites provided clear evidence that the Islamic Republic is developing illicit weapons.
"Since 2002, pretty much all the intelligence that's come to us has proved to be wrong," said a senior diplomat at the IAEA. Another official here described the agency's intelligence stream as "very cold now (because) so little panned out."
The reliability of U.S. information and assessments on Iran is increasingly at issue as the Bush administration confronts the emerging regional power on multiple fronts: its expanding nuclear effort, its alleged support for insurgents inside Iraq and its backing of Middle East militant groups.
Well, I think I've heard enough. It's time to let ol' Texas Hold 'em -- whose most famous decision in his pre-political career was to trade Sammy Sosa for a sack of magic beans -- work his special brand of negotiamatin' skillz on those U.N. diplopussies. That's worked out superbly with the two current wars. Good things come in threes, right?
Of course, they have a much steeper hill to climb to make this sale, but fortunately for them, shame is certainly no obstacle. We could flip a coin to see if the casus belli will be either suspect materials possibly maybe indicated by doctored satellite imagery, or a provoked and/or trumped up Tonkin-style incident. Either way, the inconvenient "facts" presented by "diplomats" -- who have never served in combat, nor even jerked off to a 24 torture scene -- mean nothing.
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