Washington – A key House committee issued a stinging critique of U.S. intelligence on Iran on Wednesday, charging that the CIA and other agencies lack “the ability to acquire essential information necessary to make judgments” on Tehran’s nuclear program, its intentions or even its ties to terrorism.
The 29-page report, principally written by a Republican staff member on the House intelligence committee who holds a hard-line view on Iran, fully backs the White House position that the Islamic republic is moving forward with a nuclear-weapons program and that it poses a significant danger to the United States. But it chides the intelligence community for not providing enough direct evidence to support that assertion.
“American intelligence agencies do not know nearly enough about Iran’s nuclear weapons program” to help policymakers at a critical time, the report’s authors say.
Information “regarding potential Iranian chemical weapons and biological weapons programs is neither voluminous nor conclusive,” and little evidence has been gathered to tie Iran to al-Qaeda and to the recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, they say.
The report relies exclusively on publicly available documents. Its authors did not interview intelligence officials. Still, it warns the intelligence community to avoid the mistakes made regarding weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war, noting that Iran could easily be engaged in “a denial and deception campaign to exaggerate progress on its nuclear program as Saddam Hussein apparently did concerning his WMD programs.”
“We want to avoid another ‘slam dunk,’ ” Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., said in an interview Wednesday, explaining why the staff report was made public before it had been approved by the full committee.
Former CIA Director George Tenet had called prewar intelligence on banned weapons a “slam dunk,” but no such arms were ever found.
The House panel’s report comes at a time when the Bush administration is scrambling for leverage in its effort to force Iran to suspend its nuclear program. On Tuesday, Tehran rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution requiring it to halt its uranium-enrichment work.
For weeks, the White House has said it would push for international sanctions if Iran failed to comply with the council’s demands; however, none of its allies spoke of sanctions Wednesday, a day after Iran said it was willing to engage in serious discussions with the United States – but not if it had to stop its nuclear program first.
