Intelligence on Iran is criticized in House report
WASHINGTON -- A key House committee issued a stinging critique of U S intelligence on Iran yesterday, 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 position on Iran, fully backed the White House position that Iran is moving forward with a nuclear weapons program and that it poses a significant danger to the United States. But it chided the intelligence community for not providing enough direct evidence to support that determination.
``American intelligence agencies do not know nearly enough about Iran's nuclear weapons program" to help policy makers at a critical time, the report's authors wrote. 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 said.
The report relied exclusively on publicly available documents. Its authors did not interview intelligence officials. Still, it warned the intelligence community to avoid the mistakes made 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,' " Representative Pete Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, said in an interview yesterday, using former CIA director George Tenet's words on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction to explain why the staff report was made public before it had been approved by the full committee.
The report is being issued 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. But none of its allies spoke of sanctions yesterday, 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.
The State Department issued a terse response to the Iranian offer yesterday, saying it fell ``short" of Iran's obligations but made no mention of sanctions. Some Republicans are concerned that President Bush's current policy of potential engagement with Iran is crumbling in the face of European reluctance to impose strict measures against Tehran.
