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Ahmadinejad and Abdullah at the GCC
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| By Israel Insider staff December 12, 2007 |
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The Telegraph of London reports that British spy chiefs deeply doubt that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons program, as a US intelligence report "estimated" last week, and believe the CIA and other American spy agencies have been hoodwinked by Teheran. Analysts believe that Iranian staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation which the American analysts accepted without sufficient skepticism.
The paper also reports that the timing of the CIA report provoked fury in the British Government, where officials think it undermined efforts to impose tough new sanctions on Iran and made an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities more likely.
The report cited new evidence to conclude that Teheran suspended the bomb-making side of its nuclear program in 2003. But British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war that they "cooked" the report and presented the conclusion in a manner that would take the war option off the table.
According to the Telegraph, a senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and said that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defense chiefs that Iran was still racing to develop nuclear weapons.
The source said British analysts believe that Iranian nuclear staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. "We are sceptical. We want to know what the basis of it is, where did it come from? Was it on the basis of the defector? Was it on the basis of the intercept material? They say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white. They will say anything to throw us off."
The British source couldn't resist getting in his licks at his transatlantic counterparts. "It's not as if the American intelligence agencies are regarded as brilliant performers in that region. They got badly burned over Iraq."
Bruce Reidel, who spent 25 years on the Middle East desks at the CIA and the National Security Council, lamented: "By going public they have embarrassed our friends, particularly the British and the Israelis. They have given our foes insights into our most secret intelligence and taken most of the options off the table."
But other analysts are saying that, far from being hoodwinked, the Bush Administration greenlighted the faulty report because it served the interests of a rapprochement with the Iranians, reportedly brokered by Saudi Arabia, whose monarch Abdullah was seen at last week's GCC conference holding hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
The reported deal involved the United States swearing off the military option, reining in Israel, and allowing a Syrian-backed regime to take control of Lebanon in exchange for the Iranians reducing their attacks in Iraq and not destabilizing Lebanon altogether.
In this scenario, Annapolis was a smokescreen for the real deal which, far from isolating Iran, was intended to open relations with the Iranians and distance the United States from its traditional support for and special relationship with Israel. Part of the deal is also compelling Israel not to respond militarily to continuing rocket attacks from Gaza, thus solidifying Hamas rule there. Hamas, in turn, will consider a ceasefire on rocket attacks on Israel, allowing it to strengthen its arsenal and continue its rampant importation of weaponry in preparation for an armed conflict with Israel later.
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