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lgf: Video: Max Boot on Saudi Arabia, NIE

from littlegreenfootballs

This entry was written by Konservo and posted on December 7, 2007 at 12:13 am and filed under Uncategorized with tags , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

4 Comments

  1. Sergei Andropov
    Posted December 7, 2007 at 1:22 am | Permalink

    From the NIE, under “What We Mean When We Say”:

    •High confidence generally indicates that our judgments are based on high-quality information, and/or that the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. A “high confidence” judgment is not a fact or a certainty, however, and such judgments still carry a risk of being wrong.

    •Moderate confidence generally means that the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.

    •Low confidence generally means that the information’s credibility and/or plausibility is questionable, or that the information is too fragmented or poorly corroborated to make solid analytic inferences, or that we have significant concerns or problems with the sources.

    “Moderate confidence” does not mean “we don’t know”, except in the most blindly literal sense of the term (we don’t know that Monaco doesn’t have a secret nuclear program). Also, the NIE is highly confident that Iran halted it’s program in 2003; what it is moderately confident about is that it has not restarted it in the last few years.

    As for him claiming that the IAEA contradicts the NIE, that is simply nonsense:

    IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei received with great interest the new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate about Iran´s nuclear program which concludes that there has been no on-going nuclear weapons program in Iran since the fall of 2003. He notes in particular that the Estimate tallies with the Agency´s consistent statements over the last few years that, although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the Agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran. ¹

    Other than that, he seemed more or less on target. It’s a pity that he minimizes the accomplishments of Abu Risha, though. The man was a great hero, and his work remains Iraq’s greatest hope.

    Reply
  2. konservo
    Posted December 7, 2007 at 2:57 am | Permalink

    I see you’ve figured out the blockquotes. Nice.

    Other than that, he seemed more or less on target.

    You do realize that Max Boot is, well, a neocon. Just sayin’

    As for the claim about the NIE and the IAEA, I think he was working off of the premise that the NIE’s language was somewhat vague. I believe he said that ‘moderately confident’ was jargon for ‘who knows’ (in so many words). So, if he was comparing that to the IAEA’s statements then there does seem to be two different perspectives that aren’t exactly eye-to-eye. Both, however, are forced to admit that they don’t really know, and that they don’t really trust Iran.

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  3. Sergei Andropov
    Posted December 7, 2007 at 3:12 am | Permalink

    “You do realize that Max Boot is, well, a neocon. Just sayin’”

    So? I take issues on a case by case basis, on their own merits. Who it is that holds a certain position is not nearly as important as the position itself. I’ve even agreed with President Bush before (twice), because on those occasions he happened to be correct.

    Reply
  4. konservo
    Posted December 7, 2007 at 2:43 pm | Permalink

    I’m just joking, Sergei.

    Usually whether or not someone is considered a ‘neocon’ is a divisive fact, whereas, usually, on the left folks take it as a rule of thumb not to accept any of the ‘neocons’ opinions, on the right* ‘neocons’ are generally better received.

    *Except for the far-right “paleocons” who tend to think that Neocon = Joo = trying to rule America, conspiracy, !!!Ron Paul, etc.

    Reply

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