I guess the new NIE just missed this altogether huh? (h/t Hot Air)
Iran tested a newly-developed ballistic missile on the day of the Annapolis
conference, Channel 10 reported Wednesday.The Ashoura missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers and is capable of
reaching Israel, US Army bases in the Middle East and eastern European cities,
including Moscow, said the TV channel.According to the report, the new missile is an improvement on the existing
Shihab-3 missile. The Ashoura uses solid fuel instead of the Shihab’s liquid
fuel, giving it a significantly faster launch sequence which is harder to
detect.
Maybe the next NIE will tell us that these missiles are for peaceful purposes only to harness the suns energy or something.
Nothing to see here….move along.
See author page
Can these missiles carry war heads?
I hope not, Kathie!
The smaller the warhead, the longer the range.
Small warhead=2000km or better
Wanna hit something close, but hit it big? Use a big missile like this to carry a really heavy warhead a short distance.
Point remains, Iran demonstrated its missile to make the news at the same time the Annapolis conference was in the news. Why would they saber rattle like that? Hmmmm
Kathie,
Load a non explosive warhead up with botulism or some other bio-agent and that changes the equation a lot. On the good side, most bio agents cannot stand the high g-forces of a ballistic missile.
On the bad side, dumping plutonium powder into a warhead and letting the dirty bomb simply spread it over a city…….
But the writers of the NIE from the treasonous VIPS group say Iran is a peace loving nation trying to rescue a guy from a well…..
This isn’t good for Iran or any of her neighboring countries in the Middle East either. I wonder if the NIE will lose any of it’s credibility now? After all, since this happened fairly recently and so has this Ballistic Missile Test then one would think that the group who conducted the NIE is either in denial or is turning a blind eye. I honestly hope that neither is the case and that our Inteligence community gets it right by letting our law and policy makers know that they should still keep an eye on Mahmoud Amhedinejad.
And what do you think of Obadiah Shoher’s arguments against the peace process ( samsonblinded.org/blog/we-need-a-respite-from-peace.htm )?
That was interesting, Alex. Thank you very much for pointing that out. I think I will visit that site more often. Just curious though, if we don’t try to be peaceful first then can we ever expect our enemies to try and be peaceful as well? I am not taking any sides, I just want to see what direction this thread’s discussion will go and just hoping to stir up some critical thinking too.
SealPatriot, NIE losing credibility because of evidence against it? Are you kidding? The evidence against man-made global warming is overwhelming, concerned scientists in huge numbers are writing open letters to IPCC questioning its validity, but has that discredited it in any noticeable way with those who had chosen to believe it? I haven’t seen any evidence of THAT.
Warren Buffett who dedicated his life to acquiring wealth and reducing his tax burden, and is currently donating huge amounts to charity thus further reducing his tax burden, is now complaining about the gap between rich and poor and about his low tax rate is. Known as a supremely competent man he is campaigning for the supremely incompetent Hillary. Has this reduced HIS credibility?
When the dominant party of the country will deny IN THE OPEN, WITH GREAT FANFARE that the surge in Iraq has not changed anything in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, what can you expect?
When people’s survival is temporarily disconnected from rationality, they go irrational. They will believe whatever best confirms their prejudices not what’s supported by facts or even any kind of evidence. The NIE will stand as a solid testament to Bush’s duplicity in the eyes of those who don’t like him even when the new Iranian missiles hit Tel Aviv.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1196847316269&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
“The evidence that we in the State of Israel have is such that I have no doubt that Iran is advancing toward a [nuclear] weapons program,” said Mizrahi, who in the past served as deputy head of the Mossad. “I cannot provide more details, but I am convinced that they are moving toward a military program.”
Scott, and you think that after Annapolis where Jews were forced to have separate entrances, their “partners” were excused from having to shake their hands or for that matter even listen to the simultaneous translation of what they were saying, you think this evidence will cause Bush to do WHAT?
Nothing. He’s a lame duck (despite the constant “this administration” rhetoric).
This has been discussed before, but this is a good read…
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=0ADC3041-E624-45A4-B608-E5C9DEB99079
btw Igor, I’m absolutely shocked that some nation (ours, Israel, France, Italy, Germany, Gulf nation, etc) hasn’t taken the first three pages of Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising and adapted it to fit with Iran’s gasoline refining jugular.
Igor R. says; “SealPatriot, NIE losing credibility because of evidence against it?”
– Sure, it’s possible. That’s what rebuttles do most of the time. Also, with respect to your comment, I listen to both sides of every debate, and not just the side presenting the evidence that may disprove the beliefs of my political opponents. Let me reiterate my stance.
I think that since this ballistic missile was tested as recently as the NIE’s report came out, and the fact that the NIE concludes that Iran isn’t developing military weapons for hostile use, then I think that the NIE report has to be taken with a grain of salt but by all means not discredited or ignored. I also think that people ought to listen to other pieces of evidence and read other Inteligence Reports that may disagree with the NIE’s present findings. Not just using the NIE’s latest report as a means to make a final conclusion to an important national security topic.
Plus, you never know, since intel is not always clear or exact. The NIE can always change their stance. Out of curiosity, would you support and believe the findings of the NIE if they were to change their conclusions? If they were to do such a thing, then I would take that conclusion more skeptically than the last, because a change in conclusions would make me concerned as to whether or not our inteligence community is doing it’s work properly for the sake of national security. In the end, I would still give their findings a chance and hear what they have to say.
Scott, well didn’t Newt call for some version of that just a couple of months ago? But nothing about the collective self-imposed impotence of the West surprises me any more. Auto-immune diseases and diseases where the body turns on itself, like cancer and clogged arteries, can kill you just as easily as trauma or infection. As suek’s article exemplifies, among other things, America and the rest of the Western world have turned on themselves and thus can’t deal with simple threats rooted in the 7th century propagated by incompetent fanatics. This is exactly like a case of AIDS where the body can’t fight off simple pneumonia but the cause is much deeper.
Soros, Buffett, Condi, the Iraq Study Group, IPCC, Reid, Pelosi, Powell, the Clintons, the Kennedies, Rosie, Oprah, and thousands upon thousands are others of lower statue plus the whole MSM are sapping all strength from a failing giant. Even the semi-competent have gone insane. A country armed with nuclear submarines and stealth fighter jets sends Marines to fight house-to-house in Falluja and die heroic deaths in the process. We all know the score, it’s even hard to know with who or what to begin. Unfortunately, it’s leading to an unpleasant end. Meanwhile Huck is doing just fine and Obama’s stock is rising. Maybe the calendar does end in 2012.
SealPatriot, the NIE is a moral of equivalent of some guy claiming that his neighbor is not a serial killer because he has never seen him kill anyone and also overheard him talking to his wife that he decided not to hurt anyone back in 2003. The narrative that is being touted as the NIE’s conclusion is a patently absurd response to very spotty evidence.
Again, which is why I take what they say with a grain of salt but I do not discredit or ignore it’s findings.
Also Igor R., I really do not want to defame your integrity or anything of the sort. However, to say that the NIE is of that moral equivalence is kind of pushing things too far. The NIE is a collection of the findings made by the 16 intel services of the U.S. and possibly it’s allies all across the globe. Even then I still don’t think everything they say is 100 percent right, but saying they’re of the same moral equivalence as you had said in your last comment, I think is going a little bit over the top. With that said, I think we should just agree to disagree.
Igor R. says; “The narrative that is being touted as the NIE’s conclusion is a patently absurd response to very spotty evidence.”
-The NIE said that Iran halted it’s pursuit of illegal weapons back in 2003. I am sorry if I am precieving it wrongly, but that does sound a lot like a conclusion to me.
The NIE has become a political football and it appears that some of those involved in the interagency process of creating it are perfectly willing for that situation to continue.
I’m siding with Igor’s take on it.
Thanks Mike.
SealPatriot, it does start out with that conclusion but the rest of it is much more “nuanced” which in my eyes makes it not very credible. I also, without much evidence but based on recent history, do not believe we have enough “eyes on the ground” there to reach any kind of definitive conclusions. Obviously we may have some top guy as a secret agent or whatever, but at least based on published articles many intelligence services and foreign government officials do not believe this report.