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Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Analysis: Why does US and Israeli intel differ?

Analysis: Why does US and Israeli intel differ?
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 4, 2007
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546805590&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

All it took was eight pages, and the entire international front against Iran
has undergone a revolution.

The US intelligence report released Monday with the claim that Iran froze
its nuclear military track four years ago has Israel concerned that the
United States is weakening its strong stance against Iran that had President
George W. Bush warning that World War III would break out if the ayatollahs
got their hands on a bomb.

What the report makes even clearer are the major differences between the
various intelligence agencies in Israel and the United States.

The Mossad claims that the Iranians will be able to develop a nuclear bomb
by the end of 2009; Military Intelligence warns that Teheran will cross the
technological threshold within six months; and now the Americans are putting
the timeline toward the middle of the next decade, or 2013 at the earliest.

Defense officials in Tel Aviv admitted Tuesday that the report would
probably embolden Iran, even though the differences between Israel and the
US were
not so great as a superficial reading of the report might indicate.

The core of the disagreement is over the question of whether Iran abandoned
its military nuclear program. While the American report claims they froze
the program in 2003, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday it was highly
probable that it was restarted shortly thereafter.

Putting this disagreement aside, however, both countries are on the same
page regarding the possibility that Iran's civilian nuclear program could be
used to manufacture bombs when it is completed. Here, the date is the only
difference.

But the basic question remains: What is the true timeline? Here, as with
anything from the world of intelligence, there is no clear answer. While
there is high-level cooperation between the US and Israel on Iran, each
intelligence agency has its own sources and its own modus operandi.

Both countries are also influenced by different political agendas. The
Americans, for example, are still traumatized by the blatant intelligence
failure vis-à-vis Iraq's alleged WMD and, therefore, does not want to be
caught crying wolf again. Israel, on the other hand, is traumatized by its
failure to learn of Libya's
nuclear program before it was abandoned in a deal Col. Muammar Gaddafi
struck with the US and UK.

As a result of these traumas, both countries interpret the situation a
little differently. Israel takes the more stringent track. As one defense
official put it on Tuesday, "It is better to be safe than sorry." However,
in America, where there is an already-growing anti-war sentiment, the report
is meant to send a message that the military option is, at least for now,
off the table.

One official involved in high-level discussions about Iran raised a
hypothesis on Tuesday that the release of the report on Monday was actually
timed with an announcement made on Sunday that America had succeeded in
getting the Chinese to agree to a new round of sanctions. By taking the
military option off the table, the official suggested, the US might succeed
in getting China and Russia on board for sanctions.

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