CALIFORNIA YANKEE

President Bush To Veto Defense Policy Bill

President Bush will veto the U.S. defense policy bill because it would derail Iraq's efforts to rebuild its country:

Mr. Bush's action, which apparently caught congressional leaders off guard, centers on one provision in the legislation dealing with Iraqi assets. The legislation would permit plaintiffs' lawyers immediately to freeze Iraqi funds and would expose Iraq to "massive liability in lawsuits concerning the misdeeds of the Saddam Hussein regime," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

"The new democratic government of Iraq, during this crucial period of reconstruction, cannot afford to have its funds entangled in such lawsuits in the United States," Stanzel said in a statement.

Congress passed the defense bill two weeks ago.

The bill does not send money to the Pentagon, but authorizes $696 billion in military spending, including $189 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the 2008 budget year. It aims to provide more help to troops returning from war and set conditions on contractors and pricey weapons programs.

The bill would authorize a 3.5 percent pay raise for service members. It would also guarantee that combat veterans receive mental health evaluations within 30 days of their request and prohibit fee increases to the military's health care system.

In one provision likely to be costly, troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are guaranteed three more years of Veterans Affairs health care after being discharged.

The Democratic led Congress also used the bill to try and micro manage the nation's ballistic missile defense program. Congress authorized about $331 million less than requested for missile defense and restricted the money from being used to deploy missile defense radar in Poland and the Czech Republic until Congress received an independent assessment of the program.

That's the way the Democratic led Congress punishes Russia for providing sophisticated air defense weapons to and Syria, not to mention providing nuclear fuel for 's Bushehr nuclear power facility.

Strengthened By NIE

Meir Javedanfar writes that hope of a strong united international front against is gone, after the NIE gave state sponsor of terrorism a clean bill of health regarding nuclear weapons:

It is one thing when the IAEA gives positive points for being “generally truthful about its past.” After all, many argue that the IAEA is a toothless bureaucratic organization, at the mercy of different governments and their political agendas.

But when the multi-billion dollar US intelligence machine declares halted its nuclear weapons program back in 2003, then as far as many Middle Eastern countries are concerned, the “danger” label has been taken off ’s nuclear program.

Although many Sunni countries are worried about Tehran’s activities in Iraq and Lebanon, they were more worried about the prospects of war between Washington and Tehran. Now that this danger has dissipated, it is likely that even more countries in the region will decide to engage , as means of influencing its strategy and behavior in the Middle East. This will make the job of imposing sanctions against much more difficult than before.

It will also enable to come out of regional isolation, thus ruining all the celebration that took place in Washington and Jerusalem following the Annapolis show of solidarity.

In just one document, in which incendiary conclusions are misrepresented and not supported by the substance of the report and which some suggest was artfully written to damage President Bush, the writers have managed to undo years and years of effort to contain the world's leading state sponsor of terror and its nuclear ambitions.

This will only embolden . A more confident and less vilified is more likely to continue to engage in activities which will make war more likely.

Related:
Changing Our View Of
Spying and Policymaking Don't Mix

Spying and Policymaking Don't Mix

Henry A. Kissinger has an important article in the Washington Post about misreading the report and the recent tendency of the intelligence community to turn itself into a kind of check on the executive branch:

The "Key Judgments" released by the intelligence community last week begin with a dramatic assertion: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." This sentence was widely interpreted as a challenge to the Bush administration policy of mobilizing international pressure against alleged ian nuclear programs. It was, in fact, qualified by a footnote whose complex phraseology obfuscated that the suspension really applied to only one aspect of the ian nuclear weapons program (and not even the most significant one): the construction of warheads. That qualification was not restated in the rest of the document, which continued to refer to the "halt of the weapons program" repeatedly and without qualification.

The reality is that the concern about ian nuclear weapons has had three components: the production of fissile material, the development of missiles and the building of warheads. Heretofore, production of fissile material has been treated as by far the greatest danger, and the pace of ian production of fissile material has accelerated since 2006. So has the development of missiles of increasing range. What appears to have been suspended is the engineering aimed at the production of warheads.

The NIE holds that may be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by the end of 2009 and, with increasing confidence, more warheads by the period 2010 to 2015. That is virtually the same timeline as was suggested in the 2005 National Intelligence Estimate.

[. . .]

It is therefore doubtful that the evidence supports the dramatic language of the summary and, even less so, the broad conclusions drawn in much of the public commentary.

[. . .]

I have often defended the dedicated members of the intelligence community. This is why I am extremely concerned about the tendency of the intelligence community to turn itself into a kind of check on, instead of a part of, the executive branch. When intelligence personnel expect their work to become the subject of public debate, they are tempted into the roles of surrogate policymakers and advocates. Thus the deputy director for intelligence estimates explained the release of the NIE as follows: Publication was chosen because the estimate conflicted with public statements by top U.S. officials about , and "we felt it was important to release this information to ensure that an accurate presentation is available." That may explain releasing the facts but not the sources and methods that have been flooding the media. The paradoxical result of the trend toward public advocacy is to draw intelligence personnel more deeply than ever into the public maelstrom.

Read the whole thing. Consider it required reading.

Related: Changing Our View Of

Changing Our View Of

Richard Fernandez writes a grown up post about the NIE and ian Intentions:

Those worried the recent NIE is wrong in estimating that is no longer pursuing a nuclear weapons program have grounds to worry. Intelligence assessments are often wrong. That may not accord with the glamorous movie portrayals of spies and espionage, but that's how it is.

A list of historical intelligence failures makes depressing reading.

[. . .]

Whether we like it or not, there are limits to what intelligence can know at any one time. The inescapable uncertainties may make it impossible to decide the status of ’s nuclear program "once and for all". As in the case of the Soviet Union changes in the situation and leadership happen all the time. Honest analysts must keep revising the picture as new information comes to light. While Washington politics describes any change in intelligence estimates as examples of ‘lying’ or incompetence the plain fact is that altering assessments is endemic to the process. An unchanging intelligence picture is a wrong picture. Changing your mind is a natural thing to do.

What’s needed is a way to keep improving the picture with each successive measurement. Bruce Blair, a former Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, notes that as long as “changing one’s mind” is done scientifically using a mathematical tool called Bayes’ analysis, the result is a more accurate intelligence estimate.

Bayes' analysis is often called the science of changing one’s mind. The mental process begins with an initial estimate – a preexisting belief – of the probability that, say, an adversary possesses weapons of mass destruction, or that an attack by those weapons is underway. This initial subjective expectation is then exposed to confirming or contradictory intelligence or warning reports, and is revised using Bayes' formula. Positive findings strengthen the decisionmaker's belief that weapons of mass destruction exist or that an attack is underway; negative findings obviously weaken it. … it is quite possible for the intelligence findings to be wildly off the mark for 10 or more cycles of assessment before settling down and converging on the truth.

[. . .]

The key to achieving a "convergence" between fact and perception is repeated measurement. In plain words intelligence agencies must repeatedly measure and re-measure until they are convinced what they are seeing is "true".

Read the whole thing.

Fernandez's analysis is all the more important considering the fact that Israeli and British intelligence disagree with the new NIE.

Hitler Lives

I've been comparing ian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler for years. It's a well-deserved comparison. So I was delighted to hear Columbia University President Bollinger tell Ahmadinejad that the Hitler wannabee exhibits "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," and question the ian leader's record on human rights and his statements that the Holocaust was a myth.

I also found myself largely in agreement with my esteemed RedState colleague, Pejman Yousefzadeh, who writes that it is good that Ahmadinejad was forced to deal with boos, hisses, denunciations and derisive laughter in response to his propaganda and lies. Nevertheless, Reuters reports the ian tyrant got his talking points in:

Ahmadinejad also insisted in a forum at Columbia University 's nuclear program was purely peaceful. Challenged over his past comments that Israel should be wiped off the map and questioning the Holocaust, he said his concern was why the Palestinians were suffering.

[. . .]

Bollinger asked a string of tough questions, most of which Ahmadinejad ignored in a 30-minute speech which dwelt at length on science as a gift from God and the importance of using knowledge and learning purely and in a pious way.

Answering questions about his views on the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad said there were no absolutes in academia, and "a different perspective" was necessary given the impact on the Middle East of those events.

"I'm not saying that it didn't happen at all," he said. "I said, granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people."

Ahmadinejad also rejected criticism of human rights in his country, notably persecution of homosexuals: "In we don't have homosexuals like in your country," he said, sparking loud laughter from the audience. "In we do not have this phenomenon. I do not know who has told you we have it."

Providing the ian the Columbia soapbox lends the junior Hitler more legitimacy for his poison and admirers.

Bollinger and John Coatsworth, Columbia's interim dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, defended Columbia's invitation to Ahmadinejad, saying it would provide a forum for free speech and healthy debate. The event did provide a forum for Ahmadinejad, but there was no debate, there was merely an exchange of insults and a recitation of ian propaganda. Wherefore, I respectfully disagree with Pejman and submit that it was not a good thing that Columbia provided the evil madman from a now diminished but still valued, at least by Ahmadinejad, platform.

You can watch Bollinger's introductory tongue lashing of Ahmadinejad in this video:

Israeli Commandos Snatch Korean Nuclear Material

The Times of London reports that prior to the Israeli air raid on Syria's secret military compound near Dayr az-Zawr, Israeli commandos seized samples of nuclear material and laboratory analysis confirmed that the material was North Korean in origin.

ISRAELI commandos from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit – almost certainly dressed in Syrian uniforms – made their way stealthily towards a secret military compound near Dayr az-Zawr in northern Syria. They were looking for proof that Syria and North Korea were collaborating on a nuclear programme.

Israel had been surveying the site for months, according to Washington and Israeli sources. President George W Bush was told during the summer that Israeli intelligence suggested North Korean personnel and nuclear-related material were at the Syrian site.

Israel was determined not to take any chances with its neighbour. Following the example set by its raid on an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak 1981, it drew up plans to bomb the Syrian compound.

But Washington was not satisfied. It demanded clear evidence of nuclear-related activities before giving the operation its blessing. The task of the commandos was to provide it.

Today the site near Dayr az-Zawr lies in ruins after it was pounded by Israeli F15Is on September 6. Before the Israelis issued the order to strike, the commandos had secretly seized samples of nuclear material and taken them back into Israel for examination by scientists, the sources say. A laboratory confirmed that the unspecified material was North Korean in origin. America approved an attack.

A note of caution here. One of the reporters, Uzi Mahnaimi, once reported that Israel was working on a bioweapon that would affect Arab genes only.

According to the Times, Israel's attack on the “North Korean project” is part of a secret war against the weapons of mass destruction ambitions of the “axis of evil” - - Syria, North Korea and .

A number of North Koreans are believed to have been killed in the air raid:

Diplomats in North Korea and China said they believed a number of North Koreans were killed in the raid, noting that ballistic missile technicians and military scientists had been working for some time with the Syrians.

[. . .]

The growing assumption that North Korea suffered direct casualties in the raid appears to be based largely on the regime’s unusually strident propaganda on an issue far from home. But there were also indications of conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials and intelligence reports reaching Asian governments that supported the same conclusion, diplomats said.

Last week, Jane's Defence Weekly, reported dozens of ian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 explosion in Syria. According Jane's, a joint Syrian-ian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a Scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas.

Syria's promise to to retaliate for the September 6 air raid is being taken seriously. Israel has made it clear that it will retaliate if it is attacked with weapons of mass destruction. Israel scrambled fighter jets toward Syria twice in the last few days. While Israelis were observing Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, police foiled a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv.

The New York Times reports that John Bolton suggests that the Israeli strike vindicates his view that Syria is actively pursuing a nuclear program, which was at the center of the 2005 fight over his nomination of to become ambassador to the United Nations.

The Israeli strike against Syria is a reminder that the "New Axis of Evil" remains a serious and determined group of state sponsors of terror. A fact which eludes the Democrats' Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

More at Blue Crab Boulevard, Hot Air and Patterico's Pontifications.

Israel Attacks Nuclear Material In Syria

Remember those reports 10 days ago that Israeli aircraft had overflown Syria and were forced to drop fuel tanks and skedaddle when Syrian air defenses engaged the Israelis?

Last week American officials confirmed that Israeli warplanes had attacked inside Syria:

A Defense Department official said Israeli jets had struck at least one target in northeastern Syria last Thursday, but the official said it was still unclear exactly what the jets hit and the extent of the bombing damage.

[. . .]

Officials in Washington said that the most likely targets of the raid were weapons caches that Israel’s government believes has been sending the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah through Syria. and Syria are Hezbollah’s primary benefactors, and American intelligence officials say a steady flow of munitions from runs through Syria and into Lebanon.

According to the New York Times, Israeli officials believe that North Korea is selling some of its nuclear material to and Syria.

Today the Sunday Times reports that the Israeli air strike destroyed a cache of nuclear materials:

IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.

At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.

Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.

The Times reports preparations for the attack began in late spring, when the Mossad, learned that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea. Israel feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles:

We’ve known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds, but Israel can’t live with a nuclear warhead.

Syria has purchased between 60 and 120 Scud-C missiles from North Korea.

The Israeli air strike again puts the world on notice that Israel will not dither indefinitely while the rest of the world watches diplomacy fail to solve the problem of terrorist states, such as and Syria pursue nuclear programs. The attack also demonstrates that the vaunted air defense systems Russia sold to Syria and aren't as effective as advertised.

Is anyone else wondering if the Israeli attack was against Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction?

UPDATE: Newsweek suggests that Israel's Syrian raid is warning for 's nuclear program:

"It's a tacit reminder to Europe and to Washington that if they don't take a tougher action against , Israel may have to do it alone," says Avner Cohen, a nuclear expert and a senior fellow at the United States Institute for Peace.

[. . .]

For Israel, the possibility of a nuclear-armed adversary might have been enough to warrant the operation. Officially in a state of war with Syria—and —Israel has vowed to let neither country obtain nukes (though Israel itself is believed to have built at least 200 nuclear bombs in its secret Dimona plant).

The Guardian goes further calling the Syrian raid a dry run for an attack against 's nuclear facilities:

Two detachable tanks from an Israeli fighter were found just over the Turkish border. According to Turkish military sources, they belonged to a Raam F15I - the newest generation of Israeli long-range bomber, which has a combat range of over 2,000km when equipped with the drop tanks. This would enable them to reach targets in , leading to speculation that it was an 'operation rehearsal' for a raid on Tehran's nuclear facilities.

[. . .]

So Operation Orchard can be seen as a dry run, a raid using the same heavily modified long-range aircraft, procured specifically from the US with 's nuclear sites in mind. It reminds both and Syria of the supremacy of its aircraft and appears to be designed to deter Syria from getting involved in the event of a raid on - a reminder, if it were required, that if Israel's ground forces were humiliated in the second Lebanese war its airforce remains potent, powerful and unchallenged.

At Captain's Quarters, Ed Morrissey writes that Syrian nukes would result in an immediate war with Israel which could involve the U.S.

More at Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller Atlas Shrugged, Blue Crab Boulevard, and Strata-Sphere,

Israel Stands Alone

Daniel Pipes writes that President Bush has decided not to attack , which leaves only Israel to disrupt 's nuclear program.

Pipes considers the analysis of Whitney Raas and Austin Long "Osirak Redux? Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy ian Nuclear Facilities." Raas and Long consider five components of a successful strike:

• Intelligence: To impede the production of fissile material requires incapacitating only three facilities of 's nuclear infrastructure. In ascending order of importance, these are the heavy water plant and plutonium production reactors under construction at Arak, a uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, and a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Destroying the Natanz facility, in particular, they note, "is critical to impeding 's progress toward nuclearization."

• Ordnance: To damage all three facilities with reasonable confidence requires — given their size, their being underground, the weapons available to the Israeli forces, and other factors — twenty-four 5,000-lb. weapons and twenty-four 2,000-lb. weapons.

• Platforms: Noting the "odd amalgamation of technologies" available to the ians and the limitations of their fighter planes and ground defenses to stand up to the high-tech Israeli air force, Ms. Raas and Mr. Long calculate that the IDF needs a relatively small strike package of 25 F–15Is and 25 F–16Is.

• Routes: Israeli jets can reach their targets via three paths: Turkey to the north, Jordan and Iraq in the middle, or Saudi Arabia to the south. In terms of fuel and cargo, the distances in all three cases are manageable.

• Defense forces: Rather than predict the outcome of an Israeli-ian confrontation, the authors calculate how many Israeli planes would have to reach their three targets for the operation to succeed. They figure 24 planes must reach Natanz, six to Isfahan, and five to Arak, or 35 altogether. Turned around, that means the ian defenders minimally must stop 16 of 50 planes, or one-third of the strike force. The authors consider this attrition rate "considerable" for Natanz and "almost unimaginable" for the other two targets.

Osirak Redux is available here in PDF format.

Raas and Long conclude that the Israeli Air Force possesses the technical capability to carry out an attack to destroy even well-hardened targets in with some degree of confidence. That leaves the question as to whether Israel, unlike the U.S., has the political will to do it.

Two Years Away From Nuclear Weapon

could have enough material for a nuclear bomb by 2009. In the last three months, has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium. The increased production is taking place at 's nuclear enrichment plant outside the city of Natanz, in a hardened facility 70 feet underground.

"If they continue at this pace, and they get the centrifuges to work and actually enrich uranium on a distinct basis," said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, "then you're looking at them having, potentially having enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 2009."

is expanding its enrichment program at a pace much faster than U.S. intelligence experts had predicted. U.S. intelligence had estimated 2015 as the earliest date could develop a weapon.

Few took ian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seriously when he predicted his country would have 3,000 centrifuges installed by this May. Now Mr. Albright is surprised:

"I think we have all been caught off guard. Ahmadinejad said they would have these 3,000 installed by the end of May, and it appears they may actually do it," Albright said.

He shouldn't be. It's well past the time when the world should take at its word. Ahmadinejad has said time and time again that there is nothing anyone can do to stop 's nuclear ambitions.

Thanks in large measure to Russian and Chinese support for , United Nations sanctions and Security Council condemnations have little chance of deterring the Mullahocracy from nuclear ambitions.

's defiance of the world's efforts to thwart the ian Mullahs' nuclear ambitions, coupled with 's stubborn pursuit of its nuclear program leaves us a stark choice. To continue to dither on and accept a nuclear armed or to do something that will actually prevent a nuclear armed .

Senator John McCain sums it up well, "There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed ."

After all of Ahmadinejad's Hitler-like comments calling for Israel's destruction, can be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons?

Biden Would Impeach President Bush

Presidential wannabee, Delaware Senator Joe Biden, told a crowd of 350 at Dartmouth yesterday, that he'd impeach President Bush:

Speaking about foreign policy in , Biden declared his intention to impeach the president if he started an unjustified war with .

How could there be an unjustified war against a nation which is not only a charter member of the state sponsors of terrorism, but has been sanctioned by the United Nations for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, and never misses a chance to state that there is nothing anyone can do to make the ian Mullahocracy give up its nuclear ambitions?