Vice President Cheney, with high confidence
Vice President Cheney gave an interview to three former Washington Post reporters from Politico, which has published an account under the heading "Cheney bashes top Democrats." As you might expect, it's all interesting. Here is Cheney on the NIE, with respect to which I assess with high confidence that he is being tactful:
Cheney said he has no reason to question the intelligence released this week showing that Iran is not an imminent nuclear threat, putting him at odds with conservatives such as former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, a presidential candidate, and others who have raised doubts or disputed the findings.Like my assessment of his tact, Cheney's assessment that the NIE would have leaked was made with high confidence.“I don’t have any reason to question what the [intelligence] community has produced,” he said. “Now, there are things they don’t know. There’s always the possibility that circumstances will change. But I think they’ve done the best job they can with the intelligence that’s available.”
However, the vice president said the administration remains “concerned” about Iran’s enrichment activities
“We still think there’s a need to continue the course we’ve been on to persuade the Iranians not to enrich uranium,” he said.
“The long pole in the tent in terms of developing nuclear weapons, traditionally, historically, has been developing fissile material, either highly enriched uranium or plutonium. In this case, they’re embarked upon the program to develop uranium, obviously.”
Asked how badly the National Intelligence Estimate would complicate the administration’s strategic objectives, the vice president replied: “We don’t get to say we only pursue those policies if they’re easy. It’s very important, I think, and the president clearly does, that we proceed down the road of trying to persuade Iran diplomatically to give up their efforts to enrich uranium. That has not changed. There’s nothing in the NIE that said we should be — not be concerned about their enrichment activities.”
Cheney said the assessment was released because “there was a general belief that we all shared that it was important to put it out — that it was not likely to stay classified for long, anyway,” he said.
Cheney said that “especially in light of what happened with respect to Iraq and the NIE on weapons of destruction,” officials wanted to be “upfront with what we knew.”
He said he agreed that was “the right call.” So he thought it might leak? “Everything leaks,” he said with a chuckle.
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