By David Kay
One year ago I told the Senate Armed Services Committee that I had
concluded "we were almost all wrong" at the time of the Iraq war about that
country's activities with regard to weapons of mass destruction -- and never
more wrong than in the assessment that Iraq had a resurgent program on the
verge of producing nuclear weapons. I testified about what I saw as the major
reasons we got it so wrong, and I urged the establishment of an independent
commission to examine this failure and begin the long-overdue process of
adjusting our intelligence capabilities to the new national security
environment we face. It is an environment dominated by too-easy access to
weapons of mass destruction capabilities and to the means of concealing such
capabilities from international inspection and national intelligence agencies.
A year later we are still awaiting the independent commission's report. The
discussion of intelligence reform has focused on reordering and adding
structure on top of an eroded intelligence foundation. And now we hear the
drumrolls again, this time announcing an accelerating nuclear weapons program
in Iran.
There is an eerie similarity to the events preceding the Iraq war. The
International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that while Iran now admits
having concealed for 18 years nuclear activities that should have been reported
to the IAEA, it is has found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. Iran
says it is now cooperating fully with international inspections, and it denies
having anything but a peaceful nuclear energy program.
Vice President Cheney is giving interviews and speeches that paint a stark
picture of a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Iran and declaring that this is something
the Bush administration will not tolerate. Iranian exiles are providing the
press and governments with a steady stream of new "evidence" concerning Iran's
nuclear weapons activities. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned that
Iran will not be allowed to use the cover of civilian nuclear power to acquire
nuclear weapons, but says an attack on Iran is "not on the agenda at this
point." U.S. allies, while saying they share the concern over Iran's nuclear
ambitions, remain determined to pursue diplomacy and say they cannot conceive
of any circumstance that would lead them to use military force. And the press
is beginning to uncover U.S. moves that seem designed to lay the basis for
military action against Iran.
Now is the time to pause and recall what went wrong with the assessment of
Iraq's WMD program and try to avoid repeating those mistakes in Iran. Five
steps are essential.
First, accept the fact that the past cannot be undone. Iran has, by its own
admission, engaged for at least 18 years in clandestine nuclear activities that
now give it the basis, if it chooses, to pursue nuclear weapons. That knowledge
cannot be eliminated, so it is nonsense to talk about eliminating Iran's
nuclear capabilities short of war and occupation. The goal, and one that is
reachable, is to craft a set of tools and transparency measures that so tie
Iran's nuclear activities to the larger world of peaceful nuclear activities
that any attempt to push ahead on the weapons front would be detectable and
very disruptive for Iran.
Second, acknowledge that dissidents and exiles have their own agenda -- regime
change -- and that before being accepted as truth any "evidence" they might
supply concerning Iran's nuclear program must be tested and confirmed by other
sources. And those other sources should not be, as they often were in the case
of Iraq, simply other exiles, or the same information being recycled among
intelligence agencies.
Third, acknowledge what inspections by the IAEA can do, and do not denigrate
the agency for what it cannot do. International inspection, when it works, is
best at confirming whether a state is complying with its international
obligations. It is not equipped to uncover clandestine weapons programs. When
Mohamed ElBaradei says his IAEA has found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear
weapons program, he is speaking honestly as to the limitations of the powers of
his inspectors. Rather than ridiculing him and the IAEA, we should acknowledge
what they have accomplished in determining that Iran has not lived up to its
obligations and concentrate how we can use international inspections to uncover
-- more quickly, one hopes -- any future violations.
Fourth, understand that overheated rhetoric from policymakers and senior
administration officials, unsupported by evidence that can stand international
scrutiny, undermines the ability of the United State to halt Iran's nuclear
activities. Having gone to the Security Council on the basis of flawed evidence
to "prove" Iraq's WMD activities, it only invites derision to cite
unsubstantiated exile reports to "prove" that Iran is developing nuclear
weapons.
Fifth, a National Intelligence Estimate as to Iran's nuclear activities should
not be a rushed and cooked document used to justify the threat of military
action. Now is the time for serious analysis that genuinely tries to pull
together all the evidence and analytical skills of the vast U.S. intelligence
community to reach the best possible judgment on the status of that program and
the gaps in our knowledge. That assessment should not be led by a team that is
trying to prove a case for its boss. Now is the time to reach outside the
secret brotherhood and pull in respected outsiders to lead the assessment.
Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran would be a grave danger to the world.
That is not what is in doubt. What is in doubt is the ability to the U.S.
government to honestly assess Iran's nuclear status and to craft a set of
measures that will cope with that threat short of military action by the United
States or Israel.
The writer was the first leader of the Iraq Survey Group searching for
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He resigned a year ago.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company