Brief note on leaked Iran BDA report
If it's right, it's just a lucky guess; meanwhile the leak is political
I despise leaks by government employees that are not designed to expose government wrongdoing.
Therefore, I despise the apparent leak today of what’s claimed to be a Top Secret analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency claiming that the US attacks on the Iranian nuclear facilities only set back the Islamofascists’ nuclear program by a few months.
Just a few quick things to say:
The most likely reason to leak this is to embarrass the president, an entirely political act
The second-most likely reason to leak this would be to encourage Israel and the US to attack Iran again, again a political act though from a very different political viewpoint than someone who would do #1
Whoever leaked this should be found and imprisoned, not because of harm to the nation (since the leak is basically harmless although good political fodder for Democrats), but to disincentivize this behavior. Again, I’m fine with leaks that are exposing corruption or fraud or malfeasance. But not leaks designed either to embarrass or to change policy.
When President Trump announced after the bombing that the nuclear sites were “totally destroyed” and “obliterated”, he had no way to know if that was true.
The people who put together the current report have no way to know if it’s true that they weren’t totally destroyed.
An Israeli guest on CNN earlier this afternoon (Barak Ravid) — a guy with great connections in Israeli intelligence, military intelligence, etc — said that Israeli intelligence has determined that it’s too early to ascertain the damage from the strikes, not least because Iran themselves haven’t even started to try to determine it.
Therefore, Trump could be right about “obliterated” and the DIA report (if that’s what it really is) could be right that we only set their program back by months, but in either case it will be an accident, a coincidence, because neither has enough information to make a guess with high confidence.
Trump always says that everything he does was maximally awesome. It rarely is. But this really isn’t about him and it isn’t about something we can currently ascertain or measure. His comments are pure Trumpian bluster. I don’t know if anybody really takes Trump seriously with comments like that; a few slow learners probably do. And of course, Trump is a politician and will say political things. Intelligence agencies must not behave politically; whether this was leaked by a Trump hater (most likely) or someone who wants us to attack Iran more (less likely), it’s wildly inappropriate and illegal. And whether the report is right or Trump is right, these two claims are not like each other.
“Pure Trumpian bluster”. So we really are at a point that we just accept that? Seems more like malfeasance to me. His constant “bluster” is an enemy to the truth. As you often discuss most republicans believe him.