Thursday, March 01, 2007

blunt object, meet forehead.

Let me get this straight:

We (the U.S.) had an Agreed Framework with North Korea regarding the development of nuclear weapons via plutonium.

For five years, the current administration has believed that the nutcase on lifts over in Pyongyang was violating the agreement by enriching uranium. We got pissy, and who wouldn't, when you're pretty damn sure they're violating the agreement?

Now, well, maybe those uranium efforts weren't as far along as we thought, per the NYT:

The disclosure underscores broader questions about the ability of intelligence agencies to discern the precise status of foreign weapons programs. The original assessment about North Korea came during the same period that the administration was building its case about Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs, which turned out to be based on flawed intelligence. And the new North Korea assessment comes amid debate over intelligence about Iran’s weapons.

The public revelation of the intelligence agencies’ doubts, which have been brewing for some time, came almost by happenstance. In a little-noticed exchange on Tuesday at a hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joseph DeTrani, a longtime intelligence official, told Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island that “we still have confidence that the program is in existence — at the mid-confidence level.” Under the intelligence agencies’ own definitions, that level “means the information is interpreted in various ways, we have alternative views” or it is not fully corroborated.

As Robert Farley at Tapped puts it: "Morons. We have morons on our team."

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