Joshua Pollock at ArmsControlWonk.com has pointed today to a lecture by Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, which was given at Stanford University on October 21 where he provides insights as to how the Intelligence Community, by declassifying minor parts of the classified 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities (NIE) may have manipulated lawmakers for the sake of drawing the ‘right’ conclusions and act accordingly.

It comes somehow as a surprise (even for Pollock) that “the White House [had] instructed the Intelligence Community to release an unclassified version of the report’s key judgments but declined to take responsibility for ordering its release.” (Emphasis added.)

“Critics on the right and the left denounced or praised the report as a deliberate effort by the Intelligence Community – or, in many of the commentaries, by me – to derail administration plans to attack Iran. That, too, is a story for another day.

“What I want to do here is to take advantage of the fact that a small portion of the estimate was declassified (3 of about 100 pages with none of the almost 1500 source citations) making it possible for me to talk about it in public.”

But an attack of Iran in late 2007 had been imminent. Seymour Hersh has had reported already one year before on the results of C.I.A. activities which were perceived in the White House with hostility. He wrote in The New Yorker on November 27, 2006:

“The Administration’s planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House’s assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (The C.I.A. declined to comment on this story.)

“The C.I.A.’s analysis, which has been circulated to other agencies for comment, was based on technical intelligence collected by overhead satellites, and on other empirical evidence, such as measurements of the radioactivity of water samples and smoke plumes from factories and power plants. Additional data have been gathered, intelligence sources told me, by high-tech (and highly classified) radioactivity-detection devices that clandestine American and Israeli agents placed near suspected nuclear-weapons facilities inside Iran in the past year or so. No significant amounts of radioactivity were found.

“A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the C.I.A. analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it.”

It has also been reported that Vice President Dick Cheney had been outrageous when parts of the 2007 NIE were actually declassified and the public learned that Iranian had, with some confidence, not resumed their military nuclear program since 2003.

Most commentators intuitively understood the NIE’s main message that, if Iran had once found it reasonable, under its ‘reform’ president Mohammad Khatami, to halt, in response to international pressure, an existing, nuclear weapons program, diplomacy was still a valid option in 2007. In addition Fingar, in his lecture, makes the point that the NIE had also the timeline in mind, as to when Iran resumes, if it wants, the fabrication of a nuclear weapon. In the NIE, that date had been moved from late 2009 to “sometime during the 2010-2015 timeframe.” (In an updated testimony to Congress, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has further postponed the date to “not before 2013.”)

“The declassified portion of the (2007) estimate did not address how long it would take Iran to convert highly enriched uranium into a weapon but the classified text did.”

Who will get the classified version of intelligence information, which might lead to war, and who (lawmakers, the public) is put off with the declassified part is a sensitive issue. The declassified part of the 2007 NIE on Iran’s Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities has, so far, at least prevented another war in the Middle East with most probably disastrous consequences not only for the region which, as everybody knows, is a tinderbox. In that context, those who have decided to release it might have deserved the Nobel Peace Prize more than anybody else.

Fingar closes with an either naïve or cynical, anyway irrational, confidence of serving the good guys in a complicated world, beyond any democracy.

“How those judgments (in the NIE’s declassified portion) could be construed as dismissing the idea that Iranian nuclear activities were a major problem continues to mystify me, but the point I want to make here is that, in addition to many other things, the NIE gave policymakers a timeline, a sense of urgency, and possible alternative ways to address the problem. We were helping them to anticipate and shape the future.”

The government of Pakistan says it has arrested about 30 militants over the last four days, all with ties to the terrorist group blamed for last month’s attacks in Mumbai, India.

Two of those allegedly arrested are men whom the Indian government claims were masterminds of the Mumbai bombings.

The U.S. government is praising the Pakistani actions but saying more arrests should follow.

Pakistan As A Threat

Six days a week, President-elect Barack Obama gets a top secret intelligence briefing on threats to US. security. The man responsible for preparing it, until this week, was Thomas Fingar, the retiring chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

And it’s a good bet that Pakistan was mentioned in that brief just about everyday.

“Pakistan may be one of the single most challenging places on the planet,” Fingar says.

And then he starts listing some reasons for that assessment:

“The Taliban, the safe havens for terrorists, a fragile government, some would say dysfunctional government wrestling with ungoverned territories, possessing nuclear weapons, civil-military relations,” he says.

In a meeting with a few reporters about the intelligence world he’s leaving behind, it seemed Fingar could have gone on for hours about Pakistan’s problems.

These are problems that go back for years, and with last month’s bombing in Mumbai, the Pakistan challenge has grown much larger. U.S. and Indian intelligence officials say the ten terrorists known to have carried out those attacks all came from Pakistan and have ties to the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Army of the Pure.

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Thanks to Computerworld we learn that Thomas Fingar, deputy director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the body that oversees all U.S intelligence agencies, spoke this month before a gathering of intelligence analysts on ‘Global Trends 2025′,  a forecast prepared by U.S. intelligence agencies. In his remarks he discussed six emerging disruptive technologies that will have a major impact on the U.S. and the world. Health concerns, of course, are front and center.

1. Biogerontechnology involves technologies that improve lifespan. Think of Dorian Gray. If people are living longer and healthier lives, it will challenge nations to develop new economic and social policies for an older and healthier population.
2. Energy storage systems, such as fuel cells and ultracapacitors, would replace fossil fuels.
3. Crop-based biofuels and chemicals production, which will reduce gasoline dependence.
4. Clean coal technologies can improve electrical generation efficiency and reduce pollutants.
5. Robots have the potential to replace humans in a number of industries, ranging from the military to health care.
6. Internet pervasiveness will be in everyday objects, such as food packages, furniture and paper documents. It will also streamline supply chains, slash costs “and reduce dependence on human labor.”

Hegemony [hej-uh-moh-nee] – leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation.

The Washington Post reported on the upcoming report “Global Trends 2025″ by Thomas Fingar, “the U.S. intelligence community’s top analyst,” in which Fingar predicts U.S. dominance will decline in the coming decades. Fingar goes on to say that U.S. military strength “will ‘be the least significant’ asset in the increasingly competitive world of the future, because ‘nobody is going to attack us with massive conventional force.’”

“The U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will be much diminished,” Fingar said, according to a transcript of the Thursday speech. He saw U.S. leadership eroding “at an accelerating pace” in “political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas.”

In the years ahead, Washington will no longer be in a position to dictate what new global structures will look like. Nor will any other country, Fingar said. “There is no nobody in a position . . . to take the lead and institute the changes that almost certainly must be made in the international system,” he said.

The predicted shift toward a less U.S.-centric world will come at a time when the planet is facing a growing environmental crisis, caused largely by climate change, Fingar said. By 2025, droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water will plague large swaths of the globe, from northern China to the Horn of Africa.

CNN’s Farheed Zakaria makes a very good point, WaPo points out, in his book, “The Post-American World,” in which he claims that the decline in U.S. dominance is due more to the rise of other economies (China, India) than an actual slide by the U.S.

The world is in fluctuation and always will be. What this means for Republicans – especially Old School

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Republicans – who follow the “Might Makes Right” theory is that their views are growing antiquated and useless. The United States, especially under George W. Bush, has engaged in an arrogant, isolationist foreign policy that does not take into account global geopolitical currents or world opinion. McCain is obviously of the same fabric and same blind mindset. The United States must interact with and seek cooperation with foreign countries rather than spouting our view and vilifying those who disagree with us. It’s petty and unproductive.

Now we face a declining economy – which will result in a weakened military. And instead of working on new technologies, as Americans have always done, to progress our country and kick start our economy again, the Republicans are stupidly chanting “drill now, drill now.” By burying their heads in the sand and refusing to acknowledge the importance of alternative energy development, they are attempting to forfeit our future – and not just environmentally.

Alternative and clean energy development could be our next Dot BOOM, it could be our next technological breakthrough and economic stronghold. Americans have long dominated innovation and technological progress. Of the 4,222,954 patents in the world, 2,460,775 have come from the U.S. We are creatures of development – the discovery of electricity, the light bulb, the steam engine, the telephone, the television, the car, the computer – you name major technological advances in the last 200 years and the U.S. almost always has its stamp on it.

And its time we did again.

Let’s discuss our oil industry. Gas prices have risen so steeply largely due to growing global demand for oil – especially from China and India. Now that prices have slid a bit and the oil industry is learning where America’s pain threshold is in regard to oil prices – at least when we’re in an economic downturn – they will not allow prices to return to the days of cheap fuel.

Just today, OPEC decided to reduce overall output by 500,000 barrels a day to offset the recent decrease in prices – even though Ike is barreling toward the Texas coast. You see, even when prices are “outrageously” high, OPEC will still make sure that profits are maximized. So what’s the answer? Well, you saw what Republicans wanted to do.

The problem? First of all, drilling now solves nothing because we do not have the refining infrastructure to handle the increase in fuels – largely due to inattention by Washington and the whole Not In My Backyard argument. About a month ago, when a McCain spokesman (can’t remember his name, but he had ring-around-the-head and a goatee) was asked about the infrastructure issue, he said, “One problem at a time!” So, he was basically saying drill first, ask questions later. Not smart policy.

Secondly, oil companies are given leases – areas of land upon which they may drill – for around 10 years. There is plenty of hydrocarbon-rich land available to the oil companies now, but these lengthy leases reduce the competition by the oil companies and many hang on to the available land without ever drilling.

Our domestic oil companies like high prices as well and as soon as prices begin to slide because “we’re not dependent on foreign oil,” they will slow production enough to drive demand and squeeze more money from the consumer.

So, Americans are not just held hostage by oil-rich foreign countries, Americans are also held hostage by our own domestic oil companies.

But no one wants to tell you this – not Barack Obama and certainly not John McCain because they enjoy corporate donations.

What’s the answer?

Alternative, reusable, natural and clean energy. Not only does it lessen the grip oil companies have on our wallets and our economy, the entire world is in desperate need and want of alternative fuels. If we develop the technology that our global partners are clamoring for, we can not only save the environment, we can save our standing in the world.

We must not let the Right Wing – with their Big Oil cohorts – kill the most viable option we have for America’s future by closing the door to new clean energy. Furthermore, the dumbing-down of our children by the Religioners and their assault on our science classes has got to stop. We have a major fight brewing in the Texas Board of Education regarding the introduction of Creationism or at least the doubting of Evolution into our schools and I’m sure this is occuring in many other states. This will hurt America – culturally, economically and globally. Ensuring the best and brightest and most-prepared students emerge from our educational institutes should be a major priority because their actions will dictate whether our nation progresses or withers.

You want to protect America? Protect science classes, encourage serious scientific education, and support the development of clean energy.