There is no “now appears” about it, the 2007 NIE was known to be a lie from the start…for the gory details, see the above subject book:

Chapter 1: Three Blind Mice – The Untold Story of Bureaucratic Betrayal on Iran

…and the guilty parties are Vann Van Diepen, Thomas Fingar, and Kenneth Brill. No doubt they are all drawing even bigger government paychecks under the current administration…probably Czars of something or another.

Shameless Ntrepid plug: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2009/01/03/january-presidential-to-do-list-pardon-van-diepen-fingar-and-brill%e2%80%a6then-fire-them/

Ntrepid
Proud Member for 5 Years and 1 Month

Back in the day of Redstate platforms since replaced, I cited several pieces by Thomas Joscelyn while engaged in similar discussions regarding our national security and Iran.

One in particular pre-dates the 2007 NIE, and it’s a wealth of background information. I think you’ll find it beneficial.

Iran’s Proxy War Against America (pdf)

Note: Neither Iran, nor Russia have even the slightest intention to halt Iran’s nuclear weapon programs and delivery capabilities.

Iran is a very large country and until we entered Iraq and Afghanistan we did not have a foothold in the region upon which to launch attacks. I believe that the Bush administration thought that if we surrounded Iran that they would feel pressured to mend their ways. However, the first rule of trying to use military pressure is that the threat must be credible.

Our military threat has not be credible. Iran knows that to effectively eliminate them as a threat would take ground troops–troops that we just do not have (or do not want to devote such a large percentage to one part of the world) Thanks to the cuts to our troops levels at the “end of the cold war” and Donald Rumsfeld’s view of a “small, light, and mobile army”, our small army was not a credible threat to Iran.

And now Iran tests our will and the will of the free world.

Caspar Weinberger’s Six points:
1) Either the United States’ or its close allies’ vital national interests had to be at risk;
2) The war had to be fought “wholeheartedly, with the clear intention of winning”;
3)We should employ decisive force in the pursuit of clearly defined political and military objectives;
4)We must constantly reassess whether the use of force is necessary and appropriate;
5)There must be a “reasonable assurance” of Congressional and public support;
6)Force should be used only as a last resort

Excerpt from Middle East Quarterly interview with Caspar Weinberger:

Military Capabilities
MEQ: You have said that “The U.S. force that defeated Saddam Husayn no longer exists. What we have today is a military that is a shadow of its former self.”2 Do you worry that the drawdown of U.S. military forces has left the military unprepared for conflict?

Weinberger: Oh yes, very, very much so. I disagree strongly with the reassuring words from the Joint Chiefs to the president and the Congress that we can fight and win two major regional conflicts fought simultaneously. In fact, we would have trouble winning one; Kosovo is at the moment not even a major conflict—and we’re having enough trouble there. We’ve got a third of our airforce committed there now and have stripped the carriers out of the Pacific to the point that we have none left there at all. This encourages people like Saddam Husayn, who probably keeps a close eye on these things, to believe he can get away with what Slobodan Milosevic is doing, and without punishment.

We no longer have the air and sea lift to mount an operation such as the Gulf War, thanks to a roughly three-year procurement holiday during which we have not added new planes, ships, artillery pieces, or tanks. Nor are things getting better; headlines you see about increased military spending by $7 billion are not so. None of it will be used to strengthen the forces, only to make up for the constant drain that the enormously heavy operational tempo in the Balkans is causing; maintenance and operation costs are very, very, high.

We do not have the size force that is needed. Instead of eighteen army divisions, we have ten divisions, and even they are not filled out but require a mobilization of the National Guard and the Reserve.

http://www.meforum.org/484/caspar-weinberger-let-a-muslim-army-occupy-iraq

Come on, doing this NIE is a farce. Anyone who thinks that all of our intelligence needs to be made public is a joke. And anyone who relies on a public document to contain all that we know is a joke. This, Obama was (and is) a joke. I am waiting for apologies to the Bush adminstration from all the leftists who criticized back in 2007. Anyone with half a working brain knew Iran active.

I guess the key word is ‘Estimate”.