The recent NIE report stinks

Maybe it is supposed to smell.

The recent release of the unclassified executive summary of the NIE about Iran never seemed right to many. That it gave up or pointed to obvious sources is most disturbing, if correct. People’s lives are at risk in Iran. Things may be bad in D.C., but are they that bad?

Yet we may be observing and even participating in a brilliant plan, either on purpose or by accident. Conspiracy nuts of the left and right will be in their element. Here’s an example. Whom ever leaked the sources of the NIE (not included in the unclassified version) to the New York Times probably had incorrect info fed to them, and others, so the sources could be traced back later. And they can be prosecuted, using the incorrect data since it is made up unclassified data. This should get around many prosecutor’s reluctance to prosecute if it means giving up classified means and resources. And even if we don’t prosecute, leakers will know an active campaign to catch them is underway and hanging over their heads, and a whole group should clam up*. Meanwhile on the Iran end, a small group of Iranians have had intimations of disloyalty or poor information discipline cast upon them by the New York Times, and be suspect forever more. Again, maybe right, or maybe wrong. Maybe they are mullahs, maybe they are IRGC. The Iranian counter intel types will be forever watching them, and maybe even reduce their effectiveness. Since the corrupt mullahs and their private army, the IRGC, is a center of gravity in Iran, much harm has already occurred there.

The most basic intelligence methods include levels of stories about any thing classified. So a level 2 person read into a classified program may be told a plausible story that, if the level 2 person later blabs, will think is the truth and sow further confusion. And none of this has to be right. People just have to think it might be right. And there is only one real reason for anything to occur…but there are many good reasons for things to occur. Hence the combinations and permutations of stories and effects coming out of the NIE are just enormous. And while all this probably has been gamed out in advance, in the end it is still a free-play exercise initiated in D.C. and reflects well on so many in our executive and congress working together, whether correct or not **.

How many get to be in an off Broadway show of sorts, with many playing roles without even knowing it. Who knows? Time will tell, maybe.

*The same effect works in other ways. The raids by authorities on illegal immigrants working in plants in Ohio, Kentucky, and out west, seems to have “changed the demographics” here in rural Monterey, Tennessee with its large chicken plant. My hat is off to those authorities in the other states.

** We Americans are sharp, too. And counter intel works both ways. We Americans are always ready.