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Another NIE to Embarrass Bush: CIA reveals '74 Re****t on Israeli Nuke
Weapons
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Haaretz - Jan 11, 2008
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/943729.html
CIA reveals: We said in 1974 that Israel had nuclear weapons
By Amir Oren
The Central Intelligence Agency, backed by bodies including the State
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Defense
Intelligence Agency, determined in August 1974 that Israel had nuclear
"weapons in being," a "small number" of which it "produced and
stockpiled."
Israel was also suspected of providing nuclear materials, equipment or
technology to Iran, South Africa and other then-friendly countries.
This top secret do***ent, consigned to the CIA's vaults for almost 32
years, was suddenly released to the public this week, during U.S.
President George W. Bush's visit to Israel and on the eve of his trip
to the Persian Gulf.
A small part of the do***ent was released in early 2006 under a Freedom
of Information Request placed by scholars Avner Cohen and William Burr,
but only as an attachment to a 1975 State Department paper ostensibly
disputing the the ****trayal of Israel's nuclear weapons as a fact.
This served the Department of State's effort to avoid addressing
Israel's nuclear status in response to a query by Congressman Alan
Steelman.
The Department of State, led in this exercise by officials Joseph
Sisco, Alfred (Roy) Atherton and Harold Saunders, tried to depict the
1974 Special National Intelligence *****ment, "Prospects for further
proliferation of nuclear weapons," as a CIA project, while in fact it
was an agency-wide effort that included its own intelligence chief,
William Hyland, as a senior member of the board that agreed to the
conclusions.
The CIA was asked yesterday via e-mail about the strange coincidence of
the do***ent's release a mere month after the publication of its
awkwardly worded NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program. It did not
respond by deadline.
The issue of an American double standard regarding the nuclear
activities of Israel and Iran often comes up when senior American
officials visit the Gulf, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates did last
month.
In both the original 1974 do***ent and the 1975 State Department paper
(in which it was retyped), the entire intelligence community
determined, "Israel already has produced nuclear weapons." This
analysis was based on "Israeli acquisition of large quantities of
uranium," in part covertly; on Israel's ambiguous efforts to enrich
uranium; and on the huge investment in the "Jericho" surface-to-surface
missile "designed to accommodate nuclear warheads." Short of a grave
threat to the nation's existence, Israel was not expected to confirm
its suspected capability "by nuclear testing or by threats of use."
While Israel's nuclear weapons "cannot be proven beyond a shadow of
doubt," several bodies of information point strongly toward a program
stretching back over a number of years, the do***ent states.
The 1974 do***ent describes the Jericho project, from its inception in
France through its migration to Israel to the replacement of the
original inertial guidance system by an Israeli design "based on
components produced in Israel under licenses from U.S. companies."
Israel Aircraft Industries is responsible for the development of the
missile and has constructed a number of facilities for production and
testing north of Tel Aviv, near Haifa, at Ramle and nearby it "a
missile assembly and checkout plant."
On Iran, the 1974 NIE said, "there is no doubt of the Shah's ambition
to make Iran a power to reckon with. If he is alive in the mid-80's, if
Iran has a full-fledged nuclear power industry and all the facilities
necessary for nuclear weapons, and if other countries have proceeded
with weapons development, we have no doubt that Iran will follow suit."
The Shah's ouster in 1979 (and death a year later) apparently slowed
down Iran's nuclear project.
The authors of the NIE wrote that the U.S. helped France expedite its
nuclear program, France in turn helped Israel, and much like France and
India, Israel, "while unlikely to foster proliferation as a matter of
national policy, probably will prove susceptible to the hue of economic
and political advantages to be gained from ex****ting materials,
technology and equipment relevant to nuclear weapons programs."
*
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