World War III delayed by spook nuke rebuke

Between college football chaos and baby preparations, I haven't had much time to follow the news lately, but the big story from a couple days ago is that Iran apparently isn't going nuclear after all, at least not as imminently as we feared:

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran is likely keeping its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies “do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.”

Iran is continuing to produce enriched uranium, a program that the Tehran government has said is designed for civilian purposes. The new estimate says that enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, a timetable essentially unchanged from previous estimates.

But the new estimate declares with “high confidence” that a military-run Iranian program intended to transform that raw material into a nuclear weapon has been shut down since 2003, and also says with high confidence that the halt “was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure.”

The estimate does not say when American intelligence agencies learned that the weapons program had been halted, but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public “since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed.”

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.” The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

I haven't read much of anything in the way of commentary on this, so I can only assume that the right is spinning this as "Iran is still a threat, those intelligence guys are a bunch of liberal ninnies anyway" and the left is spinning it as "See! See! We told you! Bush lies! It's a rush to war!" But if anyone can point me to some actually insightful commentary on the issue, I'd certainly be interested in reading it.

Personally, my initial take is that, first of all, this report, if accurate, is obviously a good thing, notwithstanding the fact that it gives Mad Mahmoud an opportunity to declare "victory" (he's kind of a cheap date, ain't he?), because Iran without nukes > Iran with nukes, and also, no war > war. It's only if those two equations come into conflict that we have a major problem, and this report -- particularly the part I boldfaced in the last blockquoted paragraph -- seems to suggest that maybe, just maybe, they might not come into conflict after all.

Also, frankly, even if we still have to eventually confront Iran over its nuclear ambitions (or about something else), it would be far better if we can wait until the president is no longer named Bush. He's damaged goods both internationally and domestically, and his incompetent administration has generally proven incapable of successfully carrying out its objectives even when those objectives are correct. So even delaying a confrontation would be a good thing, in my mind (provided that the delay doesn't worsen the problem, obviously), though obviously not as good as avoiding it altogether.

Secondly, the release of this report is actually a major rebuke to the "Bush lied" crowd. If the administration was the evil, soulless, fascist warmongering machine that so many on the left believe it is, then how did this report even get released? It sure throws a monkey wrench into the "Bush's rush to war" narrative when the president's own administration is releasing reports (with a big media splash, no less) that discredit said alleged rush. And if you want to respond that "Bush doesn't control these people," that rather seriously complicates the argument that he muzzled them in the run-up to Iraq. Either the spooks are his puppets or they're not, and if they're not, they must have actually believed the faulty intelligence on Iraq's WMD, no? In which case, Bush didn't lie! Either way, the release of this report almost seems to suggest that most people in the administration (possibly even including the president!) actually, you know, care about the facts, and are motivated by a genuine desire to do the right thing (leaving aside the separate question of whether that desire is misguided in a given instance), rather than by a motivation to take over the Middle East for oil profits, or kill all the brown people, or whatever it is the Kos & Kucinich Kidz are accusing them of these days. I am shocked, shocked I tell you.

Anyway, in summary, No Iranian nukes = good. No World War III = good. Honesty with the American people = good. Bush = incompetent, not evil. And that's about as sophisticated as my commentary is going to get at the moment. I'm curious what y'all think, though.

P.S. In other news, Dick Cheney says Democratic representatives John Dingell and John Murtha have small penises. Hey, remember that time Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face? HAHAHA. That was awesome.

Comments

[JT]

Last I checked Tenet is no longer in charge of the CIA. Maybe the CIA learned its leason about giving the president what it wants when the administration made Tenet the fall guy for their rush to war. The funny part about this report is that Bush said he saw it for the first time a week ago. You're telling me the president never asks to see reports before they're released to the American people?

[Condor]

Sadly, I think that this report will drive people to ignore Iran much more than they should.
On the other hand, I see no positive way to interpret this for the President. Either he is guilty of gross incompetence, by not actually knowing about the details of this report until last week (as he mentioned in his press conference) despite the fact that he was briefed that something was afoot in August. Or else he is guilty of deception, by actually knowing the report was afoot, still speaking of WWIII, and not being honest about it in the press conference this week.

[Condor]

P.S. The most reasonable thing to come out of this report is the fact that Iran's governing structure is calculating, rather than irrational. If anyone knows anything about their governing system, this will be clear. The president is not a puppet of the governing council. They basically let him say what he wants, even if it's off message. But in matters of real domestic decisions, they check his power. Thus they rendered the last president effectively impotent. When viewing this government, one has to distinguish between the rhetoric of the president, and the calculus of the council.

[Anonymous Hoosier]

Although what you identify as "good news" is indeed "good news," I think it's overshadowed by the bad news here, which is that five years after the failure of WMD intelligence in Iraq our intelligence remains quite weak about Iran.

That weakness is underscored by: 1)the elements of this NIE that represent a sudden reversal from our previous best intelligence judgments, which was apparently still the view of this NIE's authors as of July, 2007 (per Thomas Fingar's testimony to the House Armed Services Committee), and 2) the judgment in this NIE that the intelligence agencies can only "assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program" following the pause in the headlines.

Per your interest in "insightful commentary" that doesn't fall into your two predicted responses, I will overcome my antipathy to the New York Times and recommend today's op-ed by Lincy & Milhollin. Key line: "Is the administration just washing its hands of the intractable Iranian nuclear issue by saying, “If we can’t fix it, it ain’t broke”?"

[David K.]

Fromer Ambassador John Bolton was interviewed on local radio yesterday and stated he believes this makes Iran MORE of a threat because apparently now they can hide behind the curtain of "see we aren't dangerous, no nukes yet!". I don't believe this for a second because our intelligence gathering is still going to be focused on them fro some time to come, but he's right that public opinion might shift because of it.

As for why it was released and when, I have heard rumors that Bush was preassured to do so lest it be leaked instead, also there has been alot made about when Bush knew this, some evidence suggesting it was months ago, although he claism to have only recently learned of it.

[4-7]

I heard this report was an odd-turnaround by agencies who said diametrically opposed things a short time ago. Let's hope politics didn't influence the report.

[Alasdair]

4-7 - let us hope that it is given the "confidence level" that its sources merit ...

[Condor]

4-7:
There's an article in Der Spiegel today about how the American press is entirely inconsistent as to what exactly the "large discovery" was that caused the turnaround. I would quote it, but it's kind of in German.

[Aaron]

**But if anyone can point me to some actually insightful commentary on the issue, I'd certainly be interested in reading it.**

Assuming that by "actually insightful" you don't mean "goes out of its way to arrive at an artificially non-partisan conclusion," Tapped and Kevin Drum both have a number of posts on the subject, with links to further analysis. From the other side, The Corner has some commentary as well, including a long and not-quite-100%-absurd post by Victor Davis Hanson.

And you should also take a moment to gawk in wonder at this from The Weekly Standard.

Many in the mainstream press have been willing to cite this latest NIE unquestioningly. Perhaps they should start asking some pointed questions. (Don’t hold your breath.)

(link via Julian Sanchez, who hasn't been writing about this but who you should be reading anyway.)

[JO]

If anyone REALLY believes that Iran is still not looking to obtain a nuclear weapon, then I have some wonderful Oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you.

[Herb]

Jo, I'm afraid the Real Estate company forgot to tell you. They already sold that property to the President during the Iraq invasion.

[Alasdair]

Herb - sorry to break it to you, but Hillary isn't the President (except in her own mind) ... or were you occultly referencing Whitewater ?

[Herb]

Alasdair,
klsda;hfsiohfpsahfs;ahfdsa;jhdfjasklfh
-Herb

[Andrew]

I take no comfort whatsoever in the latest NIE, which directly contradicts what we've been told by the same NIE folks four months ago and two years ago. Forget about Iran -- this about face tells me that it is highly unlikely our intelligence capabilities are any less incompetent as they turned out to be four-plus years ago prior to the Iraq invasion.

Anyway, if this has been a rush to war with Iran, methinks a deliberate pace would see the polar ice caps melt first.

[Anonymous Hoosier]

Great line about the polar ice caps, Andrew!

[Joe Loy]

Obviously the Intelligence Community has been pressured by Nancy Pelosi, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul to skew the data :).

But seriously, Andrew has a point.

Regardless of whether our foreign-policy preferences are Passive or Aggressive, why should we assume that intel which comports with our chosen worldview is necessarily Correct, while that which contravenes it is Cooked?

The fact that the NIE makes me feel better doesn't make it Make it So. (Apologies to Captain Picard :) Much more importantly, neither does the fact that it (somewhat superfluously :) makes President Bush look like a fool.

The NIE suits my peaceful proclivities but I don't know whether it's True or not. I hope it is.

[Angrier and Angrier]

I believe the NIE is true from the perspective that it is a snapshot of what happened in 2003 and some of the things we have learned since. Is Iran NOW re-starting its program to build nukes? Maybe, maybe not. But the one definite thing we know from all of this is that 1) Bush either has no idea what is happening in his Administration or knowingly disregards anything that doesn't fit his world view 2) If Bush knew of this information in August - WHICH HE SHOULD HAVE - his WWIII talk in October, which was irresponsible anyway, is even more so in this light 3) This information sends a message to all rogue nations that if you give up your nuclear intentions, the U.S. is going to try to fabricate a reason to kick your ass anyway, so you might as well stay the course and build the nukes.

[Aaron]

I wonder if Andrew recognizes the bitter irony in the quote I excerpted coming from the source he linked to, The Weekly Standard. Still, I agree with others here that he has a very good point. Intelligence estimates are notoriously unreliable, and people like me ought not to jump all the way onto the bandwagon when those estimates happen to support our preferred policies.

Incidentally, the thing intelligence agencies are best known for, sometimes unfairly but often with good reason, is stuff like this.

"This information sends a message to all rogue nations that if you give up your nuclear intentions, the U.S. is going to try to fabricate a reason to kick your ass anyway, so you might as well stay the course and build the nukes."

Like the U.S. did with Libya? Angrier and Angrier is a fucking nitwit.

[Joe Mama]

I wonder if Andrew recognizes the bitter irony in the quote I excerpted coming from the source he linked to, The Weekly Standard.

I do -- the exact same skepticism was professed to have been held prior to the Iraq invasion by many Monday-morning QBs, and the MSM was willing to eat its own (Judith Miller) who had the audacity to buy into the pre-2003 conventional wisdom . . . which, after all, was "conventional" for very good reasons.

Maybe it's just me, but if I had to choose, it seems much more prudent to accept at face value a NIE that warned of Iran going nuclear rather than one that said the opposite.

[Andrew]

I wonder if Andrew recognizes the bitter irony in the quote I excerpted coming from the source he linked to, The Weekly Standard.

Aaron, there's nothing ironic about it. I found the Weekly Standard comment by clicking your link, and I linked back to the Weely Standard because that was what sparked my thought. If the part of the Weekly Standard comment that drove my analysis was the same as what you quoted, I would've just cited your comment instead of linking to the Weekly Standard.

[Joe Mama]

Incidentally, the thing intelligence agencies are best known for, sometimes unfairly but often with good reason, is stuff like this. (link to story about the CIA admitting it destroyed videos showing its officers interrogating terrorists).

Powerline, one of the more insightful blogs, has a pretty balanced take:

As a general matter, destroying tapes of CIA interrogations seems like a good idea. For one thing, it's not in our national security interests for videos showing how we obtain information from top terrorists, and what information we obtained, to be disseminated. In addition, the CIA has a valid interest in keeping the identity of its interrogators secret. Given the extent to which classified, highly sensitive information has been leaked, by 2005 the CIA had good reason to fear that these tapes would, in fact, be disseminated.

On the other hand, the CIA's legitimate policy preferences (and, of course, mine) cannot outweigh any legal obligation it might have had to preserve and/or produce the tapes. The question, then, is whether such an obligation existed. I'm not aware of any statutory obligation, so the issue turns on whether a court, or some other body with similar authority, had ordered that the tapes be preserved or produced. A second and related issue is whether the CIA falsely and knowingly failed to disclose the existence and/or destruction of the tapes under circumstances in which it was obliged to make such disclosure.

I can't tell from the accounts I've read so far what the answers to these questions are. The CIA does say it informed key members of congressional oversight committees about its decision to destroy the tapes, and Democrat Jane Harman, then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, confirms that the CIA told her.

[Aaron]

Andrew,

My comment was awkwardly worded, I admit. I only meant to say that The Weekly Standard's enthusiasm for skeptical inquiry is ironic, given their history with Iraq intelligence. (Not that they are alone in that regard, as Joe Mama points out.) I didn't mean to imply that said irony had anything to do with the separate point you were making.

Joe Mama,

Maybe it's just me, but if I had to choose, it seems much more prudent to accept at face value a NIE that warned of Iran going nuclear rather than one that said the opposite.

It's not just you, obviously. I'm sure plenty of people would agree. But I'm not sure I would. I guess it depends, in both cases, on where your taken-at-face-value assumptions lead you.

Re: the interrogation tapes. I've never found very compelling the argument (used over and over by Bush in particular) that we can't let terrorists know what interrogation methods we use lest they be able to prepare for them. On the other hand, Powerline is probably correct that there's no legal jeopardy here (and much of the left blogosphere is very unhappy with congressional Democrats over this.)

[Alasdair]

Respected Loy the Elder - my own take on such things is that, given a choice of supporting the approach of a Chamberlain or of a Churchill, I'll take the Churchill pretty much any day ...

And "Intelligence Estimates" coming out of the Feds these days just don't seem to have quite the credibility that I would like to see ...

Oh - and, Herb - have you been smoking yourself again ?

[Andrew]

Aaron, Kristol and co. were going to support taking out Saddam regardless of what the intelligence community was saying about his WMD status. Neocons were clamoring for war since the mid-'90s; a kerfuffle over intelligence wasn't going to change their ideological perception that removing Saddam was going to be the lynchpin to changing the Middle East for the better. WMDs may have been the administration's top rationale for going to war, but it was never the neocon's top rationale.

[Joe Mama]

I agree with you Aaron that the argument that we can't let terrorists know what interrogation methods we use lest they be able to prepare for them is unpersuasive, as is the argument that the interrogators themselves might be in danger if the tapes got out. Rather, the most persuasive argument IMO for destroying these tapes would the enormous PR damage they would cause if they got out. And if that's not enough, you would have the unsightly spectacle of Ted Kennedy and Dick Durbin tripping over themselves to find the nearest camera in their race to make the most assinine characterization of such interrogations.

[Condor]

The argument from PR damage is the worst one of them all. Now I, for one, try to be consistent in my application of principles. So forgive me if it's sometimes hard for me to step into the mindset of those on the left or right, since they don't seem to care. Could you please explain to me, Joe Mama, how come the right evokes the "PR damage" defense on interrogation tapes, yet burries this principle when it comes to say Guantanamo, or, say, invading other countries. I'm not calling you a hypocrite, Joe Mama, just a lousy thinker.

[Joe Mama]

I can't speak for "the right", Condor, only myself. But if put in that position, I would start by first asking what would be the purpose of preserving those interrogation tapes (assuming there was no legal requirement to preserve them) that would trump their obvious PR liability if they were ever leaked to the press or put on YouTube? The Gitmo detainee camp, on the other hand, serves a clear purpose. I'm not calling you a lousy thinker for not recognizing the obvious distinction between the two, just . . . actually, I guess I am lobbing that insult right back at you . . .

[Condor]

So if Joe Mama were president "PR liablity" would be an acceptable ground for a government organization to dispose of vital documents. That's good to know. As for me, it sounds a bit more like an episode of The Apprentice than the workings of a great democracy. But, then again, maybe under Joe Mama's presidency the Donald would be in charge of the Central Intelligence Agency.

[Andrew]

Condor, what makes those tapes "vital documents", except for their value as a PR hit on an administration you obviously loathe?

[Joe Mama]

Seriously. Condor, I'm still waiting for you to explain what would be the purpose of preserving those tapes, if there was indeed no legal requirement to preserve them.

[Condor]

Andrew, please note that the government has a process called "classification."

[Condor]

Joe Mama, why would I engage in an argument which just gives you the claim that there was no legal requirement to preserve these tapes?

[Condor]

P.S. Andrew's last post points out exactly what's wrong with our democracy. He assumes that criticism of the CIA can only be founded upon loathing the Bush administration.

[Andrew]

Condor, I didn't make a point and I made no assumptions, I simply asked a question, and you failed to answer it.

Fortunately, our democracy was designed to endure and thrive in spite of rampant idiocy the likes of which you are displaying here, so I am not the least bit concerned with all the things you think are "wrong" with our democracy. Perhaps you'd prefer Venezuela or Russia?

[Andrew]

Btw Condor, I live that "process" called "classification" every weekday, so if you have some relevant point to make about classified documents, by all means go ahead and make it.

[Condor]

I'm not on the left, so you can stop that nonsense right now. As for these videos, even Bill O'Reilly himself admits that this is the kind of thing that you classify rather than destroy (see last night's talking points). That's just how a democracy works. If you don't like it, move to Russia.

[Andrew]

Condor, you are quickly outpacing even David, A&A, and Mad Max for the title of most nonsensical, unreasonable person on this blog. You've made absolutely no attempt whatsoever to respond to the past few comments from either myself or Joe Mama, and your last comment is a tour de force in ill-connected logic. Who has said anything about "left" vs. "right"? I thought the classification issue you brought up earlier had to do with the NIE -- not the tapes. And what the hell does classification or non-classification have to do with democracy -- or Russia? You're simply bizarre, and I've got to respect the heights of idiocy you've reached by managing to put together four sentences with absolutely no logical connection to each other, or to any other preceding comments for that matter. Congrats.

[Condor]

Joe Mama, let's get back to the original discussion. You claimed, if I understand you, that in the case of the CIA tapes, "PR damage" is an adequate ground for destroying the tapes. I counter:
1) The classification of the tapes mitigates the threat of "PR damage." Classification is thus a superior alternative to destruction, especially given that:
a) The destruction of tapes was potentially illegal.
b) The destruction of tapes may actually increase the threat of PR damage. When the destruction of the tapes becomes known, the tapes will be imagined as worse than they really were.
2) The destruction of tapes, when classification is a viable option, is inherently undemocratic, even if not illegal. Government documents are not destroyed in a democracy. They are classified.

[Joe Mama]

The classification of the tapes mitigates the threat of "PR damage."

It cracks me up that you put "PR damage" in quotations, as if there would be none, but I digress. If classified information were never leaked, then I would agree with you, Condor, that that would mitigate the threat of very real PR damage. Of course, that is hardly the case, particularly when it comes to the CIA.

The destruction of tapes was potentially illegal.

Under what statute? Were the tapes ordered to be produced by someone with authority to order their production or preservation? Did the CIA lie about the existence and/or destruction of the tapes under circumstances in which it was obliged to make such disclosure? I don't know the answers to these questions, so it's likely you don't, either. The destruction of the tapes is just as likely to be legal, and probably more so.

The destruction of tapes may actually increase the threat of PR damage. When the destruction of the tapes becomes known, the tapes will be imagined as worse than they really were.

I highly doubt that.

The destruction of tapes, when classification is a viable option, is inherently undemocratic, even if not illegal. Government documents are not destroyed in a democracy. They are classified.

See above.

Maybe under Joe Mama's presidency the Donald would be in charge of the Central Intelligence Agency.

And Philip Agee would have that honor in a Condor administration.

[Condor]

"It cracks me up that you put "PR damage" in quotations, as if there would be none"

-Um... Actually I put it in quotations because I was quoting you.

"The destruction of tapes was potentially illegal.

Under what statute? Were the tapes ordered to be produced by someone with authority to order their production or preservation? Did the CIA lie about the existence and/or destruction of the tapes under circumstances in which it was obliged to make such disclosure? I don't know the answers to these questions, so it's likely you don't, either. The destruction of the tapes is just as likely to be legal, and probably more so."

-You're right that we don't know the answers to these questions. That's why I said the destruction "was potentially illegal."

[Joe Mama]

Condor,

You now admit that you don't know whether destroying these tapes was actually illegal, yet you maintain that they are "vital". Why? I'm still waiting for you to explain what the purpose would be of preserving these tapes.

[Condor]

I'm afraid I don't mean anything very technical by "vital." I just mean that the tapes contain potentially important information, which all things being equal, would be kept around if not for the fact that they might potentially implicate someone. Let me explain.

I'm curious if our dispute boils down to a dispute over what "destruction" means in this case. I took it to mean that there was some kind of intention behind the act of disposal. That is, that the tapes would be otherwise preserved, if not that they contained something that someone thought could potentially, say, implicate an agent for using a particular torture technique. I'm not saying that's what's on them. It's just an example.

I can imagine another sense of "destruction," and I'm curious whether this is what you have in mind. Suppose I recieve a credit card in the mail. I don't want it, so I destroy it. There is no intention to hide anything. The credit card is unimportant. So I destroy it.

The first sense of destruction implies some kind of cover-up, where the second sense does not.

I take it that you probably actually mean something like the first sense of destruction (i.e. willful disposal) but with a different example, where the destruction was really justified (on account of PR damage). I've already said that I don't agree that PR damage counts as adequate justification. But if this is the sense of destruction you have in mind, then I'm afraid we're at an impasse. Neither one of us knows what was on the tapes. So neither one of us knows why they were destroyed.

[Joe Mama]

I do indeed have in mind that the destruction was willful, and I'll stipulate that the tapes contained "something that someone thought could potentially, say, implicate an agent for using a particular torture technique." Of course, that is a very nebulous category. For example, it's entirely possible (if not likely) that the tapes contained harsh but permissible interrogation techniques that fall short of torture but that would nonetheless be disastrous from a PR standpoint if leaked (say, things done to your average Army Ranger-in-training), which the likes of the NYTimes would take great pleasure in doing if it could. We saw the uproar when a fake story of Korans being flushed down the toilet was publicized. The muslim community is a hypersensitive one to say the least (think teddy bears named Muhammed), so it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to realize that what would follow if such images were shown on YouTube would make these prior incidents pale in comparison. If you truly aren't out to simply give Bush/the U.S. a black eye, then I can't imagine why you would want to preserve such tapes.

I hasten to add that if the tapes did show bona fide torture of detainees, then that would probably (although I'm not absolutely certain) be a crime, and the destruction of the tapes would therefore be a crime as well. That I do not condone. But given the immense gray area that surrounds the definition of torture (e.g., is waterboarding torture? You can easily argue it either way), the tapes could show nothing more than Abu Zubaydah being forced to watch the Weather Channel 24/7 while listening to "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" on repeat and wearing only a raincoat, and some crusading a$$hat would be sniffing that it's "torture" and that leaking it "speaks truth to power" by "exposing the eeevil Bush administration" for what it is, blah blah blah, and then there would be another run on American flags in Saudi Arabia because they would be burned nonstop for a news cycyle or two, and THEN where would we be?

(Okay, so I kid a little there at the end . . .)

[Condor]

Unfortunately for us, it appears that we actually agree on some points.

[Joe Mama]

Unfortunately for Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Bob Graham, it appears that they actually agreed with me on some points as well . . . at least when it came to aggressive interrogation techniques like waterboarding:

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002:

In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say

[Joe Mama]

Boy, the news just keeps getting worse for the ThisWasACoverUp crowd:

Lawyers within the clandestine branch of the Central Intelligence Agency gave written approval in advance to the destruction in 2005 of hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting interrogations of two lieutenants from Al Qaeda, according to a former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the episode.

The involvement of agency lawyers in the decision making would widen the scope of the inquiries into the matter that have now begun in Congress and within the Justice Department. Any written documents are certain to be a focus of government investigators as they try to reconstruct the events leading up to the tapes’ destruction.

The former intelligence official acknowledged that there had been nearly two years of debate among government agencies about what to do with the tapes, and that lawyers within the White House and the Justice Department had in 2003 advised against a plan to destroy them. But the official said that C.I.A. officials had continued to press the White House for a firm decision, and that the C.I.A. was never given a direct order not to destroy the tapes.

“They never told us, ‘Hell, no,’” he said. “If somebody had said, ‘You cannot destroy them,’ we would not have destroyed them.”

Of course, it's from the NYTimes, so take it with a grain of salt ;-)

But if true, this blows the knee-jerk leftist assertion that the tapes were destroyed by ChimpyMcBushHitlerHalliburton to cover the WH's tracks in response to the Dem victory in '06 right out of the water.