ABSTRACT
This paper evaluates the November 2007 Iran Nuclear NIE in light of the intense public criticism it received. It assesses the reaction to the NIE’s “externals” (factors unrelated to their substantive content). Then it evaluates the NIE’s “internals” (their substantive content) in terms of the data available to the U.S. at the time of the NIE, the impact of subsequent data on Iran’s nuclear activities up to 2007, and the accuracy of NIE estimates of the future beyond 2007. Its main findings are: (1) NIE assessments of the past and present were extremely well-founded given the data available to the U.S. at the time. (2) Much of the data reported after the NIE’s publication on Iran’s pre-2007 activities confirmed NIE assessments. (3) The areas where post-NIE data most challenged those assessments had been flagged as areas of uncertainty; although that data can reasonably be interpreted to be conclude that Iran resumed its nuclear weapons program, the very substantial activities halted in 2003 and the very limited contributions of post-2003 activities are more consistent with the NIE judgment that the program remained halted and Iran was keeping its options open to resume the program in the future. (4) The NIE’s judgments of the future beyond 2007 seem to have held up very well. (5) The accusations made about the role of three former State Department officials, the alleged fabrication and manipulation of intelligence, and the putative skewing of the NIE to thwart U.S. policy were all egregiously false.
