November 12, 2007 (LPAC)—Vice President Dick Cheney is insisting that National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which was completed one year ago, but was rejected by Cheney several times already, be shaped to make an attack on Iran before he leaves office inevitable, reported a well-informed Washington intelligence source to EIR this week. Cheney wants the NIE to play up the immediate danger of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and to present a frightening picture of Iran's role in terrorist attacks on U.S. troops in Iran. Both issues are disputed—and in some cases, denied—by intelligence analysts, and by top military officials. The NIE may be released this week—but it will not be to Cheney's liking, said the source.

The EIR source's report conforms to the analysis by national security columnist Gareth Porter, who wrote last week in the Asia Times and Huffington Post, that Cheney has been trying to get "dissenting views" purged from the draft NIE that came out in 2006, so that Cheney can use the report to pummel George W. Bush into agreeing to an attack. Porter also says that the fight over the NIE was a factor in the resignation of John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence in early 2007. Negroponte had angered neo-cons in the administration when he told the press in April of 2006 that it would still be "a number of years off" before Iran would be "likely to have enough fissile material" to build a bomb.

Cheney also wanted the NIE to support the policy of attacking Iran over its alleged role in supplying weapons used to kill American soldiers in Iraq, but the draft didn't do that. So, Cheney cranked up the propaganda machine using the U.S. military command in Iraq (an obvious reference to Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, who became Cheney's propaganda mouthpiece in Baghdad after having served on the NSC under Iran-Contra criminal Elliott Abrams) even though available intelligence to the military showed that the armor-piercing bombs used in Iraq are actually made in Iraqi machine shops—not Iran.