Israeli officials, who've been warning that Iran would soon pose a nuclear threat to the world, reacted angrily Tuesday to a new U.S. intelligence finding that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons development program in 2003 and to date hasn't resumed trying to produce nuclear weapons.
So here we have two intelligence communities, Israel and the United States, with two completely different estimates. Israel doesn't enjoy the electronic collection capabilities that the United States does, but the Mossad is widely to believed to field one of the most effective HUMINT networks in the world.
So who to believe?
There's no shortage of intel wonks who believe that running agents--HUMINT--is more reliable than signature, imagery, and signals intelligence. That's Israel's specialty. Given the Mossad's past successes, and their obsession with Iran's atomic program, one would assume that Israel has penetrated the Iranian government with a certain level of effectiveness. At the very least, they're worth a listen.
Update: More from Max Boot at Contentions.
