We must be forthright with what we do and do not know. We would all benefit from healthy debate before crossing any more borders. Recently a row broke out when Gary Sick wrote about reports regarding Iran’s ambitions. Ranking government officials were upset by what they considered false allegations. Someone who has worked on these issues and knows the people involved wanted to respond to Mr. Sick’s assertions, and I agreed to anonymously publish this reply:

SICK’S (SIC)

OK, so it’s not the first time that Gary Sick will be accused of making stuff up, but here he goes again. (See Daniel Pipes on Sick in the Wall Street Journal
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1048) Not only does Sick, the former Jimmy Carter White House aide, turned conspiracy theorist par excellence, make wrongheaded representations about the recent House Intelligence Committee report on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, he also makes false allegations about one of its authors.

In his blog, Mr. Sick alleges that there are many mistakes in the Iran Report. Perhaps there are; it is after all a long and detailed report. However, it is clear that Mr. Sick does not understand the issues on which he has opined. For example, he criticizes the report for failing to note that the IAEA has not found weaponization activity in Iran. He is right, they haven’t. But what he doesn’t seem to realize is that the IAEA is not looking for evidence of nuclear weaponization. The IAEA is not capable of or authorized to inspect for weaponization, they are there to inspect for diversion of DECLARED stockpiles of fissile material. He clearly does not understand the difference between the IAEA agreement, in which Iran agreed to inspection of its civilian fissile material and the treaty obligation of Iran as a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in which they agreed not to build or buy a nuclear bomb (which the IAEA is not capable of or responsible for inspecting).
Likewise, Mr. Sick is wrong when he alleges that the author did not have the time or inclination to talk to the intelligence organizations involved. I know that the authors had numerous discussions with the intelligence community (IC) and other administration officials and that the IC not only reviewed a draft but made significant changes to the text. Mr. Sick glosses over the fact that the report was bipartisan and was co-written and co-signed by the Democrat chairman and staff.

Up to that point he was just wrong on facts and policy. However, he then goes on to make a personal attack on one of the reports principal authors, former State Department and CIA official Frederick Fleitz. Mr. Sick apparently made up “the fact” that Mr. Fleitz was fired at the State Department when his former boss, John Bolton left office as Under Secretary of State. This is simply false and is easily proven so, by the public fact that Mr. Fleitz stayed on with Mr. Bolton’s successor Robert Joseph for nearly a year. Yes, that’s right, not only wasn’t Fleitz fired when Bolton left, he was asked to stay on and was promoted. When Fleitz decided to leave the Chief of Staff position he held for 4 years (a lot longer than anyone else has held such a position) State department officials offered him several jobs within State, but Fleitz decided to work on Capitol Hill.

Most commentators have applauded the report, and Mr. Sick is entitled to his opinion. However, I would urge him to be respectful of others’ views and to apologize to Mr. Fleitz

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