Let's Not Make the Same Mistakes in Iran (washingtonpost.com): "One year ago I told the Senate Armed Services Committee that I had concluded 'we were almost all wrong' at the time of the Iraq war about that country's activities with regard to weapons of mass destruction -- and never more wrong than in the assessment that Iraq had a resurgent program on the verge of producing nuclear weapons. I testified about what I saw as the major reasons we got it so wrong, and I urged the establishment of an independent commission to examine this failure and begin the long-overdue process of adjusting our intelligence capabilities to the new national security environment we face. It is an environment dominated by too-easy access to weapons of mass destruction capabilities and to the means of concealing such capabilities from international inspection and national intelligence agencies."

...

"Fourth, understand that overheated rhetoric from policymakers and senior administration officials, unsupported by evidence that can stand international scrutiny, undermines the ability of the United State to halt Iran's nuclear activities. Having gone to the Security Council on the basis of flawed evidence to "prove" Iraq's WMD activities, it only invites derision to cite unsubstantiated exile reports to "prove" that Iran is developing nuclear weapons."

(Via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | Web Log.)