Iranian Mobile Weapons Labs

incredible. i've seen this movie already. Look! there's a truck!

With an hour-long slide show that blends satellite imagery with disquieting assumptions about Iran's nuclear energy program, Bush administration officials have been trying to convince allies that Tehran is on a fast track toward nuclear weapons.

The PowerPoint briefing, titled "A History of Concealment and Deception," has been presented to diplomats from more than a dozen countries. Several diplomats said the presentation, intended to win allies for increasing pressure on the Iranian government, dismisses ambiguities in the evidence about Iran's intentions and omits alternative explanations under debate among intelligence analysts.

The presenters argue that the evidence leads solidly to a conclusion that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing weapons, according to diplomats who have attended the briefings and U.S. officials who helped to assemble the slide show. But even U.S. intelligence estimates acknowledge that other possibilities are plausible, though unverified.
[snip]
The presentation has not been vetted through standard U.S. intelligence channels because it does not include secret material. One U.S. official involved in the briefing said the intelligence community had nothing to do with the presentation and "probably would have disavowed some of it because it draws conclusions that aren't strictly supported by the facts." (link)

Laura Rozen:

"That is extraordinary. The intelligence community is confined to make judgments about only that which is secret? Is that what the Bush administration sees at its only value? Bypassing the intelligence community's judgment on Iran's nukes altogether if it doesn't support the preferred conclusions is a logical extension of the cherrypicking we saw with Iraq. But where is this stuff coming from? And who in the Bush administration really put it together?"