Inside the Ring

He noted that criticism of the revised report was blocked from publication by CIA censors who reviewed his newspaper column, “including my serious concern that it manipulated intelligence evidence.”

“It is unacceptable that Iran is on the brink of testing a nuclear weapon while our intelligence analysts continue to deny that an Iranian nuclear weapons program exists,” he said.

A more detailed critique of the 2007 intelligence report can be found in this reporter’s 2008 book, “The Failure Factory.”

NSC CLASH ON CHINA

Congressional Republicans say a key player involved in the Obama administration’s policy of refusing to sell needed arms to Taiwan is Evan S. Medeiros, a pro-China academic now well-placed to influence policy as White House National Security Council specialist on the Chinese military.

The policy dispute has brought Mr. Medeiros into several policy clashes with other Asia hands in the State Department, Pentagon and military and even the White House.

Republicans staff aides and a defense official told Inside the Ring that they believe Mr. Medeiros is behind efforts to block the release to Congress of the Pentagon’s annual report on the Chinese military, completed months ago and due to Capitol Hill on March 1. The report is being held back to avoid upsetting the Chinese, who routinely denounce the report.

Mr. Medeiros also is being blamed for preventing the U.S. sale of 66 advanced F-16 jets to Taiwan that is expected to anger Beijing and for holding up a new sale of equipment to upgrade Taiwan’s existing F-16s. And the sources say he has used bureaucratic delaying tactics to block the release of a second Pentagon report to Congress on the shifting air power balance in the Taiwan Strait.

One official said Mr. Medeiros also has tried to thwart a Pentagon task force from adopting a new military strategy toward China based on better coordination of U.S. air and naval forces.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined requests from Inside the Ring to interview Mr. Medeiros. But Mr. Vietor said any assertion that Mr. Medeiros is behind the delays is “completely wrong and wildly uninformed.”

Other China specialists in the intelligence community say Mr. Medeiros advocates an ideological view that exaggerates Chinese sensitivities to any U.S. effort to deal realistically with India, Japan and others in addressing the China threat.

Mr. Medeiros‘ track record on China is available online in numerous writings on China's military for more than a decade.

A reading of some his work shows he is an adherent of the diminishing view among academic analysts of China who assert that China's military poses little or no threat, and that Beijing’s policies are generally benign — claims that have come under increasing skepticism.

A 2005 article he wrote criticized any U.S. effort to “hedge” against China’s rise by building forces to counter China's military buildup.

Last year, while in his National Security Council post, Mr. Medeiros co-wrote a journal article in International Security on China’s nuclear forces that stated China has a small nuclear force that is not useful for warfighting and is mainly for deterrence and to prevent nuclear blackmail.

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