The “Iran breakout debate”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1890/more-breakoutology has officially become tiresome.

Anyone bothering to read this blog will remember “the instant analysis of the last IAEA report that ISIS put out”:http://isis-online.org/publications/iran/IAEA_Report_Analysis.pdf. It got “quite a bit of attention”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2193/iran-panic-induced-by-lousy-reporting at the time.

Some of you might also have seen “what Glaser and Kemp wrote in response”:http://www.princeton.edu/~rskemp/can-iran-make-a-bomb.pdf.

Anyone on the ISIS email list certainly knows, because ISIS “called them out today”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/Correcting_the_Record.pdf, for some reason.

Kemp and Glaser have now made a quick reply.

Knowledge doesn’t grow without criticism and debate. I’ve certainly learned a thing or two from this exchange. But some of it seems waaaay too close to being a determined defense of “a hasty analysis that grabbed headlines and caused confusion”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1889/sound-bites-man. This approach ill serves the cause of informing the public about science and policy issues affecting international security.

That is all.

Cross-posted to “ArmsControlWonk.com”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2223/wonk-pissing-contest. See the “comments at ACW”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2223/wonk-pissing-contest#comment.