Richard WarnickIraq NIE May Contradict Bush Escalation
No need to rush, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq that Congresss asked for back in August may be almost here. For those who remember, in September 2002 the 90-page secret NIE on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs was prepared in just a couple of weeks, with an unclassified version (PDF file) available almost immediately– just in time to lobby Congress to authorize a pre-emptive invasion. After Iraq was occupied, it was discovered that WMD programs and weapons stockpiles didn’t exist.
Yesterday, congressional leaders sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte asking, once again (almost six months later), for the new Iraq NIE:
Iraq has properly been at the top of the intelligence community’s list of priorities for quite some time and the community has compiled a considerable body of work on Iraq before and after our request. We believe the intelligence community has had more than sufficient timeto complete this estimate.
Yesterday, NPR host Diane Rehm questioned why the NIE remains so politically sensitive. Her guests were PNAC member Vin Weber and John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript via Think Progress:
REHM: It’s my understanding that the National Intelligence Estimate — that now at least two months overdue — is going to suggest that adding troops is the wrong way to go, that it’s not going to improve the situation. Why has that NIE been delayed for so long? And was it deliberately delayed until after the election — after President Bush’s speech last night?
VIN WEBER: I don’t know. I doubt it. I mean, I don’t often buy into conspiracy theories in Washington. There’s too many reporters that uncover those.
REHM: Do you question that John?
JOHN PODESTA: Well, you know it was due in August. I think when they want to get something out, they get it out. And when they want to have more review, they have more reviews. So I think at this point that the Congress demand that that NIE be completed and provided to the Congress.
Just the latest episode, apparently, of the Bush administration’s penchant for manipulating intelligence to serve political purposes.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Does anyone still believe anything this administration says? Their track record’s clear when it comes to propaganda, misinformation, creating “reporters,” ignoring legitimate intelligence and unilaterally doing whatever the hell they want.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Ken, sorry to be so terse, but…NO! Best, Caveat
January 26th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
The admin is too cool for school. Aaaaay, bush is the Fonz. What he says is the truth. Al’s is Congress. Have a nice ice cream soda. Richie is the earnest American public, just wishing the Fonz would like him and his mutt friends Ralph and…can’t remember.
I voted for bush in the hope that he would so damage the country that people couldn’t help but reject the mantras of his ilk, because they had been so damaged by them.
I was wrong. America wants to be beaten, whipped, and tied, as long as the house payment gets made, and there is money for beer and what not. So cool. New Plasma
screen.
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Stood with the peaceniks today in Grand Junction, CO. Let’s see, got flipped off, threatened from inside a truck, was told that soldiers in Iraq were to guarantee my right to stand on the corner, I was asked from a truck, if I wanted the bombers here, and I had someone burn rubber directly in front of the group, in an illegal display of horsepower(what cops call it when they ticket you). There was support, the other half of displays were positive.
I swear one woman who claimed her husband to be in Iraq, would have run us all down if there was no consequence. I wonder how the Iraqi public is doing today with our frustrated boys over there. She said her husband tells her that the people want our troops over there. Traffic light changed, couldn’t get into details.
If I didn’t know any better I would think that we are headed to our own civil war.
January 26th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
The mantra of “war is right because our cause is just” is one my late father and his generation believe strongly. As Walter Lippmann, Noam Chomsky and other propaganda experts have shown conclusively, governments not only engage in brain-washing, they’re frighteningly good at it. One of my goals as a teacher (adjunct) and news boss was to teach young reporters how to see through the BS to get the facts. One of the sad things about the demise of “journalism” in America, as Holly Mullen will probably tell you, is that reporters now are not taught how to do that by anyone, not even their professors. And if they do know how to do it, today’s news bosses are instructed by the publisher, general manager, etc. to toe the corporate line and not piss off anyone. I know- I was there just three years ago. And I also know it’s worse now. So if the journalists, the truth-seeking “defenders of free speech” are a bunch of Dittoheads, imagine what the rest of America is like. Sounds like a lot of them live out west.
January 27th, 2007 at 5:29 am
If the east is the house where the traps all lay, and the house is still infested, then the west is the barn where the rats all play.
February 2nd, 2007 at 9:55 am
[...] Congress voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq based on an October 2002 NIE (PDF) that claimed Saddam Hussein’s government was developing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, and planning to share them with terrorists groups such as AlQaeda. The new estimate is the first NIE to focus on Iraq since 2004. Congress requested the NIE last July, but its release has been delayed, some say for political reasons. [...]