Salon: "Fantasy" clashes with reality over Iraq policy

[kskiska]

Analysts say the new National Intelligence Estimate gets it right. One intriguing question remains: Who commissioned it and why?

In the fall of 2002, Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dismayed that President Bush appeared intent on invading Iraq without fully vetting the complicated issues involved, demanded that the Central Intelligence Agency produce a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessing the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. The document was a highly politicized one that made the case for invading Iraq by playing up dubious evidence of weapons of mass destruction while de-emphasizing dissenting views from intelligence analysts; ultimately, that NIE contributed to an uproar over the quality of intelligence that resulted in CIA Director George Tenet's resignation in July. Now, according to a report in the New York Times, a new NIE on Iraq's precarious future was produced for the administration in July under the direction of acting CIA Director John McLaughlin. It is a somber view of three scenarios for the war-torn country that range from bad (years more of violence and political turmoil) to devastating (a civil war).

Experts in intelligence applaud the new NIE, which represents the consensus judgment of U.S. intelligence agencies, as the kind of hard-nosed and realistic assessment that has been sorely lacking in Bush's policies. A leading critic of the administration, Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., called Thursday for the classified report to be made public "so the American people come to a conclusion" about the wisdom of reelecting Bush.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Scott McClellan tried to downplay the importance of the NIE by saying it "states the obvious." But the conclusions of the NIE are at odds with President Bush's almost daily statements that his policy is "succeeding." On Tuesday, a suicide bomber plunged into a crowd of young men applying for posts in an Iraqi security force, killing 47, while saboteurs blew up yet another section of oil pipeline. Insurgents hold large swaths of the country, Islamic Sunni fundamentalism is on the rise and elections scheduled for January appear increasingly in doubt. But in his press briefing Thursday, McClellan insisted, with Orwellian flair: "The Iraqi people are proving that those scenarios are wrong by the progress that they are making to build a better future, and the coalition is there helping them as they do so."

more…
http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/17/intelligence_estimate/index.html