Speculation regarding "what/when did * know" timeline on Iran NIE...

[krkaufman]

Keith Olbermann speculated, on Thursday night's Countdown program, that pResident Bush was informed of the perspective the NIE was to take sometime between August 6th and 9th, given the change in Bush's terminology on the issue of Iran seeking nuclear weapons, beginning on August 9th.

However, I'm not sure this is the only, or even most likely, scenario.

Another possibility -- one that accounts for Larry Johnson's and other's comments that the Administration has been working to suppress the NIE for a year -- is that Bush wasn't informed of any new intelligence between August 6th and 9th... but that he was then informed by Mike McConnell or others -- given a heads-up -- that portions of the NIE would be made public and that, specifically, the public would be informed of the intelligence that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

It is my belief that no real content changes have been made to the NIE, but that Bush was informed, between August 6-8th, that the NIE, despite his Administration's effort to suppress it, was going to be made public -- one way or another -- and so Bush negotiated a delayed release of the NIE report, in order to give his Administration time to develop and roll-out a new Iran narrative... shifting from "Iran is developing nuclear weapons" to "Iran must be prevented from obtaining the knowledge on enriching uranium."

Just speculation on my part, but speculation, in my opinion, that better maps to the timeline and accounts for the Administration's reported year-long attempts to suppress the NIE. Bush has known the content of the NIE for months, and has been misleading the country as to the dangers posed by Iran.