New Iraq NIE to warn of attack similar to Tet

[Perky]

By: Mike Allen
Aug 11, 2007 08:17 PM EST


The Bush administration is finishing a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that paints a sobering picture of a mature civil war unlikely to be snuffed out through political progress, according to officials involved in the report’s preparation.

A late draft of the document warns of the possibility of a spectacular attack in conjunction with a crucial mid-September assessment by Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq.

With the Petraeus-Crocker report looming, some administration officials say they fear a coordinated onslaught like the Tet offensive, a surprise country-wide series of attacks that produced a psychological victory for Vietnamese Communists in 1968.

“We’re concerned about the desire of Al Qaeda to undertake some Tet offensive-style attack in conjunction with the Petraeus report to influence political opinion to the extent that people would lose their stomach for the fight,” one of the officials said.

Gordon Johndroe, National Security Council spokesman and deputy White House press secretary for foreign affairs, said: "The NIE, an update to the one from February 2nd, will likely offer a picture of the current successes as well as the remaining challenges we face in Iraq, and, like the previous NIE on Iraq, the consequences of pursuing different courses of action."

An NIE from January, called “Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead,” provided what outside analysts called a brutal assessment. Key judgments released Feb. 2 pointed to “an increase in communal and insurgent violence and political extremism.”

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, however, told reporters in a briefing then that the NIE did “suggest that we can succeed with the right policies, and we think we've developed the right policy, the right strategy, the right approach.”


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0807/5344.html

[scarletwoman]

1. I don't understand why you'd link to a right wing site like politico, for a "report" that is nothing

but stenography straight from the bushie propaganda machine.

[Perky]

4. I happen to think that Politico in their news

If I thought there was ample bias I would not read it...... it is not like I am pulling copy for the Washington Times or Fox News.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Beggin' yer pardon, but

is that your notion of a coherent post? I have no clue what you're trying to say.

[Perky]

10. I was accused of being a RW stenographer

I do not think Politico is all that biased. not as biased as the Washington Times of Faux news.

[scarletwoman]

11. I was calling MIKE ALLEN, the writer of the article, a RW stenographer.

I was asking why you would post it.

Mike Allen even proudly admits he writes what good spinners want him to write -- see this Digby post and scroll down to the transcript of his interview with Hugh Hewitt:

The Awesome Spinners

Here's some of what Digby wrote following the interview excerpt:

But how can we explain Mike Allen? He openly admits that he admires political operatives who push him so relentlessly that he will carry their message. He also admires the fact that this spin artist is training others to follow in his footsteps and he clearly believes it is a positive thing that the military has listened to this professional spin artist and is "getting better" at "getting their story out."

<snip>

But however distasteful the political reporting, that Allen thinks this is "smart" in terms of war reporting is really quite shocking. Politics is a dirty game and I suppose you can find some justification in the press consorting with "talented" smear artists for a good story. But really, what possible justification can a journalist have for thinking that it's "better" that the military has now successfully learned how to manipulate the press with propaganda in service of ... lying about the Iraq occupation. (my bold)

And here's an interesting bit from the comments section to that post:

Mike Allen works for Robert Allbritton, son and heir of Joe Allbritton

He knows who signs his paychecks.

The plutocracy has created career paths for "journalists" like Mike Allen, lucrative career paths, which may well end up making them millionaire pundits, like Chris Matthews.

"Journalists" like Mike Allen prosper. The tut-tutting they might get from the institutional scolds of the Journalism profession, like "Editor & Publisher" or "the Columbia Journalism Review", let alone the Daily Howler, do not subtract one penny from their incomes or dim their prospects a single lumen.

People like Richard Mellon Scaife, Sun Myung Moon, Rupert Murdoch, Robert Allbritton are writing the paychecks. Does anyone think that when Jack Welch was hiring and promoting Tim Russert, Chris Matthews and Brian Williams, these big-name "journalists" did not know who was making the millionaires, or what would please Neutron Jack and his successors among the executives at G.E.? Was Jack Welch the least bit concerned about journalistic standards, when he was putting together his team of lame-brained, white male Northeastern Catholic conservatives?

Did Robert Allbritton think politico.com was going to promote journalistic standards or amplify Drudge? Your call.

Let's get real.
Bruce Wilder

It's really important that we know which masters the corporate news sources are serving. Politico is a tainted source, and Mike Allen is a paid propagandist for the Ruling Class which is making a bundle off the Iraq "war".

sw

[Perky]

12. This is conjecture in search of facts.

Of which none were provided.


How about going to the source materil directly rather thar relying on the eyes and brains of others?

[scarletwoman]

19. I would have thought that Mike Allen's very own words were reason enough to question his integrity.

It's true that I didn't include a direct link to the radio program on which the interview quoted in my post was broadcast. If you doubt that the event itself actually happened, let me know and I'll find the link. No link was present in digby's post, which is why I didn't have one handy when I made MY post quoting digby.

Incidently, as a many-years reader of digby, I totally trust her integrity -- I'm thinking that maybe you're not familiar with her. I strongly encourage you to make "Hullabaloo" (digby's blog) a regular online habit, VERY educational.

Anyway, one of the issues I've particularily focused on over the past 6+ years has been the mainstream media. I do not, of course, presume that my own word should be good enough, I merely strive to point people toward resources so that they check things out for themselves.

As for the post in digby's comment section that I quoted (again with no links): if you didn't already know about Allbritton, his media ownership and right wing ties; it's easy enough to confirm. I'm not a Republican, I don't do bald-faced lies.

The Politico website is a stealth right wing operation, if you don't want to take my word for it then do some research on your own. Or not -- but I assure you that I will continue to denounce anything posted from that site any time I happen to see it.

sw

[KharmaTrain]

13. Politico Is Not Far From Faux

The "magazine" or whatever it prints on is owned by Joseph Allibritton...a major GOOP contributor. Most of the people who write for that rag are well-known corporate media stenographers...and booooosh enablers...like Allen, Van De Hei, Simon and others. It also gets constantly linked on Drudge and cited on hate radio. It was designed to be a stealth right wing mouthpiece and sure looks like they fooled you.

[babylonsister]

2. So Mike Allen is softening the blow of mass casualties, coming soon?

And he even sounds a bit less optimistic than usual. That in itself is scary.

[spanone]

3. the propaganda surge is on!

[Perky]

5. Ya think...LOL

notice How it will be AQI doing this?


OI thought we routed them in Al ANber....od that is right they all went to Diyala. Wait awi they are in Baghdar,,,,,Friggin Whack-a-mole

[lazer47]

6. There is no such thing as "almost like TET", He has no concept

of what he is talking about.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I remember Tet very well.

Watched fireworks celebrations turn into firefights in 4 separate villages from the hilltop in the Nui Mieu Mountains where I was occupying a foxhole.

[lazer47]

9. I was south of Hue, and thank God I didn't have to go into the city

a lot of my friends did and never came back

[Jackpine Radical]

15. I went through Hue about a month after Tet & saw what was left.

Wow. Craters, bullet holes, flattened walls...

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

14. On, Tet. Someone I was very close to was an MP in Saigon and discovered that Tet was LIHOP.

He and another MP were in the main office in Saigon and came across tapes of warnings and those warnings were ignored. When he returned to the states, he became anti-war.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. In the case of Tet, I'm not really sure it was LIHOP.

To the best of my knowledge there were advance warnings, certainly, but the decision to ignore them may have had more to do with stupidity and hubris than intentional malice. Certainly Tet did us no good. I wasn't in the States at the time, but I gather that Tet was one of the major turning points in pubic opinion on the war. It was only about 3 months later that LBJ declared himself out of the race. As it happens, I was out in a foxhole on a different hilltop that night, on the perimeter of the 1st Cav's base camp just south of the DMZ, and I heard the news on a little transister radio that we weren't supposed to have with us. You could tell which other foxholes on the perimeter also had radios, because a spontaneous cheer went up from each of the holes that got the news.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

17. All I can say is what my friend told me. He and is friend were appalled. They lost many.

My friend lived with his memory of Tet with guilt almost up until the time he passed over.

He had just come back from a 14 hour shift and when he reached the barracks, all hell was breaking loose. Tet was just beginning. His lieutenant asked him to go right back out with him as his driver. Tony was exhausted and told his lieutenant so. The lieutenant told him ok and that was the last Tony ever saw him. The lieutenant and sargent went down to the race track and the sargent was wounded and the lieutenant died. For years Tony thought that someone went in his place as the driver. He lived with that guilt. When I met him I started to do research with him. We went to the library and poured over material and couldn't find anything. Then a Barnes and Nobles opened up here. One day we went in and I wandered to the history section and found a book on Tet. I started to read and found the account of what happened to the lieutenant. No one went in Tony's place. It was like a ton of bricks came off of his shoulders. It was too late though for him physically. He died of complications due to alcoholism.

Today would have been his 62 birthday.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. How sad, how tragic.

Thanks for being his friend.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

20. Thank you. I was blessed to be his friend,

his lover and soul mate. Being with him was like being on the greatest roller coaster, where you scream from the insanity of it, but wanting to do it over and over again.
He passed over 7 years ago. In someways, for his sake, I'm glad that he didn't go through 9/11(I live just north of NYC) and see how our country and Constitution has been raped. It would have broken his heart. He was one of the truest patriots I've ever known.