Harpers: The Iran NIE hasn't changed for more than six months - no last minute breakthroughs

[sabra]

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001837

<snip>

National Security Advisor Steve Hadley appeared this afternoon to answer questions about the NIE and to offer remarks. Hadley has never been a particularly effective figure at press gatherings of this sort, and today was a very weak showing even by Hadley’s standards. But the key question came right off the bat: What should we think about the fact that as recently as October 17, President Bush was giving public remarks in which he pointed to the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran as World War III on the horizon? Indeed, a quick check shows the mushroom cloud analogy, which we all so closely associate with the irrepressibly irresponsible Condoleezza Rice, flowing from the lips of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Rice and Director of National Intelligence McConnell–with increased frequency since the post-Labor Day “roll out.” Hadley responded by saying that the NIE was only completed in the last two weeks and it rests on “new intelligence”–presumably newer than October 17–which pushed the analysts over the line and caused them to close their judgments on the issue.

Is this true? That will be a subject for further study. But one highly reliable intelligence community source I consulted immediately after Hadley spoke answered my question this way: “This is absolutely absurd. The NIE has been in substantially the form in which it was finally submitted for more than six months. The White House, and particularly Vice President Cheney, used every trick in the book to stop it from being finalized and issued. There was no last minute breakthrough that caused the issuance of the assessment.” So what, I asked, if not an intelligence breakthrough, what caused the last-minute change and the sudden issuance of the summary of the NIE? My source had no idea. He speculated, however, that a hardening of attitudes within the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the intelligence community, and in Israel against the plans for an air war in Iran had caused Cheney and his team to fold their cards. “But I’d leave that with a final note of caution,” the source added, “Cheney sometimes appears to give up, but he’s a tenacious son-of-a-bitch. He may very well be back at it tomorrow.”

[TwilightGardener]

1. They did their best to manipulate, and then squelch, the findings--

they knew what was in this report. Fucking evil liars just wanted to get another wargasm going.

[sabra]

2. I wonder if Cheney's heart issue last week has any correlation?

[TwilightGardener]

3. I doubt it--I think he's just showing the signs of congestive heart failure.

I'll bet his heart is as big as a dinner plate--floppy and an ineffective pump. That's why his heart rhythm is getting screwed up--his electrical-cell conduction system is being disrupted by the enlargement of his heart. Not too many people can have four heart attacks and not sustain serious myocardial damage--it's catching up with him now.

[PATRICK]

4. This explains a lot

Israel backing off on the bombing campaign is news to ignorant old me. So when Bush rambled on about how some business leaders wanted trade with Iran it means they have not only retreated from the war inevitability but can't sustain sanctions either. The retreat is what Bush had on his mind, crumbling before big business pressure. This is a big backward turn on the war clock. Nor did it look as if he had anything in him at all to risk or fight on.

Cheney, if he can keep his tin ticker wound, has this primary tool to work with and Bush never looked sorrier(for himself) or less functional than he did today. There are people watching, the good and the vultures, should the resident madman try something as outrageous as the situation now challenges.

Bush appeared finished and totally dispirited.

This has been very good news for the world.

[ellenfl]

5. i haven't been keeping up . . . who released the report and

why couldn't the admin squelch it? are some in the pentagon and intelligence community finally balking at little lord pissypants and darth cheney?

ellen fl