You know, they must handle George with kids' gloves all the damn time down there in DC. You'd think he's the kid who tells you that Santa delivers presents as long as you believe if you try to beat it into his head that Santa's magic isn't real. Some members of the press try to tell Georgie that there's a civil war going on in Iraq, and he just sticks his fingers in his ears and shakes his head while chanting, "It's all going according to plan...it's all going according to plan."
Honestly? All those years ago, when he remarked that he prefers to get his news from "objective sources" instead of reading the newspaper (because it's full of terrible truth!), we should have known then that he just wants to be told half-truths. Enough to know about the issue when asked questions at press conferences, but not enough to know that things are going to hell in a handbasket faster than he can say, "Bring 'em on!"
...I've learned from two sources that some senior figures at the CIA, along with a number of Iraq analysts, have been pushing to produce a new NIE. They've been stonewalled, however, by John Negroponte, the administration's Director of National Intelligence, who knows that any honest take on the situation would produce an NIE even more pessimistic than the 2004 version. That could create problems on the Hill and, if it is leaked as the last one was, with the public as well.
"What do you call the situation in Iraq right now?" asked one person familiar with the situation. "The analysts know that it's a civil war, but there's a feeling at the top that [using that term] will complicate matters." Negroponte, said another source regarding the potential impact of a pessimistic assessment, "doesn't want the president to have to deal with that."
The sources said that forces at the CIA have been lobbying for the new NIE for about six months. Not only is one overdue, but there's also a fear that if the Democrats win control of at least one chamber of Congress this November, the agency is going to get hammered for not having produced an NIE for so long.
When the topic of a new NIE was first raised, the Directorate of National Intelligence agreed to consider the matter, but advocates heard nothing back. They raised the topic again several months ago and were told that Negroponte was still mulling over the matter. Since then, there's been no indication that the DNI intends to authorize a new NIE. "He's not going to allow [analysts] to call the situation warts and all," said one source. "There's real angst about it inside."
A third source, a former CIA officer who served in Iraq, said he had no direct knowledge of Negroponte blocking the NIE but that it jibed with past practice. "The NIE is a crucial document...that tells you how to tweak your policy," he said. "That's hard to do if you don't want to look at it." He said he had two recent conversations with people in Iraq, one an official at the Ministry of Interior who told him that as of two days ago there were 1,600 bodies piled up at the central morgue in Baghdad. The second conversation, he said, was with an Iraqi general officer who told him, "I never thought I would see my capital like this. It's on fire."
"[The administration] can call it whatever they want," said the former CIA officer. "There's a civil war going on in Iraq."
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