US intelligence chief blocks analysis of Iraq civil war
RAW STORY
Published: Friday July 21, 2006
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Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte is preventing a thorough examination by intelligence analysts of the civil war in Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.
A report at Washington Babylon, the blog of Harper's Magazine's Washington Editor Ken Silverstein, indicates that Iraq analysts at the CIA have been pushing to complete a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the political situation in the country. NIE's are the most authoritative intelligence documents produced by the CIA, and the last NIE on Iraq was rejected by the Bush administration for being too negative.
But since the calls to analyze the Iraq conflict have emerged, Silverstein reports, Negroponte has tamped them down. One of Silverstein's sources explained that Negroponte didn't want President George W. Bush to be confronted with a pessimistic assessment of the war in Iraq.
An excerpt from the blog post is included below.
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“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.”
READ FULL BLOG POST HERE
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