Harman Blasts NIE Release Timeline as “Unacceptable”

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It’s starting to look like Rep. Jane Harman’s (D-CA) second “secret” Iraq report is one that has been long promised by the Bush administration’s top security official.

A quick recap: Amid the ruckus stirred up by reports of a secret report on Iraq and its impact on U.S. counterterrorism efforts, Harman announced yesterday morning that the Bush administration was withholding a second classified report, this one about the state of Iraq.

An ongoing effort to produce a National Intelligence Estimate — a conclusive report from the entire intelligence community — on Iraq has been extensively reported. Following an article by Ken Silverstein at Harpers.org in late July about the lack of an up-to-date intel assessment of the country, Democratic lawmakers slipped a provision into a bill that required Negroponte to produce an NIE on Iraq.

On Aug. 4, Negroponte announced he was ordering the report to be produced.

It appears this is the report Harman was talking about. Yesterday evening, White House adviser Fran Townsend acknowledged Harman’s request by saying Negroponte had ordered the report in August, implying the two were the same. The report would take several months, she said, and would likely not be ready until January. In a letter today, Harman responded to Townsend’s comments to say the timeline was unacceptable.

The entirety of Harman’s letter after the jump:

September 27, 2006

The Honorable John Negroponte
Director of National Intelligence
New Executive Office Building
725 Seventeenth Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20511

Dear Director Negroponte:

I received your letter of September 26, in which you confirmed that the National Intelligence Council (NIC) is writing a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. Though you promised that the NIE would be completed “in a timely manner,” senior White House officials have indicated publicly that the report may not be completed until January 2007.

This timetable is unacceptable. Sectarian violence, which has reached record levels and continues to grow, is putting our troops – not to mention millions of Iraqis – at grave risk. Furthermore, the proven ineffectiveness of U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces, an absence of effective infrastructure reconstruction, and political crises that threaten the fragile new polity have made it clear that we need a new strategy in Iraq.

NIEs have been produced in as little as several weeks, as in the case of the 2002 report on Iraqi WMD. While I understand the desire to be thorough, events in Iraq make it urgent that the Intelligence Community produce this NIE immediately. If your intention is to delay this report until after the November elections, I do not think that is appropriate given that U.S. troops are at risk at this moment.

U.S. policymakers need the Intelligence Community’s insights to determine how to defend our troops and our interests in Iraq. I urge you to expedite completion of the NIE and to release it in both classified and publicly releasable unclassified forms.

Sincerely,

Jane Harman
Ranking Member

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