For those of you who missed our report today, let me return to that second NIE on Iraq that we discussed yesterday. This is a different report than the one President Bush partly declassified on Tuesday. This one deals solely with Iraq and the state of things on the ground today.
After Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) pressed the administration to release the report Tuesday morning, President Bush’s Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend told a press briefing that the report was scheduled to be released in January 2007 and that the timing had nothing to do with this fall’s political calendar.
I asked Justin Rood to look into the question of whether the administration is slow-rolling the report. And while there is no way to know directly, Justin found out that there is pretty strong evidence that that is just what’s happening.
Democrats asked for the new NIE in July. John Negroponte, the DNI, announced on August 4th that one would be prepared. It’s true that NIEs take a long time to compile. But according to a senate intel committee report last year they take between two weeks and two months to compile, depending on the urgency. So even if it were on the outside edge of that range, it should be done sometime next week.
So, what’s the delay?
Here’s what Rep. Harman said today
The president says the election is supposed to be about national security. So where’s the report? What’s the delay? What are they afraid of?
This deserves pressure.
