Exclusive: Rep. Pelosi (D-CA) takes a stand on the Iraq/Terrorism NIE: “The classification of the reported NIE should be reviewed. And at a minimum, a redacted version should be issued.”
The pool report from on the road with the prez …
POOL REPORT TWO
CONNECTICUT-OHIO STEALTH FUNDRAISING TOUR
September 25, 2006Your representative of a friendly newspaper is currently sitting under the trees at a lovely beach-front table, overlooking the Long Island Sound. We are dining on a delicious lunch of Chilean sea bass, topped with pea puree, cheese ravioli with a butter sage sauce, and salad of field greens, topped with dried cranberries and candied pecans â the very same fare, we are told, that the donors gathered inside the massive home of Scott Frantz, investment banker, are enjoying.
Frantz is the president of Haebler Capital Corporation. His house is a big wood-shingled affair, four car garage, with a dock and a beautiful waterside view and shady manicured grounds.
Chris Shays is said to be inside; no word about the Republican Senate candidate, whose name no one can remember. (Itâs Alan Schlesinger.) No word about any other elected officials either. 65 people inside, $800,000 to be raised, according to Tony Snow.
Tony gaggled. Look for a very lawyerly remark, drafted by the DNIâs office, about the classified national intelligence estimate that was reported in the news yesterday, Gist is that the report contained nothing Bush hasnât said before. The DNI will make some remarks later today. Also some remarks about why the president keeps doing closed events, and comments on lower gas prices (he says the White House hasnât rigged them) and a non-response to the Clinton remarks on Fox.
And now, circling back to the beginning of the day:
Marine One landed at Andrews at 10:35. POTUS emerged, followed by Rove and Snow and other aides your pool is too new to recognize. All aboard and wheels up at 10:46 for the one hour flight to JFK. After an uneventful trip, plus a 20-minute chopper ride, we landed in a lovely park in Greenwich, not far from the Long Island sound.
The motorcade wound its way through town, past plenty of locals waving American flags, pointing cameras and some hoisting protest signs, including War is Wa$te, and âMore Trees, Less Bush.â
All of which made your working stiff pool wonder if the good people of Greenwich have to work for a living.
More soon.
GOP candidate Roskam accuses Democratic opponent Duckworth of wanting to ‘cut and run’ in Iraq.
Duckworth, a double amputee, lost both legs while serving in Iraq.
Here’s what the White House just sent out from Tony Snow on the NIE …
Press Gaggle By Tony Snow
September 25, 2006
WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY TONY SNOW: “[O]ne thing that the reports do not say is that war in Iraq has made terrorism worse. And by the way, the DNI will be making public comments later today and he’ll be taking questions in Washington. â¦
“First, the false impression has been created that the NIE focuses solely on Iraq and terrorism. This NIE examines global terrorism in its totality, the morphing of al Qaeda and its affiliates and other jihadist movements. It assesses that a variety of factors, in addition to Iraq, fuel the spread of jihadism, including longstanding social grievances, slowness of the pace of reform, and the use of the Internet. And it also notes that should jihadists be perceived to have failed in Iraq, fewer will be inspired to carry on the fight.
“In short, the news reports contain nothing that the President hasn’t said. There was that one conclusion that you just mentioned, Sheryl, that appeared in I think one sentence of The New York Times report, and two sentences in the LA Times. Those are conclusions from blind sources. Obviously, we’re not going to go into what the classified report does say, but what we did see in the newspapers yesterday, the substance, is precisely what the President has been saying: Al Qaeda â the leadership has been hit hard; it has become more dispersed; that there is more independent activity; that they’re using other means for communication and organization, such as the Internet; that they have an ideology that is directed at the West and at democracies â it’s a totalitarian ideology that tends to unite them.
“And reading the stories I thought, well, yes, I mean, this is what the President has been saying.”
The DNI is Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte. We’ll see what he says.
Anything, anything for Jack.
Rep. Ralph Hall (then a Dem, now a Republican) bashed a teen sex slave in the Congressional Record on behalf of Jack Abramoff.
We’re hearing that Sen. Rockefeller, ranking member of the Senate intel committee, has just come out for declassifying and releasing the April NIE. We’re trying to confirm.
Late Update: Confirmed.
Later Update: Hillary just came out for it too.
Okay, the Democratic leader in House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), 
the ranking member of the senate intel committee, Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Clinton (D-NY) have each now come out for declassifying and releasing to the public the April Iraq/Terrorism NIE.
If this is a topic that interests you, that is, having a real debate about Iraq and the War on Terror, then this is definitely the time to make contact with your elected representatives and ask them where they stand on the issue. It’s a simple question, are they for release or are they against it?
Where do they stand?
A little background on NIEs.
A lot of Republicans are telling readers that it can’t be released because it’s classified.
Hardly.
It’s not at all uncommon for a declassified version of an NIE to be released to the public. Just go back to October 2002. The Iraq WMD NIE was provided to the senate intel committee on October 1st. A declassified summary was released to the public on October 5th. And still more of the NIE was released on October 9th.
There’s another dimension to that episode as well. As became clear a year later, in the declassification process, the White House made certain that most of the qualifications and questions about Iraq WMD were removed. So the public version of the NIE seemed far more powerful than the actual classified version. It was another effort to trick the public and it prevented senators who’d seen the report from discussing those parts of the report the White House had kept behind the veil of classification.
That’s well worth keeping in mind in this case since I understand there’s already been some earlier fiddling with this one.
It’s also been suggested that Democrats may not be that eager to see the full NIE released since there are suspicions it’s not as clear-cut as the newspaper headlines have suggested. That would not surprise me at all. Given the history of this administration, it’s hard to believe that the report is really a full exploration of the fiasco the administration has made of Iraq. But let’s see. Let’s find out. And let’s keep an eye out for a selective release which is the Bush White House’s favored response to this sort of situation.
Uh boy. I hear there’s more about to pop on ye olde George Allen N-word front. Apparently, in the next hour or so.