Ladies and Gentlemen, The NIE

contentions ^ | 7.18.2007 | Max Boot

[Contentions]

As usual, there has been considerable fanfare leading up to the release of the new National Intelligence Estimate on “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland.” (Or, to be more exact, the release of the NIE summary—the full text remains classified.) Early commentary suggested that this NIE—a consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community—had determined that al Qaeda was just as potent today as it had been on 9/11, and that therefore President Bush’s anti-terrorism policies have been a dismal failure. The actual text is more nuanced, providing ammunition for both the President and his critics.

The summary begins with a nod to administration achievements:

[HawaiianGecko]

I suppose it doesn’t surprise me as much as it abhors me to realize that there is a complete lack of critical thinking ability in Washington. Thinking the NIE says that Al Qaeda is stronger because of our being in Iraq is completely irrational. This report does not address the reason Al Qaeda is stronger nor does it even hint at it.

The rhetoric I have heard goes like this: “Yesterday it was snowing and 6 inches of this snow was on my driveway. I spent 2 hours shoveling it off, and when I reached the end of the driveway I noticed that now 7 inches lay where I had previously cleared it, therefore, I caused it to snow harder!”

Our entire congress is simply an embarrassment. Democrats for thinking President Bush is causing it to snow harder and Republicans for not calling them on it.

[iopscusa]

NIE—a consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community...LOL. Do we still have to pay for these crappy intelligence consensus?
Something is just bad wrong when we have these dupes forming Intelligence Consensus=Mob Stupidity.

[dfwgator]

NIE is Polish for “No.”

[John Semmens]

Well, Nazi Germany’s war production peaked in 1944—after five years of warfare. They built more weapons and became more formidable as we were fighting them.

So, I guess our efforts against them were a failure. We should’ve quit given such a poor result from our war policy.

Or could it be that Germany would’ve gotten stronger regardless of our opposition?

The same might be true of al-Qaeda. The estimate that al-Qaeda is stronger now doesn’t prove that our effort to fight them is the cause of this strength.

[ellery]

We’re fighting both Islamofascists AND the states that harbor and fund them. I don’t see meaningful, comprehensive analysis here of increases/decreases in foreign governments’ material support of Islamofascists. For example, the war may have weakened material support for terrorists by the governments of Iraq and Libya, and possibly some of the other countries in the region.

I love it that many media figures believe intelligence estimates when it suits their purposes, even though it comes from the same people who developed the supposedly dead-wrong intel about WMD. I don’t think it ever occurs to these reporters that if the WMD info was so wrong (which in their minds it was), that the current intel the left is using to discredit the war may be equally wrong.