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Paul Pillar Speaks, Again The latest CIA attack on the Bush administration is nothing new. by Stephen F. Hayes 02/10/2006 4:15:00 PM IN A BREATHLESS front-page, above-the-fold article in today's Washington Post, Walter Pincus reports that a former senior CIA official named Paul Pillar accuses the Bush administration of "misusing" intelligence to take the country to war in Iraq. According to the Post account, Pillar uses a forthcoming article in Foreign Affairs to claim that the Bush administration "politicized" the intelligence on Iraq. Bush administration policymakers did this subtly, Pillar says, by repeatedly asking the CIA questions about Iraq, its...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the advisory National Intelligence Council says he is not optimistic the United States and its allies can change Iran's intention of building a nuclear capacity. "I am somewhat more optimistic - somewhat, I emphasize - that we can, through diplomacy and a combination of pressure and inducements, keep them on track," council Chairman Robert Hutchings said in an interview Monday, his last day on the job. Senior U.S. officials suspect that Iran is continuing work on a covert program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful, energy-generation...

"From the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project is the third unclassified report prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in recent years that takes a long-term view of the future. It offers a fresh look at how key global trends might develop over the next decade and a half to influence world events. Mindful that there are many possible "futures," our report offers a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss. As I used to...

MOSCOW -- OFF THE MAP? January 18, 2005 By Toby Westerman Copyright 2005 International News Analysis Today www.inatoday.com The National Intelligence Council (NIC), the U.S. Intelligence Community's center for long range forecasting, has just released its look into the next 15 years, Mapping the Global Future (this was a hyperlink...see original if you want to click on it--TTS). Relegated to the status of an aging power, the Russian Federation occupies the role of an essentially global "has-been": an important oil producer with a dwindling, increasingly elderly population, in the words of the NIC report, an "important, if troubled, partner" for...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Friday played down a government report which said the war in Iraq is providing an important training ground and recruitment center for Islamic terrorists. "This is a speculative report about things that could happen in the world," press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters on Air Force One as President Bush traveled to Florida for an education speech. Bush has frequently described Iraq as the central front in the war on terror, and has said the United States wants to confront terrorists overseas rather than at home. "The report confirms that we have the...

When the president cannot trust his own CIA, the nation faces dire consequences. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak's revelations this week that CIA officer Paul R. Pillar is actively undermining President Bush fail to portray the depth of animosity between factions within the CIA and the White House. Mr. Pillar, who currently serves on the CIA's National Intelligence Council (NIC) as National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for the Near East and South Asia, is the lead author of the classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's future recently leaked to the New York Times.

US authorities in Iraq have been forced to change the name of the planned Iraqi armed forces, after learning that the orginal title they came up with created an unfortunate acronym in Arabic. The planned force was originally entitled the New Iraqi Corps, whose initals in English produce a colourful Arabic synonym for fornication. "I am told reliably but unanimously that that acronym is not a nice word in Arabic," a senior official from the Coalition Provisional Authority said. "Therefore we had to come up with another word." The force is to be known as the New Iraqi Army.

The man being touted to become the proposed Department of Homeland Security's intelligence czar is deeply involved with many of the Clinton administration officials who share much of the blame for the massive intelligence failures that led up to 9/11 - a blame he must share as a former top official of the CIA in the Clinton years. According to the Washington Times, John Gannon, a former top CIA official, is believed to be in line to become the intelligence chief of Homeland Security when it becomes a reality. During the Clinton administration, Gannon served as deputy director for...