April's National Intelligence Estimate

I hate to introduce politics into this forum, but I thought that, since most of you are undoubtedly consumed with schoolwork, you may not have time to keep up with current events.

The front page of today's (Sunday) Washington Post features an article describing a National Intelligence Estimate completed in April. Produced by the National Intelligence Council, NIEs are certainly non-partisan and are intended to reflect the opinions of current and former high-raking intelligence officials.

The Post article begins:

"The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document."

The article dutifully points out that it was also a 2002 NIE which stated that Saddam Hussein '"continued its weapons of mass destruction [WMD] programs," possessed stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and "probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade."'

However, in 2004, the responsibility for producing NIEs was taken from the CIA and given to the broader intelligence community, so it seems reasonable that this April's is more reliable than previous estimates.

Bottom line: It is becoming more clear by the day that history will show President Bush and his supporters to be wrong in their fundamental convictions. It seems almost certain that the history of the next few years will show this.

If you have time for the full article, click here.


On another note, I HATE the GRE! Expect my entries from next year to be written on this blog in Seattle or Chapel Hill or Georgetown!