Petraeus ‘softened’ the NIE?

August 28, 2007

Last week, a declassified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq said there has been “measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq’s security situation,” in the midst of what was otherwise a gloomy and depressing report. Indeed, the NIE added that, despite some security improvements, severe violence in Iraq was likely to continue over the next six to 12 months.

As it turns out, the NIE may have intended to go further, but Gen. Petraeus gave the report a little touch-up.

The NIE, requested by the White House Iraq coordinator, Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, in preparation for the testimony, met with resistance from U.S. military officials in Baghdad, according to a senior U.S. military intelligence officer there. Presented with a draft of the conclusions, Petraeus succeeded in having the security judgments softened to reflect improvements in recent months, the official said.

In other words, intelligence agencies were poised to paint an even bleaker picture of Iraqi’s security situation, but Petraeus apparently lobbied for wording such as “measurable but uneven improvements.”

Giving Petraeus a chance to review the NIE? Sure. Giving Petraeus an opportunity to submit intelligence reports for consideration in the drafting of the report? Of course. But to “soften” conclusions is to spin the consensus opinion of intelligence officials and agencies.

As Faiz noted, “Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) suggested recently that the White House would ‘tweak’ the upcoming ‘Petraeus report.’ But if Petraeus is so willing to alter intelligence findings, it appears the White House may not have much tweaking to do.”

Indeed, Kevin Drum makes an excellent case that Petraeus, aware of the political dynamic, may help the White House play a coy game in a few weeks.

Petraeus has been very shrewd about providing dog-and-pony shows to as many analysts, pundits, reporters, and members of Congress as he could cram into the military jets criss-crossing the Atlantic to Baghdad on a seemingly daily basis this summer. And those dog-and-pony shows don’t seem to have been subtle: rather, they’ve been hard-sell propositions complete with “classified” PowerPoint presentations (always a winner for people with more ego than common sense); visits to a handpicked selection of the most successful reconstruction teams in the country; a plainly deceptive implication that the surge played a role in the Anbar Awakening; feel-good stories about how local power generation is a good thing; the recent insistence that civilian casualties are down, which increasingly looks like a book-cooking scam that wouldn’t stand the light of day if Petraeus allowed independent agencies access to his data; and, of course, the ongoing campaign to scare everyone by kinda sorta claiming that Iran and al-Qaeda are ramping up their activities and then getting suddenly slippery whenever anyone asks if they have any real evidence for this.

Petraeus is still a smart guy. He won’t go too far overboard. But he’s obviously been treating the September report like a military operation, trying to generate as much good press and congressional change of heart as he possibly can in the weeks leading up to 9/11. I now expect him to provide … a consistently upbeat report studded with just enough accommodations to reality to keep him from seeming completely ridiculous.

To which reporters and sympathetic lawmakers will no doubt swoon.

Something to look forward to.

Soften it up all you want, Bushies.

The American people have seen enough dogs and ponies, and they will punish you in 2008. Get ready for a paddlin’.

  • Careful, Racerx – given recent news reports “a paddlin'” may seem more like a reward than a threat to some of those Repubs!

  • I’m not entirely sure this is what von Clausewitz had in mind when he said that war is the nothing else than the continuation of politics by other means….

  • So word leaks out the the long awaited Petraeus report would be authored by the WH to the rolling of eyes everywhere. Now this? I have to call BS.
    It’s still the White House’s report, but now bearing Petraeus’ signature. While the likes of Lieberman will applaud this shiny new bauble, the rest of us see it for what it is: another in a long long list of partisan lies to get KingGeorge the unending war he wants.

  • I’ve really started to wonder – what’s the point? In ’03-04 they spun the public picture of the war and demonized skeptics, because they had a pres election to win. In ’05-’06 they spun the public picture of the war and demonized skeptics, because they wanted to keep control of Congress. But now – why? To help Repubs in ’08? Please. Americans by now are so tired of the war, and disgusted by the hype, that little tweaks can’t possibly matter much to public opinion. Repub presidential candidates are doing OK (or as well as they can) without White House hype, thank you very much – in fact, looks like most of them welcome being able to distance yourself from Bush by citing all of the lousy decisions. McCain, who identified himself most closely with the war and the surge, has gone down in flames.

    So why is there still so much effort at spin and political leverage, instead of taking advantage of Bush’s lame duck-hood by finally giving everyone an honest, sober account of the situation? Beats me, although I guess it’s some combination of Bush’s sheer stupid bloody-mindedness (the man actually confuses inflexibility with strength) and simple inertia. Seventeen more months, folks, seventeen more months …

  • “To which reporters and sympathetic lawmakers will no doubt swoon.”

    And why wouldn’t they? With information to the contrary being suppressed. This is comparable to wine and dining our representatives. O’Hanlon and Pollack are spread all over the front pages while reports from soldiers in the field are buried. Unless we make a lot of loud noise that we don’t care, that we aren’t buying it, that we will support you shutting down the government if necessary to end this occupation before we they attack Iran, then our reps will think they know what is best for us based on these pony shows. We didn’t support the surge in the first place and we don’t support it now. I let my Senator know not to buy into the show in spite of the shiny new tickets they are handing out. Bush/Cheney have been wrong from beginning to end on everything. Their history is failure covered up by lies. How can our reps hear us over the dull roar of propaganda unless we become louder in our rejection of this occupation. Call and email over and over again.

  • As usual, the entire Iraq debate is framed by loaded questions and disinformation.

    What is the purpose of the continued U.S. Military Occupation of Iraq, other than the perpetuation of a totalitarian police state? How do you measure “success” of such a thing? By how many people are afraid to leave their houses? It is no wonder that an “Iraqi Security Force” cannot be sustained to carry out that task, under the guise of “freedom” and “security.”

    How the hell long does it take to set up a sustainable, independent Iraqi Government? The American Revolution took less time to adopt the Articles of Confederation and it did not require a foreign occupier to “get the job done.” But we’re forced to accept that the Iraqi’s are dumb and brown.

    The motive has been nothing but American Imperialism all along. Petraeus dishonors the uniform he wears pretending that he serves anything but the interests of Dick’s Private Empire –not the interests of American National Security.

  • Basilisc: I believe that the “why” is that Team Bush is not writing for a contemporary audience or purpose, Bush is now trying to get a jump on writing history. In a decade, historians will gather all of the NIEs as part of the basic research; the “consensus of the professional intelligence community” will count for something in determining Bush’s legacy. It is all Bush has left – his desperate effort to avoid ranking as the Worst President Ever (and to be vindicated in his constant predictions that history will prove him right.)

  • If “measurable but uneven improvements” is the brightest shade of lipstick they can put on this pig, then Petraeus is actually telegraphing that things are even worse than we all have been fearing. We’ve all heard the Goering and Rovian line that it is better to lie big so that the lie will be more believable, well Petraeus is guilty of lying too small to make anyone fall for it.

    Just when it looks like the administration shold be improving with the loss of such odious heavy-hitters as Rove and Gonzales, they seem to gain a Petraeus to offset the loss of mendacity. Bummer.

  • Patraeus is a political animal who will spin the report as much as possible to support the administration.

    Remember that in late September, 2004, when the presidential election was close, Patraeus wrote a puff op/ed piece for the Washington Post about how well things were going in Iraq. It muted some the thunder about the mess that was actually Iraq.

    He will do it again!

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