Consider a thought experiment. Let’s say Republicans were anxious to confront Iran militarily, and Democrats preferred a diplomatic approach. Both sides awaited the collective judgment of U.S. intelligence agencies in the form of a National Intelligence Estimate. The NIE’s conclusions are published, and they tell Republicans everything they want to hear — Iran is a burgeoning threat with an active and dangerous nuclear program.<\/p>\n
Dems respond to this news, not by refocusing efforts on a policy towards Iran, but by attacking the integrity of U.S. intelligence officials. What would Republicans do? I suspect they’d respond by questioning why Dems are more interested in attacking the loyal and patriotic messengers than dealing with the message.<\/p>\n
And yet, this scenario is playing in reverse. The NIE concluded that Iran halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003 — which should be good news — but Republicans are responding by going after the intelligence community<\/a>.<\/p>\n Senate Republicans are planning to call for a congressional commission to investigate the conclusions of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran as well as the specific intelligence that went into it, according to congressional sources.<\/p>\n The move is the first official challenge, but it comes amid growing backlash from conservatives and neoconservatives unhappy about the assessment that Iran halted a clandestine nuclear weapons program four years ago. It reflects how quickly the NIE has become politicized, with critics even going after the analysts who wrote it, and shows a split among Republicans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The piece quotes the AEI’s Danielle Pletka attacking the entire intelligence community: “The problem is not the nature of the intelligence, it’s the nature of the presentation. This NIE was presented with a clear intention to deceive and to redirect foreign policy\/”<\/p>\n Of course, this runs counter to Bush’s message. This week, the president praised<\/a> “the good, hard work of our intelligence community” in producing the NIE, adding, “[T]he American people should have confidence that the reforms are working, and that this work on the intel community is important work.”<\/p>\n Congressional Republicans and their right-wing allies are clearly not on the same page, and want to undermine Americans’ confidence in the NIE. This is all pretty ridiculous. As John Cole put it<\/a>, “[W]hen the intelligence says what you want, you commence bombing. When it doesn\u2019t say what you want, you find some that does.” That, in a nutshell, is how the right seems to approach intelligence issues.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, after the NIE was released, discredited neocons like Norman Podhoretz and Jon Bolton lashed out at the intelligence community with ridiculous criticism<\/a>, but I didn’t expect the Republican establishment, including lawmakers, to embrace the nonsense, at least not this quickly. And yet, here we are.<\/p>\n The only evidence that the NIE is unreliable is that it tells conservatives what they don’t want to hear. That, in and of itself, is apparently enough to call the collective judgment of the intelligence community into question.<\/p>\n
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\nA report<\/a> in the very-conservative Washington Times was even more strident, arguing that the NIE is “politically motivated document” written by State Department officials loyal to Colin Powell.<\/p>\n