"U.S. officials familiar with the new National Intelligence Estimate said they were unsure when the top-secret report would be completed and whether it would be published before the Nov. 4 election," McClatchy News reports.
Meanwhile, The New York Times is reporting that the draft of an NIE on Afghanistan says that country is in a "downward spiral" and prossibly unable "to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there."
The exclusive story on Iraq by prize-winning McClatchy reporters Warren Strobel, Jonathan Landay and Nancy Youssef, like many of their reports in 2002 and 2003 questioning the reliability of pre-war intelligence on Iraq, has so far been ignored by major media outlets like The Washington Post and New York Times.
If it does get traction, however, it could have a significant effect on both the McCain and Obama campaigns, the McClatchy reporters note.
The findings seem to cast doubts on McCain's frequent assertions that the United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq by underscoring the deep uncertainties of the situation despite the 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was the leading congressional advocate.
But McCain could also use the findings to try to strengthen his argument for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until conditions stabilize.
For Obama, the report raises questions about whether he could fulfill his pledge to withdraw most of the remaining 152,000 U.S. troops _ he would leave some there to deal with al Qaida and to protect U.S. diplomats and civilians _ within 16 months of taking office so that more U.S. forces could be sent to battle the growing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
"More than a half-dozen officials spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity," the reporters wrote, "because NIE's, the most authoritative analyses produced by the U.S. intelligence community, are restricted to the president, his senior aides and members of Congress except in rare instances when just the key findings are made public."
As for Afghanistan, the draft NIE "finds that the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the government of President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence from militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan," according to the Times.
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Comments
What a f****ing joke!!
Another National "intelligence" estimate?
Written by the same bunch of political clowns who told us that Iran has no nuclear weapons program,
Posted by: graywolf
| October 10, 2008 9:37 PM
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