Larry Johnson: The Facts Behind the NIE

[cal04]

Although the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) regarding Iraq and terrorism is still classified (UPDATE: The Key Judgments are now declassified and can be found at this link), the data behind the findings is not and has been publicly available for three years. I have written repeatedly on this fact and it has been, I am told, the judgment of the intelligence community for at least two years. The statistics on terrorist activity, until this year, were published in the State Department's annual report on terrorism (Patterns of Global Terrorism). The Bush Administration tried to not publish the report last year because the data showed an unprecedented surge in international terrorist attacks. The following chart shows the bad news (it is based on the statistics collected by the CIA and supplied to the Department of State):




A "Significant" terrorist incident is one in which a person was killed, wounded or kidnapped (or there was property damage in excess of $10,000). The statistics tell a very clear and simple story (I bet someone who can read My Pet Goat can figure it out).

(snip)
Ray Close, who served as the top CIA official in Saudi Arabia, has offered the following on the importance of the current NIE:

No reasonable person can possibly deny that our intervention in Iraq has been an enormous stimulus to terrorist activity worldwide. Efforts by John McCain and others to discount the significance of that factor by pointing out that the attacks on 9/11 occurred before our overthrow of Saddam Hussein is as trivial and irrelevant as they are disingenuous.

As someone who devoted his entire career to the intelligence profession, I was shocked and angered to read this in the NY Times this morning:

"Several of the lawmakers who appeared on Sunday talk shows said they had not seen the classified document . . . Intelligence reports from American spy agencies are not circulated widely on Capitol Hill, and Congressional officials said neither the House nor the Senate intelligence committees had been formally briefed on the report."

more
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/09/the_facts_behin.html#more

[Dems Will Win]

1. Larry, do you think the REpublicans will have to reinstate

the male-only combat draft in order to stay the course and make the Spring Rotation?

And it seems they are stealing so much of the money through Halliburton and whatever that Schoomaker won't even OK the budget because there is still not enough $$ to re-equip the worn out vehicles and weapons of the troops that are supposed to rotate in.

The Army has reached the breaking point, hasn't it?

Aren't our troops now in grave danger, with several hundred thousand Shiite militia ready to attack them if Bush bombs Iran?

What is your opinion?

[The Deacon]

2. I Don't Know Larry's Opinion

But the opinion of the Ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee is that we have 7-10,000 battle ready troops at the moment (remember - there is an approximate three-to-one ratio of support troops to war fighters, so that means an actual maximum of 3300 grunts.) I REALLY think we ought to be a little careful about keeping Mexico & Canada on our side for the forseeable future - a Girl Scout Troop with attitude could blow through this country right now!

[WePurrsevere]

3. Thank you for posting this, The chart sure makes the WH BS obvious.

n/t

[H2O Man]

4. The chart is important.

I think that one thing we should be making clear is that the Bush agenda is making the world less safe. The republicans would like to find a way to say the USA is less safe, so we need to stick with the Bush-Cheney doctrine. They will use the fact that there hasn't been a significant incident on US soil that has been publicly tied to "terrorists" as evidence the administration has indeed made us "safer." We have to expose the weakness of their position.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

5. cal04: Thanks for the liink to Larry's blog. I'm going to try to post this

there:

Larry, what do you make of Raphael Perl's (CRS) attempt to fill in thegaps for 2004 and 2005?

See the bottom of page CRS-7 at http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/69479.pdf and my table in William Pitt's DU thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2230807&mesg_id=2233164 .

I notice from one of my links there that you were on a panel with Raphael Perl at the review of the annual terrorism report under Subcommittee Chairman Royce (R-CA). Royce's opinion of the changes in the report were pretty scathing for a Republican leader! Do you think Royce may have requested the CRS analysis from Perl, to show what the numbers should have been? Does Perl understand the numbers well enough to do this?

What do you make of Perl's estimates and my use of them?