International Herald Tribune columnist William Pfaff describes the process leading up to completion of the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran as a remarkable “coup d’etat” staged by one camp of the American executive branch against another. Writing from Paris, Pfaff suggests in his January 17, 2008 column:
This coup has taken the form of what amounts to a mutiny of the professional foreign policy services of the U.S. government, acquiesced in by the new Secretary of Defense, the service chiefs, and Director of Central Intelligence Bush has himself appointed. It was specifically carried out by the 16 recognized intelligence services in the American government, not as an act of law defiance, but by faithful execution of their duty as required by law, which is to form a common judgement, free from partisan pressure or interest, on matters vital to the nation.
Pfaff’s analysis may help explain why President Bush consistently distanced himself from the NIE’s findings during his recent trip to the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia, Bush “made it clear” that the National Intelligence Council is an “independent agency” that may “come to conclusions separate from what I may or may not want.” Newsweek quoted Bush as telling Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the NIE’s “conclusions don’t reflect his own views.”
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36. February 5th, 2008 Gordon Mitchell wrote:
The pushback continues - this from DNI McConnell’s testimony today, in response to a question seeking comment on John Bolton’s new Wall Street Journal Op-ed attacking the NIE:
“I’ll start by saying that the integrity and the professionalism in this NIE is probably the highest in our history in terms of objectivity and quality of the analysis and challenging the assumptions and conducting red teams on the process, conducting a counter intelligence assessment about ‘were we being misled’ and so on.”
“Highest in history” - Either a major league bluff or the DNI is holding some awfully strong cards here.
39. February 6th, 2008 Ray wrote:
President Bush may be using the NIE’s findings to posture while he’s on the world stage. I find it very unlikely that Bush is unaware of what the organization is doing. A conceptual, postmodern coup d’etat could just be another tool for the Bush administration’s Iran rhetoric. It might be too soon to start thinking of Bush as a lame duck.