McConnell Defends Iran NIE Against the Right

Ha! Take that!!


http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004850.php

McConnell Defends Iran NIE Against the Right
By Spencer Ackerman - December 7, 2007, 12:29PM

Faced with the inconvenient assessment that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program, GOP Senators are running an old game plan: create a commission that will treat the truth and a lie as equal possibilities. However, Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, is unequivocally standing by the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.

The Washington Post reports that GOP Senators John Ensign (R-NV) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) want to create a commission on the NIE that will, inevitably, trash it. For some historical perspective on how frequently the right has gone after intelligence assessments that conflict with desired conservative policy preferences, read Ilan Goldenberg. His bottom line: "In all of these cases conservatives played with and disregarded intelligence to help make their cases for a particular policy. And in all of these cases the conservatives were wrong." But he might have added something else: in all of these cases the conservatives were successful, despite being, you know, wrong.

Meanwhile, others on the right see something more nefarious at work. Danielle Pletka of AEI smears the entire intelligence community to the Post without any evidence: "This NIE was presented with a clear intention to deceive..." Similarly, in The New Republic, Yossi Klein Halevi doesn't bother addressing the new intelligence that prompted the Iran volte-face, and simply says the U.S. has lost "the will to stop Tehran" from doing something that Tehran isn't doing.

The intelligence community isn't backing down in the face of the right-wing pressure. "We certainly stand by the product," says DNI spokeswoman Vanee Vines. "It represents the consensus of intelligence community. That was clear when we released it. … We stand by it as comprehensive and accurate." But don't expect the braying from the right about appeasement and betrayal to cease.

a thread about it found this am:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2422530&mesg_id=2422530

These are the goons who constantly rewrite history to suit their agenda. They're still hanging onto Abel Danger and Iraqi nukes still hiding somewhere in Syria. These are the asshats who have been wrong about virtually everything and when reality hits, they attempt to either marginalize or reinvent that reality.

The game here is to see how many attempt Repugnicans have made to spin this thing..."reinterpret" then minimalize then attempt to "investigate" it. It's another swing and a miss in the real world, but now will resonate within the wingnutosphere. This "investigation" will be spun by hate radio into a conspiracy of how the CIA is out to get boooosh and how Iran kills kittens with nukes.

The untold story here is the fight that's been waging between the CIA, the DOD and Executive. I suspect there's a lot more to it than we now know...and the NIE release was payback for the booosh regime's ham-handed handling of not just intel but their distrust and disdain for the agency (Plame fallout anyone???).

And I agree, there's oodles of info and in-fighting we're not privy to. Oh, to be a fly on the wall!

I can't see a boooshie toadie like McConnell standing up like this unless he was all but forced to by his rank and file. Goss, another toadie was all but driven out of the agency and McConnell looks like he's stuck in the middle as well and sees where the infighting got his predecessor.

What's interesting in how this regime did take steps to squash or hide this NIE and how it came out anyway...another story that will be told at a future date.

Cheers...

:hi:

Fine, let them. There's plenty of room in the basement. The Dems can show them right where it is.

This is another distraction for the hate radio crowd.

that there is a grand schism in the Republican Party.

Taxpayer paid employees of the U.S. Government did their job.

It left Republicans scrambling.

The poor face-name politicians who are doing their jobs for the corporations-barons - i.e., Cheney PNAC AEI AIPAC and Cheneys' armies - caught in the middle.

Within the armies, those who worked for and towards the bombings are being backed up by the media and political hacks to destroy the work of the taxpayer paid employees.

Does anyone know what loyal, rational Republicans are saying? Are there any disgusted ones out there?

It's obvious why Pletka, Bolton and their crowd are howling - the last of their entire 8 year plan involved getting rid of Iran. Years of their lives devoted to this. Their reason for getting up in the morning. Then there are the armies that feed the fire of fear and hate that accompanied the physical bombing - including all the loss of rights of citizens arranged by their political representatives.

A lot of hard work went into the ultimate bombing of Iran.

lord knows what they have on the Republicans ...