Intelligence analysts puzzled over NIE release

Albright: Foreign policy a 'mess'
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow ridiculed Hutchings’ remarks, and those of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who said in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday that the Bush foreign policy is a “mess” because the administration is distracted by Iraq from other problems.

“Surely they jest,” Snow said in an e-mail. “In terms of the accuracy and aptness of their criticisms, they are batting a perfect .000.”

Others said the intelligence judgments in the report cut both ways.

“The good news is that the government has seriously bloodied al-Qaida, and it has dismantled its infrastructure,” said John Brennan, former head of the National Counterterrorism Center. “The bad news: As a result of the situation in Iraq and political issues in the Middle East, the forces of Islamic extremism have increased.”

Bush said the U.S. was winning the war on terror as recently as Sept. 7, in a speech in Atlanta. “Five years after Sept. 11, 2001, America is safer — and America is winning the war on terror,” he said then.

White House on the defensive
At a White House news briefing Wednesday, Snow found himself on the defensive as reporters pressed him for evidence that the United States is, in fact, safer.

Snow noted that U.S. territory has not been attacked since 9/11 and the government’s anti-terror stance is much more aggressive now than before. He pointed out that intelligence agencies are being built up to make up for cuts in the 1990s at the end of the Cold War.

Without offering specifics, he said that while there are more jihadists in the world, al-Qaida’s “operational capability” has been hurt by the global war on terror led by the United States.

Speaking broadly, he said, the intelligence estimate makes the point that the Bush administration has been making for years: Iraq is key to the war on terror.

“Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves and be perceived to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight,” he said, quoting from the estimate.

Democrats cited the document as evidence the government needs changes in political leadership with the Nov. 7 elections. They continued their push Wednesday for release of the rest of the report.

“The American people deserve the full story, not those parts of it that the Bush administration selects,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

Snow rejected that idea, saying it could put lives and intelligence capabilities at risk. And he warned that leaked intelligence estimates will make analysts less likely to make hard calls and then put them on paper.

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