White House Refuses
Release
of Full Intelligence
Report
The AP from the
washingtonpost.com on the Web, September 27, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The White House
refused Wednesday to release the rest of a secret intelligence assessment that
depicts a growing terrorist threat, as the Bush administration tried to quell
election-season criticism that its anti-terror policies are seriously off track.
Press secretary Tony Snow said releasing the full report, portions of which
President Bush declassified on Tuesday, would jeopardize the lives of agents who
gathered the information.
It would also risk the nation's ability to work with foreign governments and to
keep secret its U.S. intelligence-gathering methods, Snow said, and "compromise
the independence of people doing intelligence analysis."
"If they think their work is constantly going to be released to the public they
are going to pull their punches," Snow said.
In the bleak National Intelligence Estimate, the government's top analysts
concluded Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for jihadists, who are growing in
number and geographic reach. If the trend continues, the analysts found,
the risks to the U.S. interests at home and abroad will grow.
Peppered with questions Wednesday about the report, he said the NIE report was
"not designed to draw judgments about success or failure, it's an intelligence
document, it's a snapshot."
Snow said the report confirms the importance of the war in Iraq as a bulwark
against terrorists. " Iraq has become, for them, the battleground," he
said. "If they lose, they lose their bragging rights. They lose
their ability to recruit."
He said that a bleak intelligence assessment depicting a growing terrorist
threat was only a "snapshot" -- not a conclusion
The document has given both political parties new ammunition leading up to
November's midterm elections.
For Republicans, the report provides more evidence that Iraq is central to the
war on terrorism and can't be abandoned without giving jihadists a crucial
victory.
For Democrats, the report furthers their argument that the 2003 Iraq invasion
has inflamed anti-U.S. sentiments in the Muslim world and left the U.S. less
safe. Democrats 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.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
warned, however, that releasing more of the intelligence assessment could aid
terrorists. "We are very cautious and very restrained about the kind of
information we want to give al-Qaida," Hoekstra said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in Tirana, Albania for a meeting of
defense ministers, said Bush had declassified the report's key judgments, after
parts of it were leaked to the news media, so that "the American people and the
world will be able to see the truth and precisely what that document says."
The NIE report, compiled by leading analysts across 16 U.S. spy agencies, says
the "global jihadist movement -- which includes al-Qaida, affiliated and
independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells -- is spreading
and adapting to counterterrorism efforts."
A separate high-level assessment focused solely on Iraq may be coming soon.
At least two House Democrats -- Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and
Rep. Jane Harman of California -- have questioned whether that report has been
stamped "draft" and shelved until after the Nov. 7 elections.
An intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitive nature of the process, said National Intelligence Director John
Negroponte told lawmakers in writing only one month ago that he ordered a new
Iraq estimate to be assembled. The estimate on terrorism released Tuesday
took about a year to produce.
The broad assessment on global terror trends, completed in April, escalated an
election-year battle over which party is the best steward of national security.
At a news conference Tuesday, Bush said critics who believe the Iraq war has
worsened terrorism are naive and mistaken, noting that al-Qaida and other groups
have found inspiration to attack for more than a decade. "My judgment is,
if we weren't in Iraq , they'd find some other excuse, because they have
ambitions," the president said.
But Sen. Joe Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said
Wednesday that Bush has allowed Iraq to fester as a training ground for
terrorists, and U.S. voters are worried about it.
"On Election Day, that morning, if there's still the carnage in the streets of
Iraq, then it will be clear that they have concluded that this administration's
policy has failed and there will be a political price for it," Biden, D-Del.,
predicted on CBS' "The Early Show."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia , the intelligence committee's top
Democrat, said the decision to invade Iraq shifted focus away from U.S.
counterterrorism efforts.
"There is no question that many of our policies have inflamed our enemies'
hatred toward the U.S. and allowed violence to flourish," he said. "But it
is the mistakes we made in Iraq -- the lack of planning, the mismanagement and
the complete incompetence of our leadership -- that has done the most damage to
our security."
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