National Intelligence?

"A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column for WorldNetDaily questioning both the content and the timing of the National Intelligence Estimate that concluded, 'with high confidence' that Iran had suspended its nuclear program in 2003. But there is something about the NIE report that doesn't add up. It all but destroyed four years of foreign policy effort and handed Tehran what amounted to a blank check for its nuclear program. As I wrote then: 'There is but one alternative explanation. Either some kind of a U.S. deal with Iran has already been struck, or one is so close that maintaining the coalition is no longer deemed necessary.' ... So why the sudden change is our assessment of Iran's Iraqi involvment? How could we reliably verify such changes in only 30 days? It appears to me that this new 'rosy' assessment is based on 'faith in what a backroom deal will produce in the future.' ... Two weeks after the NIE report, Petreus' official spokesman was using words like 'excellence' to describe Tehran's cooperation with the [US] war effort. ... This new NIE report virtually betrays our only reliable ally in the war on terror in the Middle East-Israel. ... For the [US] the question is whether we learn nothing from repeated, inescapable lessons that placing democratization on top of our foreign policy priorities is high-order folly. ... Israeli intelligence is completely at odds with the NIE's conclusions, saying it not only believes that Iran has not abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons, but that it believes Iran will 'cross the nuclear threshold' within six months and will have a working nuclear weapon by the end of 2009. ... It is worth remembering that Washington had no inkling that Syria was seeking nuclear weapons--until the Israeli Air Force hit a Syrian nuclear bomb assembly plant last September. Washington was also totally surprised by Pakistan's entrance into the World Nuclear Club. ... If we made a deal with Tehran that temporarily protects our forces in Iraq by giving them a free hand with developing nuclear weapons, have we really gained anything in the long run?" Hal Lindsey at http://www.worldenetdaily.com/, 4 January 2008.

We must accept the NIE not as an objective, dispassionate fact analysis, but a propaganda piece to help the Bush administration proclaim the Iraq War a success, to aid Republican 2008 election prospects. No one should take any government report at face value. Does anyone believe "our" official inflation statistics, for example?