The Neocons are howling
Not surprisingly, a lot of people are suddenly of the opinion that NIEs should be scrutinized and looked over now that one says something they don't want to hear. And it's so nice of the Washington Post and the New York Times to take a break from their liberal bias to allow these folks to explain this to the rest of us.
In the Washington Post, John "Yosemite" Bolton discovers that the politicization of intelligence is a problem now that it doesn't support his chosen policies.
But even he doesn't go so far as Valerie Lincy and Gary Milhollin at the New York Times, who've apparently decided to channel Normon Podhertz and contend that the 16 intelligence services of the United States have apparently decided to take Iran's side, and they list out a whole host of the standard and easily debunked chickenhawk talking points about Iran's nuclear program to "prove" that the intelligence community has their heads up their collective asses to even think that Iran isn't still working hard to acquire a nuclear weapon.
The real fun part is watching them all use the horribly messed up previous NIEs to contend that we should dismiss this one as politicized. (At least they've learned a little bit from N-pod's first outburst and focus on the 2002 Iraq NIE and not the 2005 Iran NIE. I mean, to use the 2005 NIE, which the 2007 NIE tells you is wrong, to claim the 2007 NIE can't be trusted and the 2005 NIE was right?)
Its really fun to watch.
