What National Intelligence Estimate?

Over the last several days, George Bush has been reminding anyone who will listen that we had not invaded Iraq before the al-Qaeda attack on September 11 (or when they attacked the US Cole etc.).

The purpose of this little bit of pointless information is to direct attention from a National Intelligence Estimate - the combined wisdom - of sixteen separate U.S. Intelligence agencies - that unequivocally states that the war in Iraq has increased the spread of Islamic jihadism, provided the terrorists with improved training facilities, and generally made the US less, rather than more safe.

Bushy-boy did fail, has failed, is failing, and will continue to fail to understand how to defeat terrorists so long as he continues to fail to understand them. A critical point made by the NIE that five years after the fact Bush still hasn't managed to wrap his meager intellect around.

So instead of admitting that his strategy has failed, Bush continues to run around calling names pointing fingers, and misrepresenting the position of anyone with a different strategy from the one that is so obviously failing on every level. Hey, insisting on a different strategy is not the same thing as cutting and running. I would not have started this war, but now that we are in it I know we have to win it. I just don't think we're going to win it his way.

Big deal. He's blowing it. This is not news. And it hasn't been news for a long time already. But the media outlets still treat it like it is. The combined investigative talents of the New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, the Chicago Trib, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, Fox News, the Networks, Jon Stewart and etc. etc. are all busily investigating "what did the NIE really say" and "what does it mean" and blah blah blah.

But Frank Rich got it exactly right. None of this is news:

The supposedly shocking key finding in the N.I.E. — that the Iraq war is a boon to terrorism — isn’t remotely news. It first turned up in a classified C.I.A. report leaked to the press in June 2005. It’s also long been visible to the naked eye. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted before any revelations from the N.I.E., found that nearly half the country believes that the Iraq war is increasing the terrorist threat against America and only 12 percent thinks the war is decreasing that threat. Americans don’t have to pore over leaked intelligence documents to learn this. They just have to turn on the television.

Tonight on “60 Minutes,” Bob Woodward will spill another supposedly shocking intelligence finding revealed in his new book: a secret government prediction that the insurgency will grow worse next year. Who’d have thunk it? Given that the insurgency is growing worse every day right now — last week suicide bombings hit a record high in Baghdad — the real surprise would be if the government predicted an armistice. A poll released last week by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that about 6 in 10 Iraqis approved of attacks on American forces. Tardy investigative reporting is hardly needed to figure out that the insurgency is thriving.

The Meaningless Debate over the Latest N.I.E., NY Times, Oct. 1, 2006.

What more needs to be said?