No he’s not running, but that doesn’t mean he can stand to be out of the media spotlight for more than five minutes, either. He has a huge ego, and always thinks America needs his input on every issue.

Since when is “dismantled” a synonym for “halt?” The word “dismantle” does not exist in the NIE. It’s bad enough when someone like Juan Cole makes that same mistake (and worse – some of the stuff he’s said about the NIE cannot be honest mistakes), but please don’t fall into that trap.

The intel community judges with HIGH CONFIDENCE (as opposed to certainty) that Iran HALTED it’s weapons program – not dismantled – in 2003. The difference between “dismantled” and “halt” is immense and important. Also note that the “high confidence” applies to what happened in 2003, not what’s happening now as evidenced later in the document:

The IC judges with only MODERATE CONFIDENCE that Iran has not since restarted the program.

What does that mean? It means Iran halted weapons-related activity in 2003 but we don’t really have a good idea what’s happened recently and therefore the IC is only moderately confident the halt is still in place today.

As for politics and the NIE, this guy gets it.

On the other hand, Gingrich is shamelessly pandering to the base.

Why is he out there? He’s not still considering a run, is he? (Democrats have their fingers crossed; who cares about Huckabee?)

far left [...] have stopped observing common decency.

When did they last observe it? Not when Reagan was around, to name one piece of the past!

I would say here, though, that it’s up to the critics to prove this new estimate was politically motivated.

Heres just a sample of adoration the left has for Bush. You can find it at the Gun Toting Liberal. Oh the love and compassion is just oozing here. Is it not.

“whole lot of things”? I can’t wait. A homophobe with a body count and a proven lack of good judgement with “a whole lot” of other “things” to be chased out of the closet, destined for a news outlet near you soon? What’s next? Toe-tapping with Larry Craig? Juicy emails to and from Mark Foley? A couple of secret visits to Ted Haggard? I’ve got to tell you; this guy fits the profile to a “T”, but you already KNEW that, didn’t you?

Heres a good one. The love. I can feel the love.

The fact is that the TMV is indeed moderate in its posting and its Commenting. This is one of the few places I have been able to comment without having my life threatened.

Deny if you want that the Hatefilled, venom spewing left is alive and well and I can take you to 10,000 left sites and prove you wrong.

Be happy in your paralledl universe.
I’m not going there.

Goodbye Doma. Enjoy La La Land.

Good-bye.

Be happy in your paralledl universe.
I’m not going there.

A statemtnent that includes the follosing: “Now fact number one. There is strong suspicions ….”
is totally lacking in logic. The ‘fact’ is a suspicion?

The facts are there are strong suspicions that…………People are in FACT believing this is so. It is a fact……….It is a fact the far left SUSPECTS (Believes)BUSH tortured people………..is it not?

Oh, I get it.
When you say whatever you say, it’s not hate.
When someoen else (the Left) disagrees with you, it is.

No its anger. Not hate. Its anger that the far left is so consumed in hatred for the Religious right and Bush Bashing that they have stopped observing common decency.

If you look at my posts you will see that I quote you quite often because of all the far lefties here you are the ONE person that is trying to make it to the middle ground. It is why I quote you so often. I used to quote Kritter all the time because she had that sense of trying to strive for middle ground.

I am one of three or four conservatives in a sea of liberals here at TMV. I expect to be called on what I write…….but when I am……that means people are thinking about what I said. That is always the purpose of discourse.

BTW,
A statemtnent that includes the follosing: “Now fact number one. There is strong suspicions ….”
is totally lacking in logic. The ‘fact’ is a suspicion?

I have tried but have repeatedly failed to commucnicate with you.
I give up.

I know you dont like my message that the far left are loons filled with hate. The far right is too. They are whackos filled with nutty visions that make my skin creep.

Now fact number one. There is strong suspicions that a defector has provided this evidence. The right used defectors in their intell to invade Iraq. Conclusion the left is grasping at anything to continue with their message that the war is bad. That is not hate filled. Its simply hypocrisy.

Fact number two. Why is this happening? Why suddenly is this report released pandering to the antiwar left? At the same time the CIA tape destruction was released? CYA…..thats not hate…….thats a legitimate question by the right and something the left would like to ignore as they revel in their victory.

My post was not about hate at all. Perhaps in other places its a indictment of hate coming from the left but that is not so here. It is in indictment of the SPIN both sides put on anything to prove a point.

This is about spin. The NIE spun the truth to protect the CIA’s arse and lost in this Im convinced that it was an effort to give Bush a chance to back away from the war talk on Iran and save some semblence of faith with his loon right base.

YES……READ MY LIPS………I visit loon right blogs and those guys are insane. I just choose to come to a place where the loon left hangs out and try to point out the error of their ways because honestly at loon right sites……..MY LIFE HAS BEEN THREATENED……here I just get a few insults thrown at me.

When I am not here I am at the Loon right calling them on their idiocy. This far left vs far right mindless hatred has got to stop. That is my message……you only see one side of it because you do not visit the far right sites I do.

The report is full of footnotes, explanations and different levels of certaintly. It does not come to a short version conclusion. It does not absolve Iran;, in fact, it makes a point of not doing so.

Given the nature of intel gathering, that’s what you’d expect an honest report to look like, full of uncertainties and ambiguities. Doing intel is not like solving 2+2=4.
As I understand it, the report was delayed because they went through the test of trying to disprove their own conclusions before releasing it.

What is the “obvious” basis for suspicion, aside from suspecting everything that doesn’t agree with preconceptions?

Your comment is kind of hard to digest, after your hearfelt statemtent abou hatred elsewhere.

Making this about Right vs Left is about as divisive and hate enhancing as one can get. Your fantasies about the evil Left will not help in the coming years and months.

How about sparing a moment for just thinking about the best tactics going forward? If you’re not too busy bemoaning hatreds, that is.

1) Questions about this are legitimate. The so-called Intelligence Community hasn’t covered itself in glory recently.

2) There is some obvious CYA going on.

On the other hand, Gingrich is shamelessly pandering to the base. The single-minded willingness of influential Republicans to tell their base exactly what will stroke their fears and predjudices is awesome.

Their message discipline is nothing short of amazing. It’s as destructive as ever, of course.

But still: awesome!!

We invaded Iraq largely on the say of defectors who claimed that Iraq had a WMD’s stash that would make the west envious.

These are legitimate questions to ask. If our intelligence agency says anything with certainty then that makes me pretty skeptical.

The left was wanting to fry the right for relying on defectors with an agenda. Now that the left has a potential defector to support their agenda they want to hold him up to the heavens and shout hallelujah.

Questions about something as important as this are merited. I personally hope its true because I do not want nor have I ever believed we were going to do anything other then bluster and twist the worlds arm to force Iran to stop its weapons program.

But lost in all this is this release……a bombshell in its own right combined with the release of the fact that the CIA destroyed those tapes. I sense a huge Arse covering move going on here. I suspect the tapes destruction are extremely annoying but no where so then an estimate that tells the left/antiwar…..hey we agree with you. Now suddenly that CIA deal is an annoyance and not a huge mouth frothing event.

That says it all.
What he’s saying is that intelligence should not rely on facts and findings but should be shaped so as to fit in with the administration’s plans.
The ‘intentionally so’ part is a wild accusation on a par with 9/11 conspiracy theories.

This will play nicely abroad as prrof postitive that the Iraq intel was cooked.
Doesn’t this gang realize they are destroying what credibiliy the Us has left?

As it is, the NIE release was a sign that the US was honest and would release informaiton regardless of political cost.
If Gingrich and gang prevail, who would ever believe the US about anything ever again?

No matter their level of sincerity, this is an incredibly dumb move. It would be an incredibly dumb move even if they were right.
Are they really so isolated in their own bubble that they have no idea how messages are received outside of that bubble?