Latest Flap over Declassification of the National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE)
Blog Number 2 for September 26, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Since I was once a part of the NSA, it was only natural that I would receive questions about the latest Republican-Democratic flap in our Nation’s capital. So, rather than answer each question individually, I am issuing this blog to answer them all at one time. First of all, what is the National Intelligence Estimate? Please consider the following three descriptions concerning its preparation, contents, uses, and importance.
(1) The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), is prepared by or at the direction of the National Intelligence Council
(http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_about.html)
It is defined by the Department of Defense as a “strategic estimate of the capabilities, vulnerabilities, and probable courses of action of foreign nations produced at
the national level as a composite of the views of the intelligence community. Also called NIE.”
(2) According to the National Strategic Intelligence Act, 1994
(http://www.polity.org.za/html/govdocs/legislation/1994/act94-039.html),
The National Intelligence Estimate “means the product of the process of considering and weighing the possibilities, probabilities and facts disclosed by national security intelligence with regard to any situation, and of drawing conclusions from such possibilities, probabilities and facts.”
(3) The CIA says:
(http://www.foia.cia.gov/soviet_estimates.asp)
A “National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)” is the most authoritative written judgment concerning a national security issue prepared by
the Director of Central Intelligence. Unlike ‘current intelligence’ products, which describe the present, most NIEs forecast future developments and many address their implications for the United States. NIEs cover a wide range of issue–from military to technological to economic to political trends.
“NIEs are addressed to the highest level of policymakers
–up to and including the President.
They are often dr
afted in response to a specific request from a policymaker. Estimates are designed not just to provide information but
to help policymakers think through issues. They are prepared by CIA with the participation of other agencies of the Intelligence Community and are coordinated with these agencies. When there are alternative views about a subject within the Intelligence Community, the NIEs include such views.”
Now, having covered the three major aspects of the NIE, let me give you my personal, repeat, personal, opinion, repeat opinion of the NIE now being waved aloft by both Republicans and Democrats.
The current format of the NIE had its birth during the first term of President Clinton, but there were consolidated estimates of the national intelligence effectiveness in place long before his administration under different names. These reports were available to high level officials in the administration and to certain congressional committies that needed to be briefed on them.
But access to the reports were very limited, and leaks were virtually unheard of – such was the case when I retired from NSA (USAF) IN 1971. Only the highest officials in the CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA, had access to them, and the rest of the peons, like myself, only had access on a need-to-know-basis.
Now, as to my opinion. When access to internal intelligence estimates of cause and effect were extremely limited they were not politically biased, but pretty well laid out the situation as it was, not as would benefit any political party.
However, as both the administration and congress were more and more aware that this information could be used to swing close elections in favor of their party, pressure began to be applied to get the NIE to reflect an analysis estimate that was favorable to keep them in, or to get them in, control of the presidency or congress. Now, as to my advice, don’t blame either party, and vote your conscience. Why? There is enough blame on both sides to whitewash a Virginia coal mind!
I would say this country is rapidly approaching the state of government that existed in Israel before she was ovrrrun and carried to Babylon, as Jeremiah describes in 5:28-31.
Jeremiah 5:28-31 – They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. [29] Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? [30] A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; [31] The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?
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