The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee accused the Bush administration Thursday of suppressing a classified intelligence report that paints a “grim” picture of the situation in Iraq.
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) sent a letter to CIA Director Michael V. Hayden requesting the release of the report and charging that the agency was withholding the information out of political considerations, which she said was demoralizing to the agency’s workforce.
“I believe that the intelligence community has produced an in-depth intelligence review of Iraq, but that the material has been stamped ‘draft’ and will not be finalized” until after the November election, Harman said in the letter, which was released by her office. “The integrity of the organization you lead is at stake.”
…”I know that there is a substantially complete assessment on Iraq,” Harman said. “I understand it is grim. I understand many working inside the intelligence community are frustrated because the release of that document is being blocked.”
If you have a Republican brain you will write this off as another example of the CIA looking to swing an election to the Democrats. I have to admit that the bulk of the CIA seems to have been moderately more sympathetic to the Democrats since the summer of 2003. Maybe this is mainly coming from the Directorate of Intelligence and the Operations people are still largely right-wingers. Or maybe the treatment of Valerie Plame Wilson poisoned that well too. People that work in the Intelligence branch of the CIA are not a whole lot different from people that work at NASA or the National Institute of Health, or the EPA. They come up with hypotheses, run experiments to test their theories, and try to predict what the world will do under different scenarios. They are just as likely to be offended by the anti-science attitude of Bushism as any stem-cell researcher or global climate scientist.
The reality, however, is that Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket, fast. Our intelligence assessment is that the war is making us less safe, that staying will not help, and that our military is being ground up. The analysts do their job and then discover that such news is not welcome and will not be disseminated prior to the election. Then they leak word of the report to the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, a Democrat, and she makes an impotent request for access to the information.
The GOP cries about more leaking of classified information and more attempts by the CIA to effect the results of the elections. This cycle is getting old now. The same things are happening at the Pentagon. This administration is a failure. And more and more people are taking risks to get the truth to the American people. I hope it starts to sink in. I hope we are about to trounce the Republicans in these midterms and get a real mandate for change.
