GOP Intel Report “A Campaign Document, A Product of the Republican Strategy of Scaring America

NY Times editorial "Wanted: Scarier Intelligence" It is partly a campaign document, a product of the Republican strategy of scaring Americans into allowing the G.O.P. to retain control of Congress this fall. It fits with the fearmongering we’ve heard lately — like President Bush’s attempt the other day to link the Iraq war to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But even more worrisome, the report seems intended to signal the intelligence community that the Republican leadership wants scarier assessments that would justify a more confrontational approach to Tehran. It was not the work of any intelligence agency, or the full intelligence panel, or even the subcommittee that ostensibly drafted it. The Washington Post reported that it was written primarily by a former C.I.A. official known for his view that the assessments on Iran are not sufficiently dire. While the report contains no new information, it does dish up dire-sounding innuendo, mostly to leave the impression that Iran is developing nuclear weapons a lot faster than intelligence agencies have the guts to admit. It also tosses in a few conspiracy theories, like the unsupported assertion that Iran engineered the warfare between Israel and Hezbollah. And it complains that America’s spy agencies are too cautious, that they “shy away from provocative conclusions.”Via Laura Rozen guesting for Kevin Drum, who asks: "Is anyone in Congress doing any serious work on the Iran issue? Or by the way, on the Iraq issue? As the WP's Thomas Ricks said on a BookTV interview about his new book on the Iraq war, Fiasco, there has never been a war in the past century of American history in which there have been basically no hearings, no important investigations. Instead, we get this?"