Bush can stovepipe or sit on an NIE, but not the UN

President Bush a continues to sit on one National Intelligence Estimate about how the Iraq conflict (remember, no war was declared) has increased terrorism problems, while releasing redacted parts of it in dribblets and prevents another from even being formulated.

Re that second report, here’s how BushCo spins it (link below):

At the same time, California Rep. Jane Harman, senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee, accused the Bush administration of holding back until after the election a new NIE being prepared on Iraq.

Snow said Harman was “just flat wrong,” that the report was not even in a draft form and would take time to complete.

How much time? Well, surely, it can’t be rushed so much as to be completed before the Nov. 7 election, right?

But he can’t sit on the U.N.

A new U.N. report on how Iraq has fueled terrorism is saying the same things as our counterterrorism experts, as prepared by U.N. terrorism experts.

"New explosive devices are now used in Afghanistan within a month of their first appearing in Iraq," it said. "And while the Taliban have not been found fighting outside Afghanistan/Pakistan, there have been reports of them training in both Iraq and Somalia.”

I don’t believe in every tenet of Alcoholics Anonymous, but certain male alcoholics with a Type A personality or halfway there do seem to be especially stubborn, even obstinate. I don’t totally agree with the “dry drunk” idea, either, as it often becomes used as a weapon, not a tool.

But it, too, has some degree of validity. Exhibit A is at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.