Democrats are shifting focus from a failing surge (since it’s working and working well) to the Maliki government in order to sway public opinion against the war. Its’ clear that #’s 1 & 3 are on the side of the “we need to complete the mission” ar...

Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: Some Security Progress but Political Reconciliation Elusive

Update to NIE, Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead

August 2007

Continue on for the NIE's Key Judgements and News / Blogs Links......

The IC is sowing the seeds of discontent before the September report. Or should I say trying to get the media in the right frame of mind to attack the September report.

PS: I do recall reading some time ago that, because of the time taken to gather and review the intelligence and move it up the chain, these reports are dated by the time they are issued. So just maybe this report is aged by two to three months.

It doesn’t take a policy position. But it leaves you with the sense that what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working, but we can’t let up, or it’ll get worse.

So, we'll continue munching on these here shards of glass because, well, we're not sure why but certainly anything else would be worse.

This assessment, from an unnamed “official” quoted by the NYT, is both amusing and probably dead-on: “It doesn’t take a policy position. But it leaves you with the sense that what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working, but we can’t let up, or it’ll get worse.”

It is considered very bad form for the IC to recommend policy for the policymaker customers of intelligence products. All the IC can do is to state the conditions and perhaps make predictions based on alternative courses of actions. You'll never see an IC product recommend policy, as that is the very jealously guarded turf of the policymakers in the executive branch.