According to Tony Snow, the NIE is a collection of "...detailed information collected by (human intelligence) agents, technical means, and also in cooperation with foreign governments." In this context, full disclosure would "...place at risk the lives of our agents ... as well as compromising our ability to work with foreign governments or, for that matter, to employ the means that we use," and therefore can not be revealed as it would compromise our GWoT.

Bullshit!

According to someone who has actually had a central part -- as head of the DIA negotiating team, among other positions -- in negotiating and writing "many" NIE's, they are"...not written in such a way as to make "sources and methods" vulnerable to discernment by reading the text." I''m of course referring to Col. Lang. He comes to this conclusion in a follow up post earlier today with respect to this administration and it's minions, they "...are impervious to rational persuasion, and will take any unfavorable evidence and spin it into a web of deception and half truths that serves their purposes. This does not mean that I think they are lying. No. It is worse than that. They believe their own baloney. Their baloney is based on esoteric understandings of history and the "progress " of history." We've already seen this in spades coming from the usual suspects.

Here's the bottom line, the April NIE won't see the light of day until after 7 November. Its sister report -- that focuses on Iraq only -- won't be ready till early next year as it is "slow-walked" through the agencies, to the DNI. And as always, the conservatives will continue to believe their "baloney."

Here is a little more about NIE's, if you're interested...