Bush, in a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Kharzai, announced that he had directed National Intelligence Director, John Negroponte to declassify the document.
Of course, it will be a redacted document. Bush made it clear that information that could reveal source information would be excluded.
Shall we trust Bush and Negroponte to declassify all the information in the document? That's for each of us to decide.
My guess is this new chess move will embarass Democrats and help Republicans. One must wonder whether this two step process-- the leak, then the de-classification was a two step gambit strategized by Karl Rove.
I guess we should add this to my growing collection of "call me paranoid" conspiracy theory article.
But on this one, I'm not alone, In his artice, Beware the NIE, Robert Dreyfus writes
In their eagerness to knock down Bush's war in Iraq by using reports about the NIE, the Democrats risk giving another boost to the president in the "other" war, namely, the so-called war on terrorism. By embracing the NIE's reported conclusion that the war in Iraq has made the threat of terrorism worse, the Democrats play into Bush's strong suit. While most Americans think that the war in Iraq is wrong and not worth fighting, polls continue to show that support for President Bush as the commander in chief of the Global War on Terror. Ironically, by endorsing the idea that radical Islamist terrorism is a major threat to the United States, the Democrats could end up driving U.S. voters into the arms of the president once again.
Since August, the president and his political team have been trying to "change the subject" from Iraq, where they are weak, to terrorism, where they believe that they are strong. By provoking sharp controversies over issues such as electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency and by aggressively asserting the need to torture terrorist detainees, the White House has sought to put Democrats on the defensive, portraying them as lily-livered vacillators unwilling to take ugly but necessary steps against the terrorist enemy. So far, whether this cynical (and un-American) strategy is working isn't clear. But the image of the president as terrorist-fighter is a powerful one, still.
The Democrats had better be smart and nimble on this one. And they should expect more of this kind of machination from the Republicans. The Republicans have the advantage of holding the white house, the congress, the military, the Intelligence agencies, the mainstream media-- and they are surely going to use all of them, through leaks, through statements by generals and heads of government agencies.
Me, I don't trust Bush's generals or his appointees. I think they lie for him. Even COlin Powell compromised his integrity for Bush. Somehow, the Dems need to get the American public to view any report from Bush's government with distrust.
