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NIE on al-Qaeda to be Released Tomorrow
Michael Chertoff's gut is about to get some competition. The office of the Director of National Intelligence just gave word that it will declassify and release the key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaeda tomorrow morning at 11. While a lot of speculation has appeared over the last week over what the NIE assesses about al-Qaeda's regained strength in its safe haven of Waziristan, the estimate is titled "The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland" -- suggesting that its focus is something short of a complete evaluation of al-Qaeda circa 2007.
To the extent that the NIE -- at least in public -- attempts to evaluate that threat, look to see how it weighs in on a key dispute. Among terrorism analysts, there's debate over whether al-Qaeda is more dangerous as a discrete network with some command elements still emanating from Osama bin Laden or as a global movement where any "franchisee" can take up the al-Qaeda banner and attack. Those on the Network side of the debate contend that al-Qaeda still requires experienced leadership and operatives to pull off catastrophic assaults (9/11, for instance), while those on the Movement side believe that what a more amorphous al-Qaeda is much harder to detect and disrupt, even if it doesn't have the same capabilities (the London and Madrid bombings, for instance). A subsidiary point of contention? Which model is more appropriate for the organization known as al-Qaeda in Iraq. Perhaps tomorrow we'll start to get some answers.
Comments (21)
Dan wrote on July 16, 2007 9:56 PM:guys, notice the timing. Senator Reid is forcing Republicans to filibuster if that is their true intent. Suddenly we get a declassification of the threat of Al-Qaida to our homeland. Huh...
Or maybe I'm crazy.
Steve5117 wrote on July 16, 2007 10:15 PM:I think the man sized safes in the OVP house phototron systems for growing the whacky weed that Cheney brews into kool-aid.
The Oracle wrote on July 16, 2007 10:31 PM:Good point Dan.
The Republicans under Karl Rove never take a vacation from partisan politics, even long enough to do what is right for our nation, and for our soldiers in harm's way.
I can already hear the Republican talking points being regurgitated on Faux News tomorrow. Democrats don't support the troops. Democrats are aiding and abetting the terrorists. Bush is the commander-in-chief during a time of neverending war and should be obeyed unquestioningly. Obey. Obey. Obey. Bush is the overlord of the universe, as well as commander-in-chief and president, so neither he nor his co-overlord of the universe, Dick Cheney, should be doubted. Disagreeing with or dissenting from the brilliant "strategeries" of Herr Bush and Herr Cheney only helps our enemies. Get in step, Democrats, goose-stepping in unison with all the "loyal Bushies" and "loyal Cheneys" who recognize and worship the infallibility of the two smartest and morally superior Americans ever to run the executive branch. Get with the program, Democrats, the neo-con Republican program aimed at domination of the world oil markets, and stop impeding neo-con Republican progress toward their goal of a permanent one-party ruling class for the United States of America. Geez, Democrats, stop being such party poopers, especially when you keep pooping on the party, the neo-con-ruled Republican Party, that is the greatest political party the world has ever seen.
Or something like that.
None other wrote on July 16, 2007 10:44 PM:Everyone needs to watch last weekends episode on The Bill Moyers Journal that focused on the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. It's on the internet at:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/profile.html
After you are done, send a message to Nancy Pelosi and your congress folks to DO SOMETHING!
OCPatriot wrote on July 16, 2007 10:57 PM:One point often overlooked is how well prepared we are for any attack. Had the cabin doors been strengthened and locked, and had the pilots been armed, the hijacking might not have had the result of bringing down the twin towers. These relatively simple precautions would have staved off the damage and might even have helped to prevent some of the carnage. How well prepared we are is a major point, as well as an accurate assessment of the strength of the terrorists who could attack us. The amateurish recent London bombings are indications of some of the factors at work. Also I've said it before - what do we really know about Al Qaeda? It's strength? It's capabilities? To read most of these reports is to read about a chimera, more imagination than reality. It would help if we had solid information, and, after five years, if we can't get it, we need to fire those intel officials and find new improved ones.
Belle wrote on July 16, 2007 11:15 PM:Anybody read "1984" recently? I think it's Cheney's playbook.
JD21 wrote on July 16, 2007 11:40 PM:Who will be left to report on it?
Murdoch has made his bid. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118463978304868582.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
Now he's going to do with the Journal just what he did with all his other media. Dumb it down into a hacky Republican rag.
Say goodbye to articles like these:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118454813037367221-search.html?KEYWORDS=republican+scandal&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month
EH wrote on July 17, 2007 12:22 AM:OCPatriot,
Well, we have a sense of the quality of our intelligence from the past...
EH wrote on July 17, 2007 3:34 AM:Every thread has its screed.
ryk wrote on July 17, 2007 8:47 AM:Yeah, it's all a big Jew conspiracy. Sigh.
Anonymous wrote on July 17, 2007 9:18 AM:Puleeze, not the "Jewish" conspiracy thing again
Equal Opportunity wrote on July 17, 2007 9:19 AM:I'm pretty sure I've read that scientific tests have shown that it is impossible to distinguish "jewish" DNA from Middle Eastern DNA.
I can't provide a source. But .... you've got one small tribe .... among many.... so perhaps you might want to consider "tribalism" or some such.
Humans have more in common - than we have differences.
AY wrote on July 17, 2007 9:31 AM:Where online can you get a hold of the report when it is released?
Austin Cooper wrote on July 17, 2007 10:16 AM:It's a conspiracy of Humans.
Humans have screwed everything up. They commit all the violence, create completely baroque political plots to control each other, and make bad things which have to appear on teevee.
We need more Human control!
-- Brave Little Toaster
thomas taraba wrote on July 17, 2007 10:20 AM:I just watched a piece about the just released National Security Estimate on CNN’s Larry King. Mr. King’s guests where two neo-con ex-military and an Israeli, I guess that’s what they call “liberal media”. So I was not surprised to hear from them that the root causes for “Radial Islam” was (take a guess, from all the possible reasons; abject poverty, western meddling in middle east affairs, Oil’s geo political influence on economic development, US/Europe’s insertion of Israel as a state after WW2, US instituting regime change in Iran in the 40’s and 50’s, …et al.) extremism in Muslin Schools. Leave it to the Republicans to take a complex issue and frame it into an issue that could on a bumper sticker. In the republican mind set there is no room for personal accountability or compromise, they are utter cowards taking no responsibility they happy to let others pay for their ignorance and arrogance. One must wonder what the party of “values voters” truly value?
conjecture wrote on July 17, 2007 10:45 AM:Power and money.
Anonymous wrote on July 17, 2007 10:57 AM:That's what they "value."
Hmmm Looks like we are finally getting some moderation for trolling activity
dee illuminati wrote on July 17, 2007 11:03 AM:I listened to the debate between the Senate last evening and got a final number of total muslims and the breakdown of population, according to congressional reports: 90% of all muslims are sunni, 10% are shiite. I think that if you look at where our efforts are focused, on predominately Shiite Iraq, that the supposition that that 10% be a beacon of democracy has not panned out. Add to that the sabre rattling with Iran and you have the 'entire ten percent' more or less, the term Al-Qaida literally means the database and is not a 'franchise' of religous zealouts, they do not refer to one another as Al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1523838,00.html
I think if you ask the question if there should be two databases, then the answer is yes. Additionally there is more than ample evidence that the organizational unit that the CIA created has been disrupted, (the subsidiary side) in the article.. and (the Movement side) is growing where they might actually start calling themselves, among themselves 'Al-Qaida.'
While I'm sure that there is ample evidence of cooperation within conflict regions such as Iraq and Afghanastan, and that supports the 'franchise' model, similar to a circumstance where a nation state would support a counter-insurgency like the US did, the real challenge is the movement side of the equation and the instablility and blow back that that group is having in the Sunni population.
There needs to be a larger analysis of Shiite, Sunni, European, and other 'origins' and spheres of influence and motives to really grasp the NIE and I doubt that that complexity will be communicated to the US public who thinks that Al-Qaida is like the term GOP or DEM.
Make no mistake about it.. the NIE is designed for internal public consumption buy intelligent folks and is not designed to inform or educate, or even to stimulate a meaningful debate to address the challenges that collectively are termed Al-Qaida.
I will say this.. that by focusing the majority of our tactical abilities on a relatively small segment of total muslims whom might be extremists, not debating Al Sadr being one, we have diverted attention from the larger 'movement' that may become eventually organized.
The results will be open to interpretation with y personal belief that the current intervention in Iraq counter productive and that allowing full scale civil war and sectarian striffe is preferable to capitualting the larger struggle and that once that slaughter initiates start framing the discussion in the terms of 'humanitarian effort.'
We should not have such a large amount of resources devoted to such a rather small number of Shiites.
sec code 'bucket' as in there were actually people who carried the bucket of this ill conceived idea.
Dee Illuminati wrote on July 17, 2007 11:18 AM:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071700099.html?hpid=moreheadlines
I see the ELF group listed, but what about Christians who want to expedite liddle-biddy-babee-jeezus back?
"that this level of international cooperation may wane as 9/11 becomes a more distant memory and perceptions of the threat diverge."
Now that is really where I diverge with the issue.. it is not framed within the context of what is internationally palatable, but instead what the international community remembers because internal public consumtion fails to tell them so.
Is there any discussion to the policy and not the perception?
And really isn't international cooperation vital and a short comming of this current go it alone plan>
And really is it wise again to focus so much on Iraq at the costs to this cooperation or should we just force the international community to deal with a humanitarian crisis?
Whoever is against humanitarian aid please raise your hnd when it comes to supply side spending folks and actually crafting a message that can be sustained...
Yawn.....
sec code 'with' with great exasperation do we cling to a bad idea and policy in Iraq.
scorpio13 wrote on July 17, 2007 11:23 AM:none other:
Right on. Excellent program. Bruce Fein made the ultimate case for impeachment. Too bad more Americans aren't paying closer attention to what these people are saying. Maybe more of them would "get it". I am a serious fan of PBS and Bill Moyers.
Mark D. Drapeau, Ph.D. wrote on August 2, 2007 4:15 PM:From a recent Washington Times Commentary:
*** Most large institutions are organized hierarchically with centralized leadership. Corporations have CEOs, armies have generals, countries have presidents. When competing against centralized organizations, promoting diffusion and disrupting cohesion are considered progressive.
However, al Qaeda has a constantly mutating, horizontal structure composed of an inspirational catalyst in the form of Osama bin Laden and other central figures joined with numerous small groups brought together not by orders but ideology. Here, lack of structure is a strength. Little thought is given, however, to how such a decentralized terrorist network structure affects the strategy for combating it.
"The Starfish and the Spider," a new book about corporate strategy written for a business audience, has a wider application — combating terrorism — and sheds light on this issue. ***
Read more of this article at the URL.