What Is In The N.I.E That We Haven't Seen

Yesterday George Bush declassified a whopping four pages of a National Security Estimate (copy can be found here). http://americablog.blogspot.com/...
In a style that has come to mark recent Bush speeches the president whined about leaks and the need to keep secrets, and then he released a portion of one. Assuming that he gave us what he thought was the piece of the report that was most supportive of his administration; one has to ask, what the hell does the rest of the report say? If Bush thought that "The NIE, declassified and released late Tuesday, concludes that the conflict has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic holy warriors and is "shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives." (USA Today) demonstrates support of his policies he is more addled than we thought.
Now we must try and divine what the rest of the NIE contains. Using only my crystal ball I will make predictions about the contents.

1.    The war can not be won in the common meaning but can only be brought to a state of stability with moderate levels of violence continuing as long as American troops are in the country.
2.    To achieve even this level of stability a massive deployment of troops will have to take place in addition to the troops already deployed.
3.    Without more troops the situation will continue to deteriorate and we will be trapped in a situation similar to the Soviets in Afghanistan or America in Viet Nam.
4.    No matter what we do the country will never be united and will end up divide into three sectors continually fighting one another over resources.

The future looks bleak in Iraq and the real question is going to be how much Americans are willing to pay to secure George Bush's pride. Personally I think his checkbook is overdrawn and his credit card has maxed out.

•  I'm thinking

  I'm thinking, since the bit we saw rants about leftists and environmentalists, that they redacted the parts about militiamen, white supremacists and Koresh-cults also being a threat to national and international stability.

  by Nina Katarina on Wed Sep 27, 2006 at 08:31:28 AM PDT

•  What, no section on "Bush Rocks!"????

  Nothing on "last throes" or how fighting them there prevents fighting them here?

  You know what I want to see? I want to see a section on how our Iraq venture, which is now consisting of digging trenches around baghdad, hiding our civilians behind a fortified Green Zone, and driving down streets where IEDs are planted, is being "on the offensive."  Sure looks like DEFENSE to me.

  by Inland on Wed Sep 27, 2006 at 08:32:34 AM PDT

•  What else might be in there

  I'd bet the NIE report describes at least two political problems seriously frustrating the "War on Terror," two embarassing problems the Bush Administration dare not acknowledge publicly at this time:

  1. Pakistan's defection from the coalition against terrorism;

  2. The al-Maliki government in Baghdad and its inability to control the Shiite militias or reach out to the Sunni opposition.

  by LanceBoyle on Wed Sep 27, 2006 at 09:36:40 AM PDT