Followup: Senate Passes National Intelligence Estimate Amendment

By Ken Silverstein

Two weeks ago, I reported in this blog that a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq was being blocked by John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. Soon after, six U.S. senators called for a new NIE—and today the Senate passed an amendment, proposed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, that requires Negroponte “to task the intelligence community” with the preparation of a new NIE on Iraq.

It comes not a moment too soon: according to the New York Times , General John P. Abizaid, commander of American forces in the Middle East, told a Senate committee that “the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if [the violence is] not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”

A summary of the amendment passed by the Senate, from a press release issued by Kennedy's office, appears below.

The Director of National Intelligence will prepare a new National Intelligence Estimate on the prospects for security and stability in Iraq. The last National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was prepared in July 2004.

The new National Intelligence Estimate will include:

• The prospects for controlling severe sectarian violence that could lead to civil war.
• The prospects for Iraq's ethnic, religious and tribal divisions.
• An assessment of whether Iraq is succeeding in standing up effective security forces, including an assessment of the extent to which militias are providing security in Iraq and the extent to which the Government of Iraq has developed and implemented a credible plan to disarm and demobilize and reintegrate militias into government security forces, and is working to obtain a political commitment from political parties to ban militias.
• An assessment of whether Iraq is succeeding in creating a stable and effective unity government, and the likelihood that the government will address the concerns of the Sunni community.
• The prospects for economic reconstruction and the impact that will have on security and stability.

The National Intelligence Estimate will be provided to Congress not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of the Act. If the Director of National Intelligence is unable to submit the National Intelligence Estimate by that date, he will submit to Congress not later than that date a report setting forth the reasons for being unable to do so and the date on which such National Intelligence Estimate will be provided.

The National Intelligence Estimate is to be submitted to Congress in a classified form, except that, consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and methods, an unclassified summary of key judgments shall also be submitted.