A funny thing happened on the way to World War III: The bottom fell out. President Bush was determined to take us there, but, this time, thank God, we found out before the war that he was cooking the intelligence.
The release of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was a clear repudiation of the Bush White House and a hopeful new chapter for American intelligence agencies. For years, George Bush and Dick Cheney, with ever escalating rhetoric, have been beating the war drums over Iran. In October 2004, Cheney flatly stated: "They have been trying to develop nuclear technology now for some time." And in October 2007, Bush famously warned: "I told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
It was, in so many ways, a re-enactment of the buildup to war in Iraq. Change one letter, from Iraq to Iran, and what we heard from the administration reads exactly the same: They're building nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We can't let that happen. We must launch a pre-emptive strike to stop 'em. ...   more »

The partisan furor erupting over the selective release of two pages from this year's National Intelligence Estimate report aside, it raises a lot more questions than it answers.
The first question that comes to mind is why? The White House is allegedly "incensed" that those particular pages were declassified and released, and it might even be true.
Or it might not.
Let's look at both arguments. Leaking the NIE report handed all the cards over to Iran, seemingly emasculating the administration's entire Iran foreign policy. The National Intelligence Estimate is highly classified information – for any of the 16 intelligence agencies to leak it is tantamount to treason.
For it to be freely released to the public seems inexplicable.
For four years, the Bush administration has been building a case against Iran's nuclear program. Two years ago, the NIE reported "with high confidence" Iran was moving full steam ahead with a nuclear weapons program. It estimated Iran was only a matter of a few years, if not months, before it would pass the nuclear point of no return.
The leaked portion of this year's NIE says the consensus opinion of the nation's intelligence community is that Iran suspended its nuclear ...   more »