The New NIE (National Intelligence Excrement)

What a coincidence. Today a summary of the new NIE was released just before the Senate is to hold an all-nighter to debate the war in Iraq, one paragraph of which reads:

We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to enhance its capabilities to attack the Homeland through greater cooperation with regional terrorist groups. Of note, we assess that al-Qa’ida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland. In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps al-Qa’ida to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks.

From the experience of wading through the fine minutiae of textual additions and deletions in other texts and contexts, I smell a whopper of a textual insertion here. This paragraph makes no sense as it stands. Al-Qa'ida in Iraq (AQI -- wow, they're so big we now have an acronymn for them!) is the most visible and capable al-Qa'ida affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland (note the rhetoric of repeating the words "The Homeland" to scare the shit out of us)?

C'mon. The rhetoric and content of this document have been so transparently manipulated by the Bush administration for one purpose and one purpose only. To make the case that we must stay the course in Iraq, because now al-Qa'ida is there plotting attacks against the Homeland. It will be of great use tonight for Bush's allies in the Senate.

Of course the MSM and even some, if not most, left-leaning news outlets and blogs will get taken in by this ploy and report it with the headlines "Al-Qa'ida in Iraq is attempting to hit the Homeland!" When will they/we ever learn that every authoritative voice in the Federal government, with the exception of parts of the Senate and the House, is now an instrument of Bush administration propaganda?

Update: This morning's WaPo has an article that analyzes the new NIE and in the course of the story reports that, "In talking with reporters in the Oval Office yesterday, Bush concentrated on a single paragraph in the assessment that placed the enemy in Iraq in a larger context of international terrorism. The estimate said bin Laden's organization will 'probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland.'"

Need I introduce any other evidence that this paragraph was, in fact, largely manufactured?