Bush announces plans to declassify the NIE

According to Reuters Bush has just announced that he will declassify the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which has been all the talk since the NY Times reported leaks from it this weekend.

"I think it's a bad habit for our government to declassify every time there's a leak," Bush said.

"But once again there's a leak out of our government, coming right down the stretch in this campaign, in order to create confusion in the minds of the American people, in my judgment is why they leaked it," he said. [Snip]

The analysis by the 16 U.S. spy agencies concluded the Iraq war had spread Islamic radicalism and made the overall terrorism problem worse, according to current and former intelligence officials familiar with the document.

See my earlier report Iraq war has made terrorism worse, not better.

Apparently Karl Rove believes that there will be less damage to Republican candidates if what the report says is out there rather than just the incomplete leaks which fuel even greater suspicion of the Republican handling of the war.

That, or the version of the NIE to be released will be severely bowdlerized.

Or both.