Larry Johnson on the facts behind the NIE.

Although the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) regarding Iraq and terrorism is still classified (UPDATE: The Key Judgments are now declassified and can be found at this link), the data behind the findings is not and has been publicly available for three years. I have written repeatedly on this fact and it has been, I am told, the judgment of the intelligence community for at least two years. The statistics on terrorist activity, until this year, were published in the State Department's annual report on terrorism (Patterns of Global Terrorism). The Bush Administration tried to not publish the report last year because the data showed an unprecedented surge in international terrorist attacks. The following chart shows the bad news (it is based on the statistics collected by the CIA and supplied to the Department of State):

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"Significant" terrorist incident is one in which a person was killed, wounded or kidnapped (or there was property damage in excess of $10,000). The statistics tell a very clear and simple story (I bet someone who can read My Pet Goat can figure it out).

I'm not sure I'd take that bet.

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