New Iran NIE 'a piece of crap'

This flabbergasts me. But I know it shouldn't. The neocon right's response to the new NIE estimate on Iran has been swift and fierce.

Here is just one example of neocon spin control by Human Events' Jed Babbin.

Babbin says we can't believe the CIA or the State Dept's Bureau of Intel and Research because they're so hopelessly incompetent. And now they're "anti-Bush." So that leaves us... where? Neocons respond: Iran is an enemy, a danger, a threat, and America should treat them as such, despite what our intelligence community tells us.

Here's one particularly shocking excerpt:

"Let's face facts: six years after 9-11, four years after the invasion of Iraq, US intelligence community is still unable to tell the president most of the things he needs to know about Iran, North Korea and the other nations that pose a danger to American security. That lack of knowledge heightens the danger created by reports such as the new NIE."

Did you catch the logical fallacy? If U.S. intelligence is so awful, how can we "know" that Iran and North Korea pose such a danger in the first place? Are we supposed to take it on faith, like we did with Saddam? Neocons respond: In the absence of reliable information, you gotta go with your gut -- or their gut, rather. And their gastric rumblings tell them to gear up for WWIII, with or without a reason.