The reason the Iraq NIE has been delayed

The National Intelligence Estimate on the current state of Iraq has been slowrolled, but Pincus may provide the outlines of why this has been so, it's content.

The draft of a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq says it will be "very difficult" but "not impossible" for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to succeed in providing better governance in that war-ravaged country, a top intelligence official told a Senate committee yesterday.....

Fingar added that in the NIE, there are "a lot of conditional statements, but it is not impossible."

Imagine the politics for Bush's "surge" if this NIE was already out saying Maliki has, at best, a slim chance of success.