The Iraq Study Group leaks itself into the Iraq debate

The WaPo has a front page article this morning highlighting CIA Director Michael Hayden's testimony to the ISG from November 2006. It's quite inflammatory, but being 7 months old, this leak is more about shaping the debate today than assessing Iraq.

So, the interesting question is not so much what Hayden said in November, but who leaked it? (It's bylined Bob Woodward so it's a narrative someone powerful wants to tell.)

Hayden said "the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible," adding that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around," according to written records of his briefing and the recollections of six participants.

"The government is unable to govern," Hayden concluded. "We have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government that is balanced, and it cannot function."...

"The levers of power are not connected to anything," he said, adding: "We have placed all of our energies in creating the center, and the center cannot accomplish anything."...

"It's a legitimate question whether strengthening the Iraqi security forces helps or hurts when they are viewed as a predatory element," he said. "Strengthening Iraqi security forces is not unalloyed good. Without qualification, this judgment applies to the police."

One substantial element of this leak is to obliterate the President's credibility by contrasting Hayden's "candid" testimony from November with the president's presentations.

For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a "Churchillian" vision of "victory" in Iraq and defend the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "A constitutional order is emerging," he said.....

Bush was joined in the interview by Vice President Cheney, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and Hadley, but they did not speak. "We thought with that whole group there, we were going to get briefings, we were going to get discussions," said Perry. "Instead the president held forth on his views on how important the war was, and how it was tough."

So, somebody on the ISG is playing hardball. I guess it's not coincidental that this also comes as James Baker said he will not reconstitute the ISG without Bush's blessing.