Congress (Probably) Didn’t Compel Release of Iran Intel ReportKevin Drum speculated earlier today that pressure from the Democratic-controlled Congress might have pushed Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, into releasing today’s National Intelligence Estimate, which judges that Iran doesn’t have an active nuclear weapons program. It’s an assessment that’s certainly in line with past practice: after all, the administration isn’t in the habit of releasing much information at all, let alone data points that suggest Iran can’t, you know, start World War Three. But in this case, it looks like McConnell took the initiative without help.
An aide to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, says that Rockefeller — the obvious culprit in any Senatorial intelligence push — didn’t press McConnell to release the NIE’s key judgments. Rockefeller’s House counterpart, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), released a statement today saying that he wants to be “fully informed about the classified sources upon which this estimate is based” and that he will “review areas where certain agencies dissent.” That sounds like a man in the dark about the NIE. At the risk of wild speculation, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s unlikely that their GOP colleagues didn’t want the world to know about Iran’s nuclear non-threat.
Perhaps other Senators or Congresscritters pushed McConnell. But so far it looks like this is a case of the intelligence community actually being out to set the record straight.