WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq will be finished at the end of January, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte said Thursday.
Negroponte announced he would undertake a new NIE specifically on Iraq on Aug. 4, 2006.
"There is a draft that's now being circulated for comment and concurrence by various intelligence agencies, and I estimate that it should be completed by the end of the month," Negroponte told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Negroponte, who has been tapped for a deputy position in the State Department, said the ongoing work of the new NIE has been information White House policy discussions.
"The ongoing judgments and assessments of the intelligence community have been brought to the attention of the president and other policymakers on a constant basis," he said. "The absence of an NIE, this formal document, does not mean that a lot of the thinking and the intelligence and the insights and the viewpoints that are reflected by the intelligence community about a country as important us -- as vitally important to us as Iraq are not brought to the president or other policymakers' attention on a constant basis."
This effort is different from the one that came to light in September after portions of another, separate NIE were leaked. That NIE was completed in April 2006 and addressed global trends in terrorism.
The White House then released some excerpts from April findings.
At the time, U.S. President George W. Bush denied assertions that the Iraq war was fueling terrorism rather than battling it.
An earlier NIE, completed in 2002, erroneously asserted that Saddam Hussein was actively developing and seeking weapons of mass destruction, providing a central argument for invasion.
