After months and months of delays, the long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was delivered to Congress today. It is altogether fitting that the NIE crawled out from Langley on Groundhog Day. After all, like Bill Murray in the film Groundhog Day we've experienced this unsettling process of murky reports from the intelligence community before. And we're certainly in for at least six more weeks of conflict in Iraq.
Wary of repeating George Tenet's 2002 NIE rosy portrait of American prospects in Iraq, John Negroponte's "Prospects for Stability in Iraq: A Challenging Road Ahead" takes a more cautious path. Navigating a political tightrope as President Bush tries to sell his proposed "surge" in Iraq, the NIE tries to offer a glimmer of promise amidst the darkening landscape:

Iraqi society's growing polarization, the persistent weakness of the security forces and the state in general, and all sides' ready recourse to violence are collectively driving an increase in communal and insurgent violence and political extremism. Unless efforts to reverse these conditions show measurable progress during the term of this Estimate, the coming 12 to 18 months, we assess that the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate at rates comparable to the latter part of 2006. If strengthened Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), more loyal to the government and supported by Coalition forces, are able to reduce levels of violence and establish more effective security for Iraq's population, Iraqi leaders could have an opportunity to begin the process of political compromise necessary for longer term stability, political progress, and economic recovery.

That, of course, is a big "if." What the Iraq Study Group in December deemed the "grave and deteriorating conditions" in Iraq has already produced what the NIE describes as more complex than a "civil war:"

The Intelligence Community judges that the term "civil war" does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa'ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term "civil war" accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.

Within hours of its release, the Bush administration tried jumped through the window opened by the NIE's equivocal language regarding civil war in Iraq. As ThinkProgress reported, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley like President Bush refused to use the term "civil war" to describe the chaos in Iraq during his morning press conference, "Because it's not an adequate description of the situation we find ourselves, as the intelligence community says." A defiant Hadley then resorted to a tried and true Bush White House tactic since the Iraq war run-up, the claim of unique knowledge, "We know what kind of fight we're in. We know the facts."
While the Bush administration is in denial over civil war in Iraq, the NIE made the White House position on Iranian meddling even more problematic. Even as the White House debates and delays a public release of it intelligence on Iran's role in stirring violence in Iraq, the NIE undermined the bellicose rhetoric towards Tehran coming from Washington. While noting that "Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq," the NIE concludes:

Iraq's neighbors influence, and are influenced by, events within Iraq, but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics.

It's no wonder the Bush administration has hesitated to move forward with evidence it claims backs its contention that Iran agents, weapons and money are behind attacks on American troops. (It should be noted that the vast majority of U.S. casualties stem from attacks by Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda in Iraq, not Tehran-backed Shia militias.) As the International Herald Tribune reports today:

Some administration officials said there was a continuing debate about how well the information proved the Bush administration's case..."We don't want to create the impression that we are steaming toward confrontation," said one senior State Department official familiar with the debate. "Some people are worried about how quickly the rhetoric has ratcheted up."

So, it's Groundhog Day on Iraq, all right. Administration figures cherry-pick words and findings from an ambiguous report. Weak intelligence and tenuous conclusions fails to make the administration's case.
It's deja vu all all over again.
NOTE: The Iraq Document Center provides access to all the essential reports, documents and materials on the Iraq conflict, WMD and pre-war intelligence. From declassified NIEs and the reports of the Iraq Survey Group, the Robb-Silbermann Commission and the Senate Intel Committee to the Downing Street memos and key Bush speeches, it's all there. For more, visit "The Iraq Document Center."