Agreed, Ted. The agendas that come into a NiE session are more reflective of the agencies' collective cultures than the political leanings of the current heads of those agencies. We fought the agency culture battle in the NIEs and SNIEs leading up to Desert Storm. In some ways we have come full circle because one the outcomes of that effort was the complaint from senior leaders--CINCCENT in particular--about the use of caveats. As a result, there was greater emphasis placed on consensus buliding and reducing the number of caveats. I think it went too far. This NIE seems to have swung that particular pendulum back a bit.
The other issue with this NIE is that it does reflect a significant restructuring of the IC and tremendous changes in leadership. Mike McConnel as DNI is just one example. McConnell was the J2 in Desert Shield/Storm. Cambone is goneand Jim Clapper
has replaced him. Clapper was the ACSI of the USAF in Desert Shield and went onto become Director DIA. Gates--a former DCI--is Sec Def. He became the DCI in 1991 after serving as Dep NSA during Desert Shield. All of these guys worked together at a critical time. Now they are doing it again. I have no doubt that McConnell and the other IC leadership wanted this NIE to be apolitical so it could weather the inevitable political battering it was likely to generate.
Best
Tom
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