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the apparently incorrect conclusions. A criticism lodged against the intelligence community was that it had rushed the NIE, although the Senate had imposed a three-week deadline. (This particular criticism was somewhat ironic, as NIEs are usually criticized for how long they take, from several months to a year in some cases.) Although the conclusions of the NIE were not borne out, the estimate probably had little effect on the Senate as, according to press accounts, only six senators read the NIE before voting. (This was known because Senators had to sign for the NIE given its high classification. The Senate voted 77-23 to “[a]uthorize the President to use the U.S. armed forces to . . . defend U.S. national security against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigated the intelligence community’s performance on Iraqi WMD. Among its major findings were that many of the NIE’s key judgments were overstated or not supported by the underlying intelligence: that the uncertainties for some judgments were not explained; that some of these judgments were then used as the basis for further judgments; that an excessive reliance was placed on foreign liaison reporting; and, most significant, that a groupthink dynamic had led to a presumption that Iraq had an ongoing WMD program. The Senate committee announced in 2005 that it would begin a review of intelligence and capabilities on Iran. The committee sought to maintain the momentum it believed it had achieved with its Iraq WMD report and also sought to get a better sense of issues and capabilities on Iran before any major changes were made in U.S. policy.

Congress has continued to make further requests for intelligence analysis crafted for its needs. This will continue to run the risks evidenced in the Iraq NIE experience. The intelligence community is part of the executive branch and works for the president or the president’s senior cabinet officers. Intelligence managers will be hard put, however, to make choices between serving their usual policy makers and Congress. Although there may be grounds to respond to Congress only as time allows or after executive branch demands have been met, the consequences of such a course may be harsh. Congress’s most obvious retaliation would be the budget. There is also the question of priorities. In 2007, the House Intelligence Committee strongly requested that an NIE on global warming be written. DNI McConnell resisted initially and then agreed, even as he noted that this NIE would not take resources away from terrorism. McConnell was saying, in effect, that the intelligence community would respond to the committee’s request but that it was clearly not at the same level of priority as other issues.

The other NIE-related issue is that of publishing the KJs, which has been discussed previously. Should these demands continue and increase, the executive branch may have to reach some sort of agreement with Congress bounding these demands.

Another major divide is partisanship. Whether it is the majority or the minority, a substantial group in Congress always opposes the administration on the basis of party affiliation as well as policy. Partisanship inevitably spills over into intelligence, often in the form of concerns that the executive branch has cooked intelligence to support policy. Dissent about intelligence policy could arise within the executive, but it would not be based on partisanship.

EXTERNAL FACTORS. The intelligence oversight system does not take place in a vacuum. Among the many factors that come into play to affect oversight, the press is a major one. The lingering effects of Watergate, including the search for scoops and major scandals, have influenced reporting on intelligence. The press, as an institution, gets more mileage out of reporting things that have gone wrong than it does from bestowing kudos for those that are going right. The fact that intelligence correctly analyzes some major event is hardly news; after all, that is its job. Moreover, in the aftermath of the 1975-1976