National Intelligence Estimate

Senior civilian and military policymakers, including congressional leaders, typically request NIEs. Before a NIE is drafted, the relevant National Intelligence Officer (NIO) produces a concept paper or 'terms of reference' (TOR) and circulates it throughout the IC for comment. The TOR defines the key estimative questions, determines drafting responsibilities, and sets the drafting and publication schedule. Several IC analysts from different agencies produce the initial text of the estimate. The NIC then meets to critique the draft before it is circulated to the broader IC. Representatives from the relevant IC agencies meet to hone and coordinate line-by-line the full text of the NIE. Working with their agencies, representatives also assign the confidence levels to each key judgment. IC representatives discuss the quality of sources with intelligence collectors to ensure the draft does not contain erroneous information. == Challenges to the production of NIEs ==

The IC must overcome several challenges to produce accurate and useful strategic intelligence assessments, including: • Urgent requests vs. lengthy process: The process of interagency coordination and an insistence on analytic rigor normally push the completion of NIEs to several months or even more than a year. Per Congress's request in the fall of 2002, the IC rushed to complete the NIE on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction (which turned out to be incorrect) in less than a month. Since a rushed product can result in poor or inaccurate assessments, the IC must balance the urgency for a requested assessment with a commitment to analytical rigor. • Interagency collaboration: Because NIEs represent the consensus view of the IC, all 17 agencies have input on each NIE. Such collaboration can lead to: • Gridlock, where many different interests slow the analytic process. • Compromise, where the estimates contain only "lowest common denominator" language. • Groupthink, where opposing views are subconsciously discouraged. == Potential issues with politicization ==

Throughout the past several decades, the release of a NIE on a controversial policy have usually resulted in charges that the IC politicized its key findings. Charges of politicization come from both Democrats and Republicans, but normally emerge from the side that does not agree with the policy implications of the analysis. Changes or reversals in NIE assessments over time cause some legislators to question whether the change resulted from newly collected intelligence or whether analysts changed their position to support a specific political agenda. For example, the IC accusation of politicization surfaced after the key judgments of NIEs on the ballistic missile threat to the United States changed between 1993 and 1995. Some Republicans claimed the IC politicized the findings to support President Clinton's policy against missile defense systems. Democrats accused the IC of politicization after the release of the NIE on Iraq's WMD programs because they believed they supported the policy decision to invade Iraq. Congress has investigated the issue of politicization within the IC numerous times, as have independent commissions. To date, these investigations have never found evidence of politicization by analysts. ==See also==