The Oxymoron: Administration Intelligence Issues

Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post writes on the suspicious nature and timing of the latest disclosures concerning Syria's and North Korea's collusion in 'creating nuclear weapons' in Syria:

President Bush has built up a prodigious track record of selectively disclosing intelligence findings that serve his political agenda. And some of the most important of those findings, of course, turned out to be completely false.

The latest disclosure from the White House's intelligence apparatus -- that Syria secretly built a nuclear reactor with North Korean help -- is in many ways a blockbuster. But at the same time, its highly suspicious timing raises doubts about the motivation behind its announcement.

And even if everything the administration says is true, there are many elements of the emerging story that deserve scrutiny.

David E. Sanger writes in the New York Times: "[A]fter a full day of briefing members of Congress, two senior intelligence officials acknowledged that the evidence had left them with no more than 'low confidence' that Syria was preparing to build a nuclear weapon.

"[E]ven some senior officials of the administration acknowledge that they are likely to leave Mr. Bush's successor with a North Korea with roughly 10 nuclear weapons or fuel for weapons, up from the one or two weapons it had when Mr. Bush took office in 2001." [This although Bush's stated goal has been to relieve the tensions in Asia and around the world by getting N. Korea to dismantle its weapon program.]

Meanwhile, "Several members of Congress complained yesterday that the administration was too slow to share the intelligence and warned that it undermined future cooperation with the White House. . . ."

Click here for the complete text and related links.
^^^
I don't know about you but I know I have heard the bobble heads on the MSM [the few who even mentioned the interesting nature of the timing of these announcements] speculate about everything from 'getting the spies who had discovered the information out of harm's way' to parroting Cheney's assertion that such a delay 'helped with the negotiations with North Korea regarding dismantling of its nuclear weapons.' However, as Froomkin points out--the exact opposite of Cheney's assertion actually seems to be the case.

So, take a look at this interesting [to say the least] article. What do you think? What the MSM said? Or another ratchet-up-to-war while the MSM complies with silence?

Given its track record, why do they keep giving this administration a pass?