Dispute on Intelligence Report Disrupts Republicans’ Game Plan

The dispute over a newly disclosed National Intelligence Estimate has threatened a pre-election script in which the White House had sought to put Democrats on the defensive on national security.

As the White House saw it, this was to have been the week in which Republicans seized the advantage by pushing two antiterrorism bills through Congress over the objections of recalcitrant Democrats.

Instead, on Wednesday for the second day in a row, Democrats seized on the intelligence report as confirmation of their case that the Iraq war has in fact compounded the global terrorism threat.

Republicans responded by saying Democrats were distorting the findings or were exploiting important intelligence information for political gain. In Congress, the Republicans appeared to give up on passing one of the two antiterrorism bills, the one on surveillance.