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 Intellipedia National Security Archive References External links Council on Foreign Relations - October 2002 NIE on "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs"'' Washington Post August 2, 2005 - NIE says Iran is 10 years from a nuclear bomb Washington Post December 5, 2007 - NIE: Iran halted a covert nuclear weapons program in 2003 New York Times September 24, 2006