However, let’s not get in the habit of declassifying stuff in order to demistify leaks. There is a plethora of good reasons why this stuff is secret. The least of witch is the reason why the Supreme Court keeps out the cameras for example. Cameras lend uncertainty.
The report would inevitably become about something other than what it is intended.

The best way to figure out what the NIE actually says is to release it to the public, with necessary redactions. As has been done with previous NIE’s.

That’s is a sensible suggestion. These leaks are obviously designed to serve the interest of the Democrats in the upcoming election. However, the full report likely paints a far more balanced perspective, that would be more favorable to the administration. Of course, then the Democrats would smear Bush for releasing classified information for political gain, and the NY Times would ink a finger-waving editorial condemning the release.

And the Japanese killed a lot more of our guys after Dec 7, 1941 than they did before. Go figure.

“This sounds like the CIA is once again running its own foreign policy initiatives in opposition to the executive, and is using leaks of classified information for the purpose. Am I the only person in the country to find this deeply disturbing?”

No, you’re not; other posters have commented on this in the past, some very recently. The Augean stables of the CIA and State Department should be thoroughly cleaned out; their post cold-war value has been minimal and their complicity in activities that seem to be aimed at influencing domestic elections is absolutely disturbing. They must have some extremely compromising items on some pols because otherwise there’s no excuse for many heads not rolling.

Let’s say the world is a house, and as a house will be over the years you noticed a few cockroaches running out of a wall. To address the issue over time you adopt a policy of spraying individual cockroaches, only to find over time, it just ÔøΩmasksÔøΩ the problem. However one day you decide to just knock down the wall to see where theyÔøΩre are all coming from and when you do suddenly thousands of them come scurrying out. Have you made the problem worse? Perhaps, but you are a lot closer to the cure.

LetÔøΩs say the world is a house, and as a house will be over the years you noticed a few cockroaches running out of a wall. To address the issue over time you adopt a policy of spraying individual cockroaches, only to find over time, it just ÔøΩmasksÔøΩ the problem. However one day you decide to just knock down the wall to see where theyÔøΩre are all coming from and when you do suddenly thousands of them come scurrying out. Have you made the problem worse? Perhaps, but you are a lot closer to the cure.