Six months ago, Harper’s Ken Silverstein reported that “in spite of pressure from CIA analysts, intelligence czar John Negroponte was blocking a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq.” National Intelligence Estimates present the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. Despite pressure from Congress, the administration insisted it could not complete the NIE until January 2007.

Last week, however, an administration intelligence official told senators that the report is still not complete. According to Silverstein, Senate hearing attendees “believe that senior intelligence officials are stalling because an NIE will be bleak enough to present a significant political liability.”

Yesterday, NPR host Diane Rehm may have revealed why the NIE remains so politically sensitive. On her national radio show, Rehm said:

It’s my understanding that the National Intelligence Estimate…is going to suggest that adding troops is the wrong way to go, that it’s not going to improve the situation.

Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and the House and Senate intelligence committee chairmen wrote President Bush “urging prompt completion of a national intelligence estimate (NIE) on Iraq first requested by Congress six months ago.” Read the full letter HERE.

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Yesterday on CNN, Vice President Cheney told Wolf Blitzer that “the biggest threat” in the Iraq war right now is that the American public may not have the “stomach for the fight.”

Responding to Cheney’s comments, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) told PBS Newshour host Gwen Ifill that it’s astounding the Vice President so “underestimates the people of this country” and “has so little faith in this country to say something like that.” Watch it:

Hagel also suggested that Cheney talk to the families of the soldiers and tell them “that they don’t have the stomach.”

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In a new statement, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) tells ThinkProgress, “I don’t support the President’s plan to send an additional number of troops to Iraq,” arguing that Bush’s plan is “not tied to a specific strategy and will only needlessly endanger more soldiers.”

Reyes was an early opponent of the Iraq war and voted against the October 2002 Iraq resolution. But in a Newsweek interview earlier this year, Reyes said he would support sending some additional U.S. forces to Iraq.

Reyes explained his thinking at the time. “In late summer to early fall of 2006, military leaders were of the opinion that if given the mission to neutralize these militias, they could do so with a temporary increase of 20,000 to 30,000 troops. My position then was that this would be a worthwhile investment that would result in a more secure environment for our troops, and would provide the Iraqi government a better chance to establish itself.”

However, Reyes notes, as the year progressed, the security situation deteriorated further, and CentCom commander John Abizaid testified that sending additional troops was not advisable.

Yet President Bush has pushed ahead with troop increases anyway, a plan “supposedly initiated by Prime Minister Maliki.” Given Maliki’s “past performance and inability to command the Iraqi military or order the disarming of the militias,” Reyes argues, “the President’s support of this plan without specific benchmarks of accountability is unacceptable.” Moreover, he says, “When I met with the President before his announcement of the plan, I asked him if he intended to take the advice of the military leadership and use the troops for dealing with the militias; the President confirmed that his plan was not the same.”

Now, Reyes says, the solution “is to make the Iraqi government accountable for both their own security, with U.S. support, and to find a political solution to the sectarian differences and subsequent violence, not to put additional U.S. troops in danger.”

[ThinkProgress is keeping track of where every member of Congress stands on escalation. Using media reports, press releases, and submissions from hundreds of readers, we've compiled an interactive tally showing every member’s position. (Check it out HERE.)