With the release of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, the Bush administration and those who supported him in his quest for war with Iraq, such as Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe, have been made to look even more foolish than previously.

The NIE sums up the consensus view of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and in it, they say that Iran stopped all nuclear activity in 2003. Suddenly the entire Cheney plan for war with Iran evaporates. But the bigger point is that in the beginning of 2003, before the U.S. invaded Iraq for supposedly having and developing weapons of mass destruction, the country that actually had been manufacturing and working on WMD was completely ignored by President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

I am not arguing that this country should have attacked Iran then, nor should it now, but what does it say about the utter incompetence of Republicans that they can’t even identify the actual threats to this country?

Something to think about as we hear the Republican presidential candidates bantering on and on about the so-called “global war on terror.” If Republicans can’t even figure out which countries are actually threats to this country, how on Earth should they expect anyone to believe they can protect us from anything, let alone a terrorist threat?

Dave Chirayath, Lewiston