Or more properly the
National Intelligence Estimate 95-19: "Emerging Missile Threats to North America During the Next 15 Years".
Issued by the US National Intelligence Council in 1995, and written by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), NIE 95-19 categorically denied the possibility of new states gaining ballistic missile technology capable of threatening North America within the next 15 years.
The Clinton Administration used this estimate to justify arguments against the desire to build a U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) system, designed to shoot down incoming missiles.
The Republican Congress objected to this assesment of the threat and ordered two commissions of inquiry into the findings. The first found in favour of NIE 95-19. The second, led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, and now known as the Rumsfeld Commission, found that the threat had been drastically understated, and that the US could face ballistic missile attack from a previously incapable state within five years.