"Predominantly -- probably Shiite," said Reyes.

Perhaps this mistake would be understandable were Reyes newly elected. But he is a five-year veteran of the House Intelligence Committee.

"With a background in law enforcement and national security, Congressman Reyes was asked to serve on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence beginning in the spring of 2001," says his Website. "Since then, Reyes has worked with his colleagues on the Intelligence Committee to understand how the terrorist attacks of September 11th could have occurred and to use these lessons to revamp the Intelligence Community in order to effectively avoid future attacks."

"The work of the committee is critical to the security of our nation," Reyes' Website says. "Due to the highly sensitive and classified nature of the material, however, members of the Intelligence Committee are often unable to discuss details of the committee's activities with those outside of the Intelligence Community."

Yet, Reyes is unable to discuss basic facts about al-Qaida found in the public domain.

How can Pelosi put someone this out of touch with the facts about al-Qaida in charge of congressional oversight of the U.S. intelligence community in the midst of a war with al-Qaida?

According to the Iraq Study Group, U.S. intelligence-gathering and analysis in Iraq is still dragging.

Only 33 of 1,000 officials at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad speak Arabic. Only six of those are fluent.

"A senior commander told us that human intelligence in Iraq has improved from 10 percent to 30 percent," said the ISG report. "Clearly, U.S. intelligence agencies can and must do better."

"We rely too much on others to bring information to us, and too often don't understand what is reported back because we don't understand the context of what we are told," an intelligence analyst told the ISG.

Is someone who didn't know as of last week that al-Qaida is a Sunni organization the right person to fix this? Nancy Pelosi should find another chairman for House Intelligence.