Intelligence Report Is Pessimistic About Iraq

[IJ Reilly]

A U.S. official says the classified estimate found that, at best, stability would be tenuous.

From Associated Press

September 16, 2004

WASHINGTON — A highly classified National Intelligence Estimate assembled by some of the government's most senior analysts this summer provides a pessimistic assessment about the future security and stability of Iraq.

The National Intelligence Council looked at the political, economic and security situation and determined that, at best, stability would be tenuous, a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said late Wednesday.

At worst, the official said, were "trend lines that would point to a civil war." The official said it "would be fair" to call the document "pessimistic."

The estimate, prepared for President Bush, contrasts with public comments in which Bush and his senior aides have spoken optimistically about the prospects for a peaceful and free Iraq.

"We're making progress on the ground," the president said at his Texas ranch late last month.

The intelligence estimate, which is reportedly about 50 pages long, covers the period between July and the end of 2005.

The latest assessment was undertaken by the National Intelligence Council, a group of senior intelligence officials.

Acting CIA Director John E. McLaughlin and the leaders of other intelligence agencies have approved it.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment Wednesday night, and a National Security Council spokesman could not be reached.

The document was first reported by the New York Times on its website Wednesday.

It is the first formal assessment of Iraq since the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

A review of that estimate released this summer by the Senate Intelligence Committee found widespread intelligence failures that led to faulty assumptions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-intel16sep16,1,2082558.story

[mischief]

I'll add also that the situation has gotten so bad in Iraq that the media now finds it simply too dangerous to send reporters to most of the country when not embedded in a troop column. (NPR, Yesterday afternoon)

As a result the exposure of the failure in Iraq to the American People is almost Nil. The same, by the way can be said for Afghanistan. Both countries are considered too likely to undergo violent civil war soon to be worth risking Reporter's lives on covering. A sick irony.

Source is an interview W/ Christopher Dickey; Buraue cheif for NewsWeek out of France. He's been the lead reporter for Newsweek in Iraq and has been a War correspondent for 30 years.

Link to Audio: http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=15-Sep-2004

[zimv20]

how is it that a number of us here, w/ our limited access to information, could see what a disaster all this would be, but the administration could not?

...or did they...

[skunk]

Monomania, dogma and tunnel vision.

[mischief]

how is it that a number of us here, w/ our limited access to information, could see what a disaster all this would be, but the administration could not?

...or did they...

How do you hunt critters that are illegal to hunt with impunity?

" IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!!!!"

Honestly I really don't think it entered their minds. They had a goal (Git that pesky Diktayter with the ugly moustache.) and they were determined to go after it.

[IJ Reilly]

I think everybody who follows the situation in Iraq even moderately closely knows that the country is showing every sign of descending into a spiral of chaos from which it is unlikely to recover any time soon. That's old news. The real story here is how the tale Bush is telling the public is at such wide variance with what his own intelligence apparatus is telling him. Yup, but
"we're makin' progress" -- so long as your definition of "progress" is "from bad to worse."

[mischief]

Yup, but
"we're makin' progress" -- so long as your definition of "progress" is "from bad to worse."

Hmm.... Just a thought but:

If you have no destination in mind but keep on driving... are you not, by definition making progress?

[takao]

Yup, but
"we're makin' progress" -- so long as your definition of "progress" is "from bad to worse."

haha LOL so true

is anybody actually surprised that the report is pessimistic ?

[zimv20]

iraq is regressing because the # of bad things is outpacing the # of good. but -- as long as at least one good thing is happening (you know, like a school got painted), the cherry-picking administration feels it can say that progress is being made.

i bought a new Audi and stuck a nickel into my savings account. look ma, i'm saving!

[IJ Reilly]

Hmm.... Just a thought but:

If you have no destination in mind but keep on driving... are you not, by definition making progress?

Reminds me of the old husband and wife joke, where the wife asks the husband, "We're lost, aren't we?" And he says, "Yeah, but we're making great time!"

Bada-boomp!

[Sayhey]

Sorry for the duplicate thread, but the story on CNN has a few interesting additions. I particularly like this quote:

Senate Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday denounced the Bush administration's slow progress in rebuilding Iraq, saying the risks of failure are great if it doesn't act with greater urgency.

"It's beyond pitiful, it's beyond embarrassing, it's now in the zone of dangerous," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, referring to figures showing only about 6 percent of the reconstruction money approved by Congress last year has been spent....

CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/16/us.iraq.ap/index.html)

[IJ Reilly]

I suppose this situation must be more difficult to explain away if you happen to be the Senator from Nebraska then if you're the President of the United States. Sad, but true.

I'm beginning to harbor the wish that Bush wins this year because it's becoming clear to me that he'll sink like a ton of bricks if the situation in Iraq doesn't improve substantially -- which seems increasingly unlikely -- and there will be hell to pay in 2006 and beyond. Eventually, I'm sure Americans will figure out that they've been completely hoodwinked.

[zimv20]

I'm beginning to harbor the wish that Bush wins this year because it's becoming clear to me that he'll sink like a ton of bricks if the situation in Iraq doesn't improve substantially -- which seems increasingly unlikely -- and there will be hell to pay in 2006 and beyond. Eventually, I'm sure Americans will figure out that they've been completely hoodwinked.
now you're seeing the light! the pessimistic light, perhaps, but it's still a light!

[diamond geezer]

*Far Graver than Vietnam
**By Sidney Blumenthal
**The Guardian


**Thursday 16 September 2004


Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale.


**'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday.


**But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends."


**Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."


**Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."


**W. Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute - and the top expert on Iraq there - said: "I don't think that you can kill the insurgency". According to Terrill, the anti-US insurgency, centred in the Sunni triangle, and holding several cities and towns - including Fallujah - is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.


**"We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me. "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are x number of insurgents, and that when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."


**After the killing of four US contractors in Fallujah, the marines besieged the city for three weeks in April - the watershed event for the insurgency. "I think the president ordered the attack on Fallujah," said General Hoare. "I asked a three-star marine general who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me. I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the White House." Then, just as suddenly, the order was rescinded, and Islamist radicals gained control, using the city as a base.


**"If you are a Muslim and the community is under occupation by a non-Islamic power it becomes a religious requirement to resist that occupation," Terrill explained. "Most Iraqis consider us occupiers, not liberators." He describes the religious imagery common now in Fallujah and the Sunni triangle: "There's talk of angels and the Prophet Mohammed coming down from heaven to lead the fighting, talk of martyrs whose bodies are glowing and emanating wonderful scents."


**"I see no exit," said Record. "We've been down that road before. It's called Vietnamisation. The idea that we're going to have an Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq."


**General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."


**Terrill believes that any sustained US military offensive against the no-go areas "could become so controversial that members of the Iraqi government would feel compelled to resign". Thus, an attempted military solution would destroy the slightest remaining political legitimacy. "If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory."


**General Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it - after the election. The signs are all there."


**He compares any such planned attack to the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Asad's razing of the rebel city of Hama. "You could flatten it," said Hoare. "US military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle. I hate that phrase collateral damage. And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy."


**General Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers over Iraqi was worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defence and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."

link (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html)

[zimv20]

link (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html)
heh heh, we posted that at about the same time.

mine is in a new thread (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=89224)

[pseudobrit]

now you're seeing the light! the pessimistic light, perhaps, but it's still a light!

"Cynical" would be the word I'd use instead of pessimistic, since it's a bitter view that carries a semblance of hope.

[Desertrat]

I disremember whose war it was, way, way back before even my time. anyhow, a soldier on night guard duty cries out, "Sir! I have caught a Tatar!"

The officer responds, "Let him go!"

"I can't! He won't let me!"

One of the more important comments in all the cites, it seems to me, is, ""If you are a Muslim and the community is under occupation by a non-Islamic power it becomes a religious requirement to resist that occupation," Terrill explained."

This of course parallels bin Laden's reasoning for his hostility toward the U.S., given his comments about our presence in Saudi Arabia. It also shows--I think--that the insurgents are less pro-Saddam than they are anti-outsider.

'Rat

[zimv20]

"Cynical" would be the word I'd use instead of pessimistic
agreed

[pseudobrit]

agreed

I'd also capitalise "agreed." ;)

[zimv20]

I'd also capitalise "agreed." ;)
if only i could skate!! :-)

[IJ Reilly]

This of course parallels bin Laden's reasoning for his hostility toward the U.S., given his comments about our presence in Saudi Arabia. It also shows--I think--that the insurgents are less pro-Saddam than they are anti-outsider.

Yes or perhaps more accurately, anti-occupier. Now, anyone care to take any wagers over whether the administration will ever admit this?

[skunk]

Yes or perhaps more accurately, anti-occupier. Now, anyone care to take any wagers over whether the administration will ever admit this?
Falling on one's sword is not something the members of this venal administration is ever likely to understand.

[Chip NoVaMac]

Yes or perhaps more accurately, anti-occupier. Now, anyone care to take any wagers over whether the administration will ever admit this?

I think that Bush and Co. looked at Iraq at this time to be a cakewalk. This is based on some of the short successes that the US military had in battle. Nobody ever thought of the long term results of doing a war in Iraq at this point in time. And the military and the Iraqi innocents are paying the price for greed driven goals.

[SPG]

Do you guys remember during the buildup to the invasion a poster named "Ovi" or something like that? Used to come in and tell us all how it's going to be a cakewalk and we'll find all the WMD's and he's buddies with all these guys who let him watch the militairy do desert training?
Remember how confident that little prick was? No matter how much evidence we showed him, he was always right? Think about that guy for a while and then you'll understand exactly how we wound up where we are today. Under a normal administration, people who thought like that would be tossed out, not given full unconditional support.

[IJ Reilly]

He was only one of the Tarzan crowd. We had macfan and a bunch of others beating their breasts so loudly you couldn't hear yourself think. Somebody should dig up those threads. They might make for interesting historical reading.

I wonder where all of those guys have gone. Probably off somewhere telling people they were right all along.

[IJ Reilly]

Taking my own advice, here's a little stroll down memory lane...

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=23841

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=23101

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=22248

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=21846

[zimv20]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=21846
wow, a whole lot of bannable offenses in this one. glad we're a lot more civilized these days.

[pseudobrit]

wow, a whole lot of bannable offenses in this one. glad we're a lot more civilized these days.

Only because us liberal hippie anti-war fags are the ones who got to serve the more bellicose crowd a steaming, heaping plate of shut-the-****-up with a side of I-told-you-so.

Otherwise we'd still be hearing a lot of this kind of talk directed at us.

Wow, reading those old threads pisses me off.

[IJ Reilly]

Yeah, it's a good thing we found out the truth about those drones, and discovered that Hans Blix was full of it. And we really put those Frenchies in their place, too.

My favorite quote from the last thread:
The more I hear all of these liberals talking about why they think we should not go to war, the better they make me feel about myself, and my President.

[Desertrat]

Well, I'll reiterate that I was believing at the time and still think so that Saddam needed to be removed. From that standpoint I favored the invasion, although I wasn't beating the drums for it to happen.

The actual combat phase was indeed a cakewalk.

Now, I see no way that with my lack of overall knowledge of the inner workings of Islamic culture that I could have foreseen the present reactions against us. I really doubt anybody on this forum could have, either, regardless of attitudes for or against the invasion. But that understanding, or lack thereof, comes under the heading of, "It ain't my job." It's the job of those making the decisions, and, obviously, they blew it.

With the advisors and information available to the Administration and to the Pentagon, I feel the present problems should have been foreseen. IMO, this lack of understanding can't be blamed on "faulty intelligence" from abroad or on the bad advice of the CIA. One wonders, then, where were the questions about, "After we knock out Saddam, then what will the various Iraqi factions do?" and, "How will they react?"

So: I guess one question is, do you vote against Bush as punishment for failure in this particular issue? Or, another view, do you vote for Kerry because you think he has a highly-likely way of solving this problem? It seems to me that voting for Kerry for this reason depends on what seems now to be an unknown...

'Rat

[takao]

Well, I'll reiterate that I was believing at the time and still think so that Saddam needed to be removed. From that standpoint I favored the invasion, although I wasn't beating the drums for it to happen.

same here .. i was for the war as well _but_ not without UN support+additional resolution..bush tried fix the error his father made during 1 office period... if he tried a much slower, more diplomatic process then it might have been more succesfull (and finishing the afgahnistan thing might have helped too)


The actual combat phase was indeed a cakewalk.

nobody with the slightest knowledge about 'how military stuff works' ( and without having financial interests) doubted that


Now, I see no way that with my lack of overall knowledge of the inner workings of Islamic culture that I could have foreseen the present reactions against us. I really doubt anybody on this forum could have, either, regardless of attitudes for or against the invasion. But that understanding, or lack thereof, comes under the heading of, "It ain't my job." It's the job of those making the decisions, and, obviously, they blew it.

With the advisors and information available to the Administration and to the Pentagon, I feel the present problems should have been foreseen. IMO, this lack of understanding can't be blamed on "faulty intelligence" from abroad or on the bad advice of the CIA. One wonders, then, where were the questions about, "After we knock out Saddam, then what will the various Iraqi factions do?" and, "How will they react?"


i guess if Bush would have had your knowledge of the position of the islamic factions in iraq ,it might have come completly different....or at least if he asked himself this questions....once...

for me it looks like bush took all advise for granted and thought that 'it will work out fine'
heck the things happening in iraq right now are not even a 'worst case scenario'...

[IJ Reilly]

I'll reiterate what I thought and said at the time: That we'd probably be involved in a war in Iraq eventually, but that this war was fought on a political instead of a military or a diplomatic timetable, and that Mr. Bush made an utter dog's breakfast out of the alliances that should have been assembled to address the Saddam Problem (and global terrorism). A lot of people throughout the world, and in these pages as well, were asking for Bush to allow the inspection process that he himself had properly reinitiated to run their course and at the same time to undertake the long, arduous and often not immediately satisfying diplomatic spade work of building a consensus for action. That, it turns out, was the right course to take, and I hardly see where any doubt can be raised on that score knowing what we know today. But Bush was impatient and ham-handed, and a lot of people have died as a result. And for that alone he deserves to be turned out.

Also, quite a few bogus assertions made by the administration were debunked in these discussions and backed with sources the administration chose to ignore or sideline. Many were forecasting that the Iraqis were not going to throw rose-pedals at the feet of our soldiers, but that we might very well might find ourselves instead trying to keep a lid on a civil war of our own creation. The adequacy of the number of troops to be deployed was also questioned by many, including high-ranking people within the armed services themselves. When Don Rumsfeld snorted at the entire idea that his expedition might cost the taxpayers as much as $50 billion, quite a few spoke up to question his judgment and veracity. When the administration claimed that much of the cost of the war and reconstruction could be offset by shipments of Iraqi crude oil, expert opinion was trotted out to demonstrate that this was so much wishful thinking at best and an outright deception at worst.

And so on. Yes, this administration deserves to be handing its walking papers. They have committed a litany of predicable failures of a magnitude hardly seen in recent history. If that doesn't disqualify them from serving for another four years, I don't know when and where and how you define disqualification.

[Desertrat]

A very close friend of mine was a combat Marine, a platoon leader, in Vietnam. He's certainly very conservative in his political views. But if you want to see glow-in-the-dark hostility, just say, "Rumsfeld".

I'm starting to wonder about the recent sequence of SecDefs. Les Aspin was another who underwhelmed me, and now the Rummy. You get right down to it, the "stud-hoss" people of both parties seem underwhelming, whether elected or appointed...I read the names, I read their statements on issues--pick an issue--and I just want to throw up.

I'm goin' dove huntin'. Much better use of my time.

'Rat

[takao]

A very close friend of mine was a combat Marine, a platoon leader, in Vietnam. He's certainly very conservative in his political views. But if you want to see glow-in-the-dark hostility, just say, "Rumsfeld".

..rumsfeld should have resigned long time ago already... he has to go... he's a _bad_ joke ... seriously...

[wwworry]

Now, I see no way that with my lack of overall knowledge of the inner workings of Islamic culture that I could have foreseen the present reactions against us. I really doubt anybody on this forum could have, either, regardless of attitudes for or against the invasion. But that understanding, or lack thereof, comes under the heading of, "It ain't my job." It's the job of those making the decisions, and, obviously, they blew it.

With the advisors and information available to the Administration and to the Pentagon, I feel the present problems should have been foreseen. IMO, this lack of understanding can't be blamed on "faulty intelligence" from abroad or on the bad advice of the CIA. One wonders, then, where were the questions about, "After we knock out Saddam, then what will the various Iraqi factions do?" and, "How will they react?"

So: I guess one question is, do you vote against Bush as punishment for failure in this particular issue? Or, another view, do you vote for Kerry because you think he has a highly-likely way of solving this problem? It seems to me that voting for Kerry for this reason depends on what seems now to be an unknown...

'Rat

You don't need to know the inner workings of Islamic culture to know how they would react.

How would YOU react if the US was invaded? What if Hilary Clinton was president and we had national healthcare (the horror!) and the US was invaded, would you welcome the invaders with flowers?

Isn't it possible to dislike your own government AND detest an invading power? It always seemed the most likely senario to me.

What is also unknown is how Bush intends to solve the Iraq problem. So not only did Bush make the problem, Bush has no credible plan (as usual) to solve the problem. Vote Kerry.