President Bush and The Bush Administration knew, or least should have
known, that an invasion of Iraq would have serious consequences in
escalating the world wide threat of terrorism against the U.S. and in
creating a chaotic, violent Iraq that would require a prolong
occupation, but the Neo-conservative went forward with the invasion of
Iraq, never-the-less.
#---------------------------------------
Analysts' Warnings of Iraq Chaos Detailed
Senate Panel Releases Assessments From 2003
By Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/walter+pincus+and+karen+deyoung/>
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 26, 2007; Page A01
Months before the invasion of Iraq
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/iraq.html?nav=el>,
U.S.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/United+States?tid=informline>
intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent
sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Al+Qaeda?tid=informline>
with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/afghanistan.html?nav=el>,
according to a report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke
Iran
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/iran.html?nav=el>
to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge
of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the
Muslim world.
The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated
within the Bush administration before the war, said that establishing
democracy in Iraq would be "a long, difficult and probably turbulent
challenge." The assessments noted that Iraqi political culture was
"largely bereft of the social underpinnings" to support democratic
development.
More than four years after the March 2003 invasion, with Iraq still
mired in violence and 150,000 U.S. troops there under continued attack
from al-Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents, the intelligence warnings seem
prophetic. Other predictions, however, were less than accurate.
Intelligence analysts assessed that any postwar increase in terrorism
would slowly subside in three to five years, and that Iraq's vast oil
reserves would quickly facilitate economic reconstruction.
The report is the latest release in the Senate committee's ongoing study
of prewar intelligence. A July 2004 report identified
intelligence-gathering and analysis failures related to weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq. Still pending is a study of how the administration
used intelligence on Iraq in the run-up to the war.
The report was released the same day President Bush
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/George+W.+Bush?tid=informline>
signed a $120 billion war funding bill from Congress that includes
benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
In a statement attached to yesterday's 229-page report, the Senate
intelligence committee's chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), and
three other Democratic panel members said: "The most chilling and
prescient warning from the intelligence community prior to the war was
that the American invasion would bring about instability in Iraq that
would be exploited by Iran and al Qaeda terrorists."
In addition to portraying a terrorist nexus between Iraq and al-Qaeda
that did not exist, the Democrats said, the Bush administration "also
kept from the American people . . . the sobering intelligence
assessments it received at the time" -- that an Iraq war could allow
al-Qaeda "to establish the presence in Iraq and opportunity to strike at
Americans it did not have prior to the invasion."
Sen. Christopher S. Bond
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Kit+Bond?tid=informline>
(Mo.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Missouri?tid=informline>),
vice chairman of the panel, and three other Republican members said the
assessments were "not a crystal ball" and that the warnings emphasized
in the committee report "lacked detail or specificity that would have
guided military planners." Overall, the Republicans said the report
"exaggerates the significance of the prewar assessments" and that the
inquiry itself "has become too embroiled in politics and partisanship."
Most of the information in the report was drawn from two lengthy
assessments issued by the National Intelligence Council in January 2003,
titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Saddam+Hussein?tid=informline>"
and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq," both of which the
Senate report reprints with only minor redactions. The assessments were
requested by Richard N. Haass, then director of policy planning at the
State Department
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/U.S.+Department+of+State?tid=informline>,
and were written by Paul R. Pillar, the national intelligence officer
for the Near East, as a synthesis of views across the 16-agency
intelligence community.
The report includes lists indicating that the analyses, which were
reported by The Washington Post
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/The+Washington+Post+Company?tid=informline>
last week, were distributed at senior levels of the White House
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/The+White+House?tid=informline>
and the State and Defense departments and to the congressional armed
services and appropriations committees. At the time, the White House and
the Pentagon
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/The+Pentagon?tid=informline>
were saying that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators, democracy
would be quickly established and Iraq would become a model for the
Middle East
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Middle+East?tid=informline>.
Initial post-invasion plans called for U.S. troop withdrawals to begin
in summer 2003.
The classified reports, however, predicted that establishing a stable
democratic government would be a long challenge because Iraq's political
culture did "not foster liberalism or democracy" and there was "no
concept of loyal opposition and no history of alternation of power."
They also said that competing Sunni, Shiite and Kurd factions would
"encourage terrorist groups to take advantage of a volatile security
environment to launch attacks within Iraq." Because of the divided Iraqi
society, there was "a significant chance that domestic groups would
engage in violent conflict with each other unless an occupying force
prevented them from doing so."
While predicting that terrorist threats heightened by the invasion would
probably decline within five years, the assessments said that lines
between al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world "could
become blurred." U.S. occupation of Iraq "probably would boost
proponents of political Islam" throughout the Muslim world and "funds
for terrorist groups probably would increase as a result of Muslim
outrage over U.S. actions."
In the economic arena, the analysts predicted that oil revenue would
greatly ease the rebuilding of Iraq's economy, provided that oil fields
and infrastructure were not severely damaged. But, they said, "cuts in
electricity or looting of distribution networks would have a cascading
disastrous impact" and that large amounts of outside assistance would
still be needed to provide services such as water and sanitation.
The assessments, like the Bush administration's public statements,
inaccurately predicted that Iraq's oil production could be quickly
increased, forecasting that production could rise to 3.1 million barrels
a day "within several months of the end of hostilities." The analysts
did not foresee that sabotage, theft and continued fighting would leave
Iraq with oil production at less than 2.4 million barrels per day.
The Senate panel said it focused on the two NIC assessments because they
were the only prewar analyses representing the consensus views of the
CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Defense+Intelligence+Agency?tid=informline>,
the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and other
agencies. The committee also published excerpts from other prewar
reports and assessments from individual agencies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/25/AR2007052501380.html?referrer=email
or
http://tinyurl.com/33drg4
#--------------------------------------------------
Regards,
LelandJ
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