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US Intelligence report on Iraq

Quote:

US report predicts gloom in Iraq
US officials have acknowledged the existence of a secret intelligence report on Iraq offering gloomy predictions for the country's future.

The report - a compilation of assessments by intelligence agencies - puts forward three possible scenarios in Iraq by the end of 2005.

They range from what the report calls tenuous stability to political fragmentation and civil war. It was prepared for President Bush before a recent escalation of violence.

The BBC's Nick Childs at the Pentagon says the report is at odds with the more upbeat public statements which continue to emerge from the Bush administration. [emphasis added]

Many analysts in Washington are now raising doubts about whether it is realistic to plan for an election in Iraq in January, our correspondent says.

'Pessimism'

The 50-page report is the first intelligence estimate on Iraq since one on former leader Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes, completed nearly two years ago.

The 2002 report, which was used by the Bush administration to help make its case for war, was highly criticised for not taking into account dissenting views from some agencies about the status of the weapons programmes.

The new report was initiated under former CIA director George Tenet, who left his post after attracting heavy criticism for failures of intelligence in the run-up to the 11 September attacks and before the Iraq war.

One unnamed government official who read it told the New York Times newspaper that it contained "a significant amount of pessimism" about Iraq's future.

But National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack told the newspaper the Iraqi people often defied predictions.

"In the past, including before the war to liberate Iraq, there were many different scenarios that were possible, including the outbreak of civil war," he said. "It hasn't happened."

However, our correspondent says the assessment is likely to provide new ammunition for Mr Bush's electoral opponent John Kerry.

Mr Kerry has already cast doubt on Iraq's ability to hold elections in January.

"I think it is very difficult to see today how you're going to distribute ballots in places like Falluja and Ramadi and Najaf and other parts of the country, without having established the security," he said on a radio talk show on Wednesday.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...ss/3664136.stm

Published: 2004/09/16 19:11:12 GMT

© BBC MMIV

Interesting. This shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone. Conversely, it's standard practice to investigate and predict all potential outcomes.

What do you think?

Mr Mephisto

Pessimism never won any wars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OpieCunningham

Pessimism never won any wars.

I hear this from Repubs all the time, and it always makes me shake my head. It really makes me shake my head when it's used not as a rebuttal to some lefty complaining about the war, but rather as a response to an intelligence document.

"I mean, come on CIA! Don't be so glum! Pessimism never got us anywhere! How bout from now on you just hold on to all those rainy day intelligence forecasts, and just send us the happy stuff?"

As far as I'm concerned, it's about time to give pessimism a try. All this "optimism" we've been getting from the Repubs doesn't seem to be doing the job, and as a "pessimist," I'm kind of tired of being right about just how bad this whole Iraq adventure is going.

also you have to say that in the report it was stating that there were looking at all all posibilities another possibility is that all the militants will stop and everyone is going to give each other a big hug unfortunatly that doesn't look like the way things are going to be. i don't think that there will be a civil war and i think it is going to come out somwhere in the middle, not touchy feeler or civil war.

a civil war is inevitable. With the diverse cultures in Iraq that are at dissent with each other (their only common ground is disliking the West), its going to be a repeat of when Britain left India.

I wouldn't say it was inevitable, but it's certainly a possibility.

Mr Mephisto

I do have hope for Iraq, but isn't it something of a moot point?

We are there, we must fix it., and not under some 6 month or 4 year or whatever Kerry's current mythical time table and mythical plan is. We stay till its done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I do have hope for Iraq, but isn't it something of a moot point?

A moot point.

Not quite. A moot point would be something which is essentially irrelevant. Iraq is hardly irrelevant. There are a number of things we can learn from it - the most important being that the people who created the mess should not be the people tasked with addressing it.