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Growing pessimism about Iraq: Situation worse than portrayed

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Wed, 29 Sep 2004 12:40

 

MSNBC News media is now finally starting to tell the truth``

```slowly

 

 

MSNBC News media is now finally starting to tell the truth``` slowly

 

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MSNBC - Growing pessimism about Iraq (Better Late Than Never News)

 

(The news media slowly but steadily is being dragged kicking and

screaming into telling the TRUTH about Iraq !)

 

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NBC-MSNBC TVNews

 

Growing pessimism about Iraq

Situation worse than portrayed, U.S. analysts say

 

MSNBC - Growing pessimism about Iraq

Address:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6126518/

 

By By Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks

 

A growing number of career professionals within national security

agencies " believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the

path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public "

by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current

government officials and assessments over the past year by

intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and

Defense.

 

While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others

have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the

Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and

within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more

widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.

 

People at the CIA " are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a

disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper, "

said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA

officials. " There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for

is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession

of weak governments. "

 

 

More intelligence coverage

 

" Things are definitely not improving, " said one U.S. government

official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq.

 

" It is getting worse, " agreed an Army staff officer who served in Iraq

and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail. " It just

seems there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of theater now.

 

There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have

infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the

case a year ago. "

 

This weekend, in a rare departure from the positive talking points

used by administration spokesmen, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell

acknowledged that the insurgency is strengthening and that

anti-Americanism in the Middle East is increasing. " Yes, it's getting

worse " he said of the insurgency on ABC's " This Week. "

 

At the same time, the U.S. commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P.

Abizaid, told NBC's " Meet The Press " that " we will fight our way

through the elections. "

Abizaid said he believes Iraq is still winnable once a new political

order and the Iraqi security force is in place.

 

Sobering warning

 

Powell's admission and Abizaid's sobering warning came days after the

public disclosure of a National Intelligence Council (NIC) assessment,

completed in July, that gave a dramatically different outlook than the

administration's and represented a consensus at the CIA and the State

and Defense departments.

 

In the best-case scenario, the NIC said, Iraq could be expected to

achieve a " tenuous stability " over the next 18 months. In the worst

case, it could dissolve into civil war.

 

The July assessment was similar to one produced before the war and

another in late 2003 that also were more pessimistic in tone than the

administration's portrayal of the resistance to the U.S. occupation,

according to senior administration Officials. " All say they expect

things to get worse, " one former official said.

 

One official involved in evaluating the July document said the NIC,

which advises the director of central intelligence, decided not to

include a more rosy scenario " because it looked so unreal. "

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, and other White House

spokesmen, called the intelligence assessment the work of " pessimists

and naysayers " after its outlines were disclosed by the New York Times.

 

President Bush called the assessment a guess, which drew the

consternation of many intelligence officials. " The CIA laid out

several scenarios, " Bush said on Sept. 21. " It said that life could by

lousy.

Life could be okay. Life could be better. And they were just guessing

as to what the conditions might be like. "

 

Two days later, Bush reworded his response. " I used an unfortunate

word, 'guess.' I should have used 'estimate.' " And the CIA came and

said, 'This is a possibility, this is a possibility, and this is a

possibility,' " Bush continued. " But what's important for the American

people to hear is reality. And the reality's right here in the form of

the prime minister. And he is explaining what is happening on the

ground. That's the best report. " Rumsfeld, who once dismissed the

insurgents as " dead-enders, " still offers a positive portrayal of

prospects and progress in Iraq but has begun to temper his optimism in

public. " The path towards liberty is not smooth there; it never has

been, " he said before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.

" And my personal view is that a fair assessment requires some patience

and some perspective. "

 

This week, conservative columnist Robert D. Novak criticized the CIA

and Paul Pillar, a national intelligence officer on the NIC who

supervised the preparation of the assessment. Novak said comments

Pillar made about Iraq during a private dinner in California showed

that he and others at the CIA are at war with the president. Recent

and current intelligence officials interviewed over the last two days

dispute that view.

 

" Pillar is the ultimate professional, " said Daniel Byman, an

intelligence expert and Georgetown University professor who has worked

with Pillar. " If anything, he's too soft-spoken. "

 

" I'm not surprised if people in the administration were put on the

defensive, " said one CIA official, who like many others interviewed

would speak only anonymously, either because they don't have official

authorization to speak or because they worry about ramifications of

criticizing top administration officials. " We weren't trying to make

them look bad, we're just trying to give them information. Of course,

we're telling them something they don't want to hear. "

 

As for a war between the CIA and White House, said one intelligence

expert with contacts at the CIA, the State Department and the

Pentagon, " There's a real war going on here that's not just the agency

[CIA] " against the administration on Iraq " but the State Department

and the military " as well.

 

'Supercharged debate'

 

National security officials acknowledge that the upcoming presidential

election also seems to have distorted the public debate on Iraq.

" Everyone says Iraq certainly has turned out to be more intense than

expected, especially the intensity of nationalism on the part of the

Iraqi people, " said Steven Metz, chairman of the regional strategy and

planning department at the U.S. Army War College. But, he added, " I

don't think the political discourse that we're in the middle of

accurately reflects anything. There's a supercharged debate on both

sides, a movement to out-state each side. "

 

Reports from Iraq have made one Army staff officer question whether

adequate progress is being made there.

" They keep telling us that Iraqi security forces are the exit

strategy, but what I hear from the ground is that they aren't

working, " he said.

 

" There's a feeling that Iraqi security forces are in cahoots with the

insurgents and the general public to get the occupiers out. "

He added: " I hope I'm wrong. "

 

Staff writers Walter Pincus and Robin Wright contributed to this report.

 

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

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