Posted on 12/07/2004 6:03:03 PM PST by blam
Iraq violence will get worse, says CIA chief
By David Rennie in Washington and Robin Gedye
(Filed: 08/12/2004)
The CIA's station chief in Baghdad has sent a bleak cable to Washington, giving warning that the situation in Iraq is getting worse and may not improve any time soon.
The senior undercover operative, whose 300-man post represents the largest CIA presence abroad since the Vietnam War, offered his blunt assessment that the political, economic and security situation in Iraq was deteriorating and was likely to get worse in coming months, with more violence and clashes between ethnic and religious groups, the New York Times reported.
A man examines a church which was attacked in Mosul
The only hope lay in a dramatic improvement in the capacity of the interim Iraqi authorities to stamp their authority on the country and rebuild the economy, he wrote in the classified cable - a valedictory address from a station chief returning from a year-long posting.
Another senior CIA official, Michael Kostiw, visited Iraq recently and returned with a similarly "mixed" picture of the situation, it was reported.
News of the CIA's warning came as Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister, told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir that the elections scheduled for Jan 30 were likely to be spread over 15 to 20 days to enable security forces to concentrate on volatile areas.
He acknowledged that the level of violence in Iraq meant forces could not spread themselves wide enough to ensure a peaceful and fair vote.
The CIA's brutal assessment runs counter to upbeat assessments from President George W Bush and his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
Donald Rumsfeld: 'Iraqi security forces have been performing well'
Mr Bush carefully played down the insurgency in Iraq during a meeting with Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, the interim Iraqi president, at the White House on Monday, dismissing insurgents as "the few people in Iraq that are trying to stop the march towards democracy".
Mr Rumsfeld, aboard a flight to Kabul for the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai, said he hoped and expected that US forces would be able to leave Iraq within the next four-year term of the Bush presidency. "Iraqi security forces have been performing very well in most instances," he said.
The US ambassador to Baghdad, John Negroponte, said the CIA gave too little credit to recent US victories against insurgents. However, the assessments acknowledged that the Iraqi authorities were making important political progress and hailed the "resilience" of the Iraqi people.
The Pentagon last week announced an increase in US troop strength in Iraq from 138,000 to 150,000, to improve security before the elections and maintain the offensive against insurgent strongholds.
General John Abizaid, the overall commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, told the Washington Post that it might be possible to reduce US combat forces as early as next year and concentrate more energy on training Iraqi security forces.
Explaining the increase in troop strength, Gen Abizaid said domestic Iraqi forces were "not as mature as they need to be for the security environment that's going to exist in the next several months".
A US-led multi-national force would have to remain for some time beyond next year, Gen Abizaid said, to provide a back-up to Iraqi forces in case of dire emergency but it was hoped that it could be smaller and possibly dominated by a larger proportion of special operations forces.
The hope was that combat would become a secondary function for the US-led foreign forces, behind training and providing a reassuring "presence".
In his interview with Le Soir, Mr Allawi said 14 or 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces where polling would begin on Jan 30 were currently calm but conceded that the security situation in Mosul in the north, in Anbar province around Fallujah, in parts of Diyala province and in small areas of Baghdad were "bad".
He said: "So that everyone, Shi'ites, Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, Turkomans can take part in the vote, I think one can envisage elections spread over 15 to 20 days with polling on different dates for different provinces.
"That would allow for adequate security arrangements to be put in place."
The Bush administration has refused to consider appeals from some Iraqi politicians to delay the elections until the security situation improved, especially in restive Sunni areas.
Mr Bush said keeping to the timetable would send "a clear message" to insurgents that they could not delay the advent of free elections.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, yesterday led a chorus of international criticism of the timing of the elections, saying he "could not imagine" how free and fair elections could be held given that the country was under "total occupation".
Even the CIA has it's Kerry supporters.
The run-up to the election should kill about 20,000 Iraqis and about 200 more Americans. Democrats hope for more, but they'll settle for what they can celebrate.
"We can only hope for enough body bags coming home to turn this thing around" - Mara Alliasson, on Fox News Sunday
Iraq is a mess, and it may very well be getting worse. Hopefully there is a plan, post 1/30/05, to withdraw into secure bases in Western Iraq and Kurdistan, and allow the Arabs to go at it with each other.
I’m told there is a plan exactly like that, but it’s in French.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with an energy policy that states that our goal is to suck the middle east cheap oil until the straws start pulling in air. There is nothing wrong with an international policy that draws every arab with a bad attitude into Iraq during this decade so that when they shoot at our military we can kill them dead without worrying about their civil liberties and the ACLU. It's better than them coming here. The countries of Syria, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the like are just jiggy with letting us kill their undesireables. It's cheaper than dealing with them at home. It's not like they'd just be sitting around all kumbayah like, being peaceful. Every dead fighter in Iraq is linked to a comfort index in countries in the surrounding region. The deader the better and the more of them the merrier.
"Zing"
Similarly, that violence is occurring, that the body count increases at such and such rate, does not make the Bush-Rumsfeld occupation strategy incorrect.
If the CIA says it, it can't be right.
"senior undercover operative"? Does he have a name? New York Times reporting?
Is this guy a Clinton holdover?
If the New York Times reports it, it must be right.
Did Mara really say that? I knew she is a lib, but I never thought she'd sink that deep.
Who says it's in our interest to have a stable democratic regime in Iraq? I'd think not. An unstable Iraq assures more stability in surrounding regions. It gives the undesireables something to do. Once we've sucked all the oil from the region, they can return to their seventh century in bliss, killing one another in greater numbers and in less efficient but highly personal ways, sans the interest from Aljazeera.
Don't you just love Putin commenting on the integrity of elections.....
Same CIA that said it was a slam dunk there were WMD? These idjits haven't been right about anything in decades.
She sure did say it. I heard it with my own ears during the opening weeks of the initial Iraq invasion. I'm a pretty crass guy and will speak my mind, offending many. Admitting that, I could never find myself as an arrogant elitist spewing forth my base mindset in a manner that shows my absolute contempt for the American people like she did on that day.
It's stunning. I recall when Ellen Ratner said something hideous (on Fox) during those days too. These libs are ugly inside.....
And we are supposed to believe these guys now?????
Fighting an army of government employee spooks who's primary motive is to protect their turf and fighting terrorists abroad at the same time is hard work!
Islam and Federal Employees.........Two religions which practice similar fanaticism up to a point. It's the suicide bomber thingy that keeps the federal employee just behind the jihad line.
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