Free Republic

Congratulations to Porter Goss for being confirmed last week as the new Director of Central Intelligence. We hope he appreciates that he now has two insurgencies to defeat: the one that the CIA is struggling to help put down in Iraq, and the other inside Langley against the Bush Administration. We wish we were exaggerating. It's become obvious over the past couple of years that large swaths of the CIA oppose U.S. anti-terror policy, especially toward Iraq. But rather than keep this dispute in-house, the dissenters have taken their objections to the public, albeit usually through calculated and anonymous leaks...

Congratulations to Porter Goss for being confirmed last week as the new Director of Central Intelligence. We hope he appreciates that he now has two insurgencies to defeat: the one that the CIA is struggling to help put down in Iraq, and the other inside Langley against the Bush Administration. We wish we were exaggerating. It's become obvious over the past couple of years that large swaths of the CIA oppose U.S. anti-terror policy, especially toward Iraq. But rather than keep this dispute in-house, the dissenters have taken their objections to the public, albeit usually through calculated and anonymous leaks...

WASHINGTON - The National Intelligence Council presented President Bush (news - web sites) this summer with several pessimistic scenarios regarding the security situation in Iraq (news - web sites), including the possibility of a civil war there before the end of 2005. In a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate, the council looked at the political, economic and security situation in the war-torn country and determined that — at best — stability in Iraq would be tenuous, a U.S. official said late Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity. At worst, the official said, were "trend lines that would point to...

Much has been said and written today about the fact that we have reached a dubious milestone (1000 US dead) in the Iraq War. The deaths of so many American service personnel has energized anti-war activists and pundits and again we are hearing the words like quagmire and bloodbath bandied about carelessly. While I do not intend to demean the bravery and sacrifice of US soldiers in Iraq or minimize the tragedy that every death or injury entails, I do think that it might be helpful to put the current casualty figures in some type of historical perspective. The last...

Wars, especially at the time they are being fought, tend to generate a lot of lost stories. No surprise there, as wartime secrecy and anxiety produces lots of reassuring, exploitative or self-serving theories by those not-in-the-know. Actually, some of those in-the-know play the deception game as well, creating propaganda that masks more important stories. … -snip- The Iraqi Civil War. The fighting in Iraq is constantly misreported as an “insurgency,” evoking images of Vietnam or World War II guerillas. In actuality, the fighting is the attempt by Saddam’s enforcers to hold off their encounter with a democratic Iraq’s application of...

Iraqis Dismiss Civil War Threat, Point to Strong Tribal Bonds, Mixed MarriagesBy Scheherezade Faramarzi Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 23, 2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Ahmed Shammar, a Shiite Muslim, prays in a Sunni Muslim mosque because it's close to his house. His wife, Shatha, a Sunni, improvises her own daily prayers, mixing Shiite and Sunni rituals. That she and her husband are from different sects of Islam means nothing to Shatha. "He's a Muslim and I'm a Muslim," she says, wearing a pale green headscarf that stylishly matches her blouse. The two were colleagues at a government office when...

<p>BAGHDAD - Officially, there is no debate. Any Iraqi who publicly questions President Saddam Hussein's vow that the people will fight as one, to the death, to defend their homeland would be making a grave mistake.</p> <p>But snippets of private, furtive conversations reveal unease beneath that veneer of unity. Some here worry that a US bombing campaign will instead cause Iraqis to turn on one another, leading to widespread street violence, robbery, looting, and clashes among religious and tribal rivals. And they are preparing themselves - and arming themselves - to protect relatives and property.</p>