<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16441" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=5>Assessments Made in 2003 Foretold Situation in
Iraq<BR></FONT></STRONG>Intelligence Studies List Internal Violence, Terrorist
Activity<BR>
<P><FONT size=-1>By Walter Pincus<BR>Washington Post Staff Writer<BR>Sunday, May
20, 2007; A06<BR></FONT></P>
<P></P>
<P>Two intelligence assessments from January 2003 predicted that the overthrow
of <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Saddam+Hussein?tid=informline"
target="">Saddam Hussein</A> and subsequent <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/United+States?tid=informline"
target="">U.S.</A> occupation of <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Iraq?tid=informline"
target="">Iraq</A> could lead to internal violence and provide a boost to
Islamic extremists and terrorists in the region, according to congressional
sources and former intelligence officials familiar with the prewar studies.</P>
<P>The two assessments, titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and
"Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq," were produced by the National
Intelligence Council (NIC) and will be a major part of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence's long-awaited Phase II report on prewar intelligence
assessments about Iraq. The assessments were delivered to the <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/The+White+House?tid=informline"
target="">White House</A> and to congressional intelligence committees before
the war started.</P>
<P>The committee chairman, <A
href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/r000361/"
target="">Sen. John D. Rockefeller</A> IV (D-W.Va.), and the vice chairman, <A
href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/b000611/"
target="">Sen. Christopher S. Bond</A> (R-Mo.), announced earlier this month
that the panel had asked Director of National Intelligence <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Mike+McConnell?tid=informline"
target="">Mike McConnell</A> to declassify the report for public release.
Congressional sources said the two NIC assessments are to be declassified and
would be part of a portion of the Phase II report that could be released within
the next week.</P>
<P>The assessment on post-Hussein Iraq included judgments that while Iraq was
unlikely to split apart, there was a significant chance that domestic groups
would fight each other and that ex-regime military elements could merge with
terrorist groups to battle any new government. It even talks of guerrilla
warfare, according to congressional sources and former intelligence
officials.</P>
<P>The second NIC assessment discussed "political Islam being boosted and the
war being exploited by terrorists and extremists elsewhere in the region," one
former senior analyst said. It also suggested that fear of <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/U.S.+Armed+Forces?tid=informline"
target="">U.S. military</A> dominance and occupation of a <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Middle+East?tid=informline"
target="">Middle East</A> country -- one sacred to Islam -- would attract
foreign Islamic fighters to the area.</P>
<P>The NIC assessments paint "a very sobering and, as it has turned out, mostly
accurate picture of the aftermath of the invasion," according to a former senior
intelligence officer familiar with the studies. He sought anonymity because he
is not authorized to speak about still-classified assessments.</P>
<P>The former senior official said that after the NIC papers were distributed to
senior government officials, he was told by one CIA briefer that a senior <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/U.S.+Department+of+Defense?tid=informline"
target="">Defense Department</A> official had said they were "too negative" and
that the papers "did not see the possibilities" the removal of Hussein would
present.</P>
<P>A member of the Senate committee, without disclosing the contents of the
studies, said recently that the release will raise more questions about the Bush
administration's lack of preparation for the war's aftermath.</P>
<P>In his book, "At the Center of the Storm," former <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Central+Intelligence+Agency?tid=informline"
target="">CIA director</A> <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/George+Tenet?tid=informline"
target="">George J. Tenet</A> discussed the NIC assessments as well as prewar
intelligence analyses his own agency prepared on the same issues. Some of the
language in the CIA reports that Tenet describes are similar to judgments in the
NIC assessments because the agency is a major contributor to such papers,
according to present and former intelligence analysts.</P>
<P>While Tenet admits that the CIA expected Shiites in southern Iraq, "long
oppressed by Saddam, to open their arms to anyone who removed him," he said
agency analysts were "not among those who confidently expected coalition forces
to be greeted as liberators."</P>
<P>Tenet writes that the initial good feeling among most Iraqis that Hussein was
out of power "would last for only a short time before old rivalries and ancient
ethnic tensions resurfaced." The former intelligence analyst said such views
also reflected the views in the NIC paper on post-Hussein Iraq.</P>
<P>The NIC assessments also projected the view that a long-term Western military
occupation would be widely unacceptable, particularly to the Iraqi military. It
also said Iraqis would wait and see whether the new governing authority, whether
foreign or Iraqi, would provide security and basic services such as water and
electricity.</P>
<P>Tenet wrote that the NIC paper on Iraq said that "Iraqi political culture is
so imbued with norms alien to the democratic experience . . . that it may resist
the most vigorous and prolonged democratic treatments."</P>
<P>The senior intelligence official said that the prewar analysis of challenges
in post-Hussein Iraq contained little in the way of classified information since
it was an assessment of future situations and was almost all analysis. The
assessment of regional consequences of regime change in Iraq would require
deletions since it contains "comments on the policies and perspectives of some
friendly governments."</P>
<P>The committee focused on the two NIC assessments -- rather than analyses by
the CIA, <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Defense+Intelligence+Agency?tid=informline"
target="">Defense Intelligence Agency</A> or the <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/U.S.+Department+of+State?tid=informline"
target="">State Department</A> -- because they were written under the
supervision of national intelligence officers and coordinated with all
intelligence agencies. Such papers are similar to more formal National
Intelligence Estimates except they are not finalized and approved by the
National Foreign Intelligence Board, made up of the heads of the agencies.</P>
<SCRIPT>
var comments_url = "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051900843_Comments.html" ;
var article_id = "AR2007051900843" ;
</SCRIPT>
<SPAN class=display:none; id=pubDate value="1179633600000"
name="pubDate"></SPAN>
<SCRIPT>
<!--
articleCommentsUrl = document.location.href;
if ( typeof comments_url == 'undefined' ) {
var article_pathname = document.location.pathname;
var comments_url = article_pathname.split(".")[0]+"_Comments."+article_pathname.split(".")[1];
}
if ( typeof article_id == 'undefined' ) {
var article_id = articleCommentsUrl.split("/").pop();
var article_id = article_id.split(".")[0];
article_id = article_id.replace(/(.*)_(\d+|\w+)/, function(match,submatch1,offset,string) { return submatch1; } ) ;
}
function checkDaysOld(daysOld) {
var todayString = 'May 21, 2007';
var today = new Date(todayString).getTime();
var daysOld = 86400 * daysOld * 1000;
var pubDate = document.getElementById("pubDate");
if(pubDate != null) {
pubDate = pubDate.getAttribute("value");
return (today - pubDate > daysOld )?true:false;
} else {
return false;
}
}
if ( typeof thisNode == 'undefined' )
thisNode = 'admin' ;
cmt_ancestor = thisNode.split('/')[0] ;
// (black list) && (white list) of ancestors and sections goes here
if ( !( thisNode.match(/\/wires$/) || thisNode.match(/^artsandliving\/(entertainmentguide|entertainmentnews|travel\/index|movies)($|\/)/) || thisNode.match(/^business\/(portfolio)($|\/)/) || thisNode.match(/^metro\/(obituaries)($|\/)/) )
&&
( thisNode.match(/^(artsandliving|business|cars|health|jobs|metro|nation|realestate|religion|politics|sports|technology|world)($|\/)/) || thisNode.match(/^print\/(washpostmagazine|style|sundayarts|sundaysource)($|\/)/) || thisNode.match(/^opinions($|\/)/) || thisNode.match(/^opinion\/(columns)($|\/)/) ))
{
if(!checkDaysOld(3) ) {
document.write("<style>#ArticleCommentsWrapper {display:block};</style>"); } else { document.write('<p class="posted"><a href="'+comments_url+'">View all comments</a> that have been posted about this article.</p>'); } } else { document.write(''); } // --> </SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT>
<!--
function getDisplayUserName()
{
var output = 'Your washingtonpost.com User ID' ;
//check to the see if the user is signed in
if (document.cookie.indexOf("wpniuser") != -1)
{
var start = (document.cookie.indexOf("wpniuser") + 9) ;
var end = (document.cookie.indexOf(";",start)) == -1 ? document.cookie.length : document.cookie.indexOf(";",start) ;
cookieuser = document.cookie.substring(start,end) ;
// show their username and registration links
if ( cookieuser.indexOf("@") != -1)
cookieuser = cookieuser.substring(0,cookieuser.indexOf("@")) ;
// cookieuser = cookieuser.trim() ;
if ( cookieuser )
output += (', '+cookieuser+',') ;
}
output += ' will be displayed with your comment.' ;
return output ;
}
// -->
</SCRIPT>
<DIV id=ArticleCommentsWrapper>
<DIV class=comments>
<DIV class=hdr>
<DIV style="FLOAT: right">
<SCRIPT src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ad/comments_box.js"></SCRIPT>
<A
href="http://clk.atdmt.com/OY6/go/wpnxxcsc0400000066oy6/direct;at.Q3_FY07_Corporate_CampaignWashingtonpostNewsweek_InteractiveSponsored_By_Tile_040907_tile_logowpnxxcsc0400000066oy6/01/"></A></DIV>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both"></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>