[Peace-discuss] rumors (2)

Wed Nov 12 12:39:38 CST 2003

[Jerry Landay, who's done a column for the Octopus/Paper, forwards this
article from the defense/natl security correspondent for the Knight-Ridder
Newspaper chain, his son Jonathan. --CGE]

	Posted on Tue, Nov. 11, 2003
	More Iraqis supporting resistance, CIA report says
	By Jonathan S. Landay
	Knight Ridder Newspapers

            WASHINGTON - A new, top-secret CIA report from Iraq warns that
growing numbers of Iraqis are concluding that the U.S.-led coalition can be
defeated and are supporting the resistance.

            The report paints a bleak picture of the political and security
situation in Iraq and cautions that the U.S.-led drive to rebuild the
country as a democracy could collapse unless corrective actions are taken
immediately.

            L. Paul Bremer, head of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional
Authority in Iraq, who arrived unexpectedly in Washington for strategy
sessions on Tuesday, essentially endorsed the CIA's findings, said a senior
administration official.

            The report's bleak tone and Bremer's private endorsement differ
sharply with the upbeat public assessments that President Bush, his chief
aides and Bremer are giving as part of an aggressive publicity campaign
aimed at countering rising anxieties at home over increasing U.S. casualties
in Iraq.

            Two senior administration officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because the document is classified, described the report's
findings in broad terms, but didn't give excerpts or details of any
recommendations.

            The report landed on the desks of senior U.S. officials on
Monday. The speed of the leak suggested that senior policymakers want to
make sure the assessment reaches Bush.

            Some senior policymakers have complained of being frustrated in
their efforts to provide Bush with analyses of the situation in Iraq that
are more somber than the optimistic views of Vice President Dick Cheney,
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and other hardliners.

            The CIA analysis suggests U.S. policy in Iraq has reached a
turning point, as the Bush administration moves to escalate the war against
the guerrillas and accelerate the transfer of political power to Iraqis.

            Both options are potentially risky.

            In Baghdad, the U.S. military announced Tuesday that it will
wage a more aggressive offensive against the loose confederation of former
Saddam Hussein loyalists, foreign and Iraqi Islamic extremists and Iraqi
nationalists.

            "The most important message is that we are all going to get
pretty tough, and that's what is needed to defeat the enemy, and we are
definitely not shy of doing that when it is required," Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq, told journalists.

            Such a campaign, however, could cause more civilian casualties
and drive more Iraqis to the side of the insurgents.

            At the same time, the CIA assessment warns that none of the
postwar Iraqi political institutions and leaders have shown an ability to
govern the country or even preside over drafting a constitution or holding
an election.

            Bill Harlow, a CIA spokesman, declined to confirm or deny the
existence of the new report, saying the agency does not discuss such
matters.

            The growing toll of dead and wounded has cost Bush a significant
loss of popularity as he begins campaigning in earnest for re-election next
November.

            Bremer and top Bush officials, including Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Rumsfeld, met at the White House on Tuesday to examine ways
to speed up the restoration of Iraqi self-government. Bush did not attend.

            U.S. officials have become deeply frustrated by infighting,
nepotism and inaction within the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, the
U.S.-appointed body of Iraqi politicians that has been given limited powers
to govern Iraq. The council also is in charge of overseeing the drafting of
a constitution.

            Bremer, Powell, Rumsfeld and other officials also discussed
moves to speed up the recruiting of U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces,
including a new army.

            More than 118,000 Iraqis are serving in the new Iraqi army,
police and other forces, and U.S. officials aim to bring the total up to
more than 220,000 sometime in 2004.

            Accelerating a restoration of Iraqi self-rule, speeding up the
recruiting of Iraqi security forces and intensifying a U.S.
counter-insurgency campaign form the crux of a new U.S. strategy to crush
the resistance, consolidate the support of ordinary Iraqis for U.S.-led
democracy-building efforts and reduce the U.S. military presence.

            "The long-term security of Iraq will be assured by the Iraqis
themselves," Bush asserted in a Veterans Day speech on Tuesday to the
Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.

            The CIA assessment, said the senior administration officials,
was composed by the CIA station chief in Baghdad, a veteran operations
officer who oversees more than 275 officers in Iraq.

            The report is a type known in intelligence parlance as an
AARDWOLF, a special field assessment that is usually requested by senior
policymakers in Washington at important junctures in overseas crises.

            The report, one official said, warned that the more aggressive
U.S. counter-insurgency tactics could induce more Iraqis to join the
guerrilla campaign that has killed at least 153 U.S. soldiers - 35 of them
so far this month - since Bush declared an end to major combat operations in
Iraq on May 1.

            It also raised concerns about the governing council. The group,
which is dominated by former Iraqi exiles with little popular support, has
failed to persuade ordinary Iraqis that the occupation is temporary and will
lead to a unified, sovereign Iraq, the report said

            Bremer has been formulating ways "in which the Governing Council
can evolve into a decision-making body to move the constitutional process
along," said a third senior U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of
anonymity.

            He denied recent news reports that the Bush administration is
considering replacing the council with some other group of Iraqis.

            According to the second senior administration official, the
report warned that the inability of the U.S.-led coalition to crush the
resistance is convincing growing numbers of Iraqis that the occupation can
be defeated, bolstering support for the insurgents.

            It also raised the concern that majority Shiite Muslims could
begin joining minority Sunnis in turning against the occupation.

            Such a development would almost certainly doom the Bush
administration's chances of succeeding in Iraq.

            The Shiites comprise 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.
They suffered massive repression under Saddam, whose regime favored the
Sunnis. Most Shiite leaders have been willing to give the U.S.-led
occupation time to restore Iraqi sovereignty, as that would give them power
for the first time since the country was created by Britain under a mandate
of the League of Nations in 1920.

            But frictions between the U.S.-led occupation and the Shiites
have been intensifying, fueled by incidents such as the killing this week by
a U.S. soldier of the mayor of Sadr City, a massive Shiite slum in Baghdad.

            In another finding, the CIA report said there is no way to
completely seal Iraq's borders with Syria, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait to infiltration by foreign Islamic extremists bent on
killing Americans.

            U.S. officials and military commanders blame the foreigners,
Iraqi Islamic extremists and Saddam loyalists for the bombings and
guerrilla-style ambushes of U.S. forces that have been increasing in
frequency and sophistication.

            Most attacks have been concentrated in Baghdad and a
200-square-mile Sunni-dominated region north of the capital that includes
Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.

            In an effort to discourage support for the United States, the
insurgents also have targeted peacekeepers from other countries,
international organizations like the United Nations, and Iraqis who have
cooperated with the U.S.-led occupation.

            Bush on Tuesday reiterated his resolve to stay the course and
crush the insurgency, and his belief that the United States will prevail in
helping to build "democracy and peace and justice" in Iraq that will be a
model for the Middle East.

            ---

            (Knight Ridder correspondents Warren P. Strobel and Maureen Fan
contributed to this report.)

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