Senate report shows intelligence community predicted post-war chaos in Iraq
 Prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the nation's intelligence services warned the president that a military invasion of Iraq would fuel Islamist extremism and provide an opportunity for al Qaeda and Iran to exploit post-invasion disorder there, according to a new report released Friday.
The report undercuts several of President Bush's key justifications for invading Iraq and exposes the extent to which the chaos the US currently finds itself in was predicted with often chilling accuracy.
"Today's report shows that the intelligence community gave the administration plenty of warning about the difficulites we would face if the decision was made to go to war," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which released the report. In a prepared statement, Rockefeller continued, "These dire warnings were widely distributed at the highest levels of government, and it's clear that the administration didn't plan for any of them."
The 229-page report, which includes declassified pre-war intelligence estimates, was posted Friday on the Intelligence Committee's Web site.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., one of his party's leading war critics, said the committee's report shows the intelligence committee "accurately predicted many aspects of the chaotic landscape that we see in Iraq today." He called for the US to work with all nations in the Middle East, including Iran and Syria, to succeed in Iraq.
The report says most pre-war intelligence focused on Saddam Hussein's connection to terrorists, weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi military capabilities. Although estimates of Saddam's weapons capabilities were later revealed to be vastly overstated, the Senate committee says the intelligence community more accurately predicted the chaos that ensured in Iraq following Saddam's ouster.
The intelligence community's estimate -- outlined in the report -- that post-war transitioning to a free Iraq would be a lengthy, difficult and probably turbulent process clearly runs counter to rosy pictures the administration attempted to paint in the run-up to the war.
In addition to myriad pre-war predictions that US troops would be "greeted as liberators," administration officials said that an overthrow of Saddam would lead to more peace and stability in the Middle East at large. But a declassified National Intelligence Council report prepared in 2003 undercuts that assertion.
"The exemplar of a more politically liberal Iraq probably would not, by itself, be a catalyst for more wide-ranging political and economic change throughout the region," the report reads.
Not only would Iraq's liberation not lead to spreading Middle East democracy, but prolonged military involvment in Iraq would provide al Qaeda with increased opportunities to attack American interests, "increase popular sympathy for some terrorist objectives," and "increase Tehran's perception that the US is a threat," according to the pre-war estimate.
"Sadly, the administration's refusal to heed these dire warnings, and worse, to plan for them, has led to tragic consequences for which our nation is paying a terrible price," Rockefeller said. "Finally, the report shows that the administration was not forthcoming with the American people about the potential costs of going to war."
The report released Friday joins at least a half-dozen other declassified pre-war intelligence estimates that have revealed gaps between what was being said within the administration and what the war's architects were telling the American people.
“The war’s devastating impact on the fight against al Qaeda and on our national security has been apparent for some time," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., an intelligence committee member and war opponent said in a prepared statement. "That the Administration was warned of the negative consequences before the war shows just how reckless it was.”
|
