The secret contents of another intelligence “guess” have been disclosed:
The same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, according to government officials.
The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President George W. Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.
One of the reports also warned of a possible insurgency against the new Iraqi government or American-led forces, saying that rogue elements from Saddam Hussein’s government could work with existing terrorist groups or act independently to wage guerrilla warfare, the officials said. The assessments also said a war would increase sympathy across the Islamic world for some terrorist objectives, at least in the short run, the officials said.
What can we glean from this?
(1) Someone in the intelligence community isn’t a happy camper and keeps leaking details from these classified reports;
(2) The meltdown formerly known as Iraq shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the Bush administration;
(3) The administration’s failure to plan for or respond to the insurgency demonstrates just how incompetent it is;
(4) There’s a good chance we’re generating more terrorism than we’re preventing by occupying Iraq.
How long do we have to repeatedly see this kind of information before American voters start to understand that pounding “resolve” into a podium is no substitute for sound foreign policy.