[iwar] Leaked Baghdad Station Report

From: televr <yangyun@metacrawler.com>
Date: Wed Nov 12 2003 - 18:57:15 PST

C.I.A. Report Suggests Iraqis Are Losing Faith in U.S. Efforts
By DOUGLAS JEHL, NYTimes

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 — A bleak top-secret report by the Central
Intelligence Agency suggests that the situation in Iraq is approaching
a crucial turning point, with ordinary Iraqis losing faith in
American-led occupation forces and in the United States-appointed
Iraqi Governing Council.

The report, sent to Washington on Monday by the C.I.A.'s Baghdad
station chief, suggests that the situation is creating a more fertile
environment for the anti-American insurgency. Officials said the
report was adding to the sense of urgency behind the administration's
reappraisal of its policies in Iraq.

The officials said that the report, dated Nov. 10, had been explicitly
endorsed by L. Paul Bremer III, the top American official in Iraq, and
that the warnings it spelled out had been a factor behind Mr. Bremer's
abrupt return to Washington for consultations this week.

The C.I.A. and the White House refused even to confirm the existence
of the report, which was first disclosed by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
But government officials outside those agencies said its conclusions
were among the darkest intelligence assessments distributed since the
American-led invasion of Iraq in March.

"It says that this is an insurgency, and that it is gaining strength
because Iraqis have no confidence that there is anyone on the horizon
who is going to stick around in Iraq as a real alternative to the
former regime," one American official said.

The latest C.I.A. report follows earlier intelligence assessments that
warned American commanders in Iraq of increasing resentment among
ordinary Iraqis. The picture those reports presented was very
different from the public view presented by administration officials.
In particular, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has repeatedly
spoken of the opponents of the American-led occupation as
"dead-enders, foreign terrorists and criminal gangs."

But the Nov. 10 situation report was described by the officials as
reflecting a more formal assessment. They said Mr. Bremer's unusual
endorsement was intended to give the document added credibility.

A second American official said the grim conclusions were based in
part on a classified opinion poll conducted by the State Department's
intelligence branch, which found that a majority of Iraqis now regard
American troops as occupiers rather than liberators. The concern has
been reinforced, another official said, by an increasing consensus
among intelligence analysts that appointed Iraqi leaders do not appear
to be capable of carrying out the task of governing or working toward
elections.

"The trend lines are in the wrong direction," a third government
official said. "I haven't seen anything in any of the intelligence
reports that offers a hard and fast recipe for how to turn things around."

The officials would speak about the report only on condition of
anonymity, and all refused to quote directly from the document because
of its classified nature. They said they had been briefed about its
findings, and were discussing them publicly because they believed the
warnings should have wider circulation inside and outside government.

Among other concerns raised by the C.I.A. report, the officials said,
was the danger that Iraqi Shiite Muslims, who represent a majority of
the country's population, could soon join minority Sunni Muslims in
carrying out armed attacks against American forces. The report also
described what it portrayed as major obstacles to efforts by the
United States and American-led Iraqi forces to halt a small but steady
infiltration of foreign fighters from Syria and Iran.

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Received on Wed Nov 12 19:02:10 2003

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