NEW YORK, 17 September 2004 — Government officials said Wednesday that a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush gives a pessimistic scenario for the future of Iraq, and includes the possibility of a civil war there before the end of 2005.
The NIE council scrutinized the political, economic and security situation in the war-torn country and determined that — at best — stability in Iraq would be “tenuous,” a US official said late Wednesday.
At worst, the official said, were “trend lines that would point to a civil war.” The official said it “would be fair” to call the document “pessimistic.”
The intelligence estimate, which runs about 50 pages, was prepared for Bush and examined the period between July and the end of 2005. It is the first assessment by the US intelligence community on Iraq since October 2002.
The National Intelligence Council consists of a group of senior intelligence officials who provide long-term strategic thinking for the entire US intelligence community.
The document offers three scenarios for the near future of Iraq: The worst case includes developments that could lead to civil war, and the most favorable circumstances envisioned an unstable country with a shaky infrastructure in terms of politics, economy and security.
The document was first reported by The New York Times on its website Wednesday night, and differs greatly from the public comments of Bush and his senior aides who speak more optimistically about the prospects for a peaceful and free Iraq.
It is the first formal assessment of Iraq since the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate examined the threat posed by fallen Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. This resulted in a scathing review this summer by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which determined that widespread intelligence failures led to faulty assumptions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Disclosure of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq came the same day that Senate Republicans and Democrats denounced the Bush administration’s slow progress in rebuilding Iraq, saying the risks of failure are great if it doesn’t act with greater urgency.
“It’s beyond pitiful, it’s beyond embarrassing, it’s now in the zone of dangerous,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, referring to figures showing only about 6 percent of the reconstruction money approved by Congress last year has been spent.
Hagel, Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, and other committee members have long argued — even before the war — that administration plans for rebuilding Iraq were inadequate and based on overly optimistic assumptions that Americans would be greeted as liberators.
But the criticism from the panel’s top Republicans had an extra sting as it came less than seven weeks before the US presidential election in which Bush’s handling of the war is a top campaign subject.
Questioned about the estimate, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said circumstances in Iraq have changed since last year, and insisted progress was being made.
“You know, every step of the way in Iraq there have been pessimists and hand-wringers who said it can’t be done,” McClellan told journalists during a news briefing Wednesday.
“And every step of the way, the Iraqi leadership and the Iraqi people have proven them wrong because they are determined to have a free and peaceful future.”
