Hank Kalet

The Bush administration has released a summary of its most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq called “Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead” and the news is pretty bleak.

While some are saying the report is another nail in the coffin for the Bush surge — Spencer Ackerman at TPM Muckraker points to this paragraph to support its contention that the NIE is anti-surge:

even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this Estimate.

I wish I could read it this way, but the overall tenor of the summary continues along a delusional path. It is very clear that its authors think that removing troops will lead to greater chaos — though the report makes it clear, as well, that greater chaos is coming regardless.

Basically, the NIE summary is a product of the muddled thinking at the national level, the kind of flaccid false pragmatism that allowed the ideologues to drive this car over the cliff in the first place.

Anti-surgers like myself would do well to be careful to avoid the kind of cherrypicking of the NIE that has characterized the administration’s approach to intelligence.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The Washington Post is reporting that the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq will essentially confirm what everyone knows: That the country is aflame with sectarian strife and that those flames are only likely to grow hotter.

In a discussion of whether Iraq has reached a state of civil war, the 90-page classified NIE comes to no conclusion and holds out prospects of improvement. But it couches glimmers of optimism in deep uncertainty about whether the Iraqi leaders will be able to transcend sectarian interests and fight against extremists, establish effective national institutions and end rampant corruption.

The document emphasizes that although al-Qaeda activities in Iraq remain a problem, they have been surpassed by Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence as the primary source of conflict and the most immediate threat to U.S. goals. Iran, which the administration has charged with supplying and directing Iraqi extremists, is mentioned but is not a focus.

Expect both sides to point to the estimate as evidence that their position — getting out or sending in more troops — is the best course. )As anyone who has read this blog or any of my columns knows, I believe we need to leave.)

The estimate, however, offers nothing of the sort. Rather, it is just more evidence of how bad a blunder the invasion was in the first place.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick