more good news

no...really?

well, here's some 'officialness'..

2 C.I.A. Reports Offer Warnings on Iraq's Path

By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: December 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - A classified cable sent by the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Baghdad has warned that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and may not rebound any time soon, according to government officials.

The cable, sent late last month as the officer ended a yearlong tour, presented a bleak assessment on matters of politics, economics and security, the officials said. They said its basic conclusions had been echoed in briefings presented by a senior C.I.A. official who recently visited Iraq.

The officials described the two assessments as having been "mixed," saying that they did describe Iraq as having made important progress, particularly in terms of its political process, and credited Iraqis with being resilient.

But over all, the officials described the station chief's cable in particular as an unvarnished assessment of the difficulties ahead in Iraq. They said it warned that the security situation was likely to get worse, including more violence and sectarian clashes, unless there were marked improvements soon on the part of the Iraqi government, in terms of its ability to assert authority and to build the economy.

Together, the appraisals, which follow several other such warnings from officials in Washington and in the field, were much more pessimistic than the public picture being offered by the Bush administration before the elections scheduled for Iraq next month, the officials said. The cable was sent to C.I.A. headquarters after American forces completed what military commanders have described as a significant victory, with the retaking of Falluja, a principal base of the Iraqi insurgency, in mid-November.

The American ambassador to Iraq, John D. Negroponte, was said by the officials to have filed a written dissent, objecting to one finding as too harsh, on the ground that the United States had made more progress than was described in combating the Iraqi insurgency. But the top American military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., also reviewed the cable and initially offered no objections, the officials said. One official said, however, that General Casey may have voiced objections in recent days.

The station chief's cable has been widely disseminated outside the C.I.A., and was initially described by a government official who read the document and who praised it as unusually candid. Other government officials who have read or been briefed on the document later described its contents. The officials refused to be identified by name or affiliation because of the delicacy of the issue. The station chief cannot be publicly identified because he continues to work undercover.

Asked about the cable, a White House spokesman, Sean McCormack, said he could not discuss intelligence matters. A C.I.A. spokesman would say only that he could not comment on any classified document.

It was not clear how the White House was responding to the station chief's cable. In recent months, some Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, have accused the agency of seeking to undermine President Bush by disclosing intelligence reports whose conclusions contradict the administration or its policies. But senior intelligence officials including John E. McLaughlin, the departing deputy director of central intelligence, have disputed those assertions. One government official said the new assessments might suggest that Porter J. Goss, the new director of central intelligence, was willing to listen to views different from those publicly expressed by the administration.

A separate, more formal, National Intelligence Estimate prepared in July and sent to the White House in August by American intelligence agencies also presented a dark forecast for Iraq's future through the end of 2005. Among three possible developments described in that document, the best case was tenuous stability and the worst case included a chain of events leading to civil war.

After news reports disclosed the existence of the National Intelligence Estimate, which also remains classified, President Bush initially dismissed the conclusions as nothing more than a guess. Since then, however, violence in Iraq has increased, including the recent formation of a Shiite militia intended to carry out attacks on Sunni militants.

The end-of-tour cable from the station chief, spelling out an assessment of the situation on the ground, is a less-formal product than a National Intelligence Estimate. But it was drafted by an officer who is highly regarded within the C.I.A. and who, as station chief in Baghdad, has been the top American intelligence official in Iraq since December 2003. The station chief overseas an intelligence operation that includes about 300 people, making Baghdad the largest C.I.A. station since Saigon during the Vietnam War era.

The senior C.I.A. official who visited Iraq and then briefed counterparts from other government agencies was Michael Kostiw, a senior adviser to Mr. Goss. One government official who knew about Mr. Kostiw's briefings described them as "an honest portrayal of the situation on the ground."

Since they took office in September, Mr. Goss and his aides have sought to discourage unauthorized disclosures of information. In a memorandum sent to C.I.A. employees last month, Mr. Goss said the job of the intelligence agency was to "provide the intelligence as we see it" but also to "support the administration and its policies in our work."

"As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies," Mr. Goss said in that memorandum, saying that he was seeking "to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road." The memorandum urged intelligence employees to "let the facts alone speak to the policy maker."

Mr. Goss himself made his first foreign trip as the intelligence director last week, with stops that included several days in Britain and a day in Afghanistan, but he did not visit Iraq, the government officials said.

At the White House on Monday, President Bush himself offered no hint of pessimism as he met with Iraq's president, Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar. Despite the security challenges, Mr. Bush said, the United States continues to favor the voting scheduled for Iraq on Jan. 30 to "send the clear message to the few people in Iraq that are trying to stop the march toward democracy that they cannot stop elections."

"The American people must understand that democracy just doesn't happen overnight," he said. "It is a process. It is an evolution. After all, look at our own history. We had great principles enunciated in our Declarations of Independence and our Constitution, yet, we had slavery for a hundred years. It takes a while for democracy to take hold. And this is a major first step in a society which enables people to express their beliefs and their opinions."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/internat...artner=homepage

in lieu of this(http://www.12ozprophet.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=60655),

it all rounds out

to make a sweet ass

argument for republicans,

don't you think?!

politics are starting to depress me like reality tv.

how does it make a sweet argument for republicans?

I know it's bad to say this......

but I'm glad Bush will be stuck with the mess.

I would have felt really bad for Kerry to walk into this

shitstorm and have his personal record turned to shit.

I DONT want the violence to continue or the injustives either,

but at least now there's no way Bush will escape the reputation

as a war-mongering-monster for the rest of recorded history.

"The American people must understand that democracy just doesn't happen overnight," he said. "It is a process. It is an evolution. After all, look at our own history. We had great principles enunciated in our Declarations of Independence and our Constitution, yet, we had slavery for a hundred years. It takes a while for democracy to take hold. And this is a major first step in a society which enables people to express their beliefs and their opinions."

Originally posted by <KEY3>@Dec 7 2004, 11:59 AM

I know it's bad to say this......

 

but I'm glad Bush will be stuck with the mess.

I would have felt really bad for Kerry to walk into this

shitstorm and have his personal record turned to shit.

I DONT want the violence to continue or the injustives either,

but at least now there's no way Bush will escape the reputation

as a war-mongering-monster for the rest of recorded history.

Quoted post

I feel ya there, but I wouldn't be so sure thats the way history will be written...(just playin the devils advocate here) theres a good chance he'll be remembered as the man who "freed Iraq" or whatever... ...obviously anyone with half a brain wouldn't see it that way but then again theres a lot of educated people that voted republican... I'm just hoping for an assasination

hey, c'mon now...its hard work. he's working hard.

:haha:

yeah, gotta love those official documents that state the painfully obvious.

Originally posted by SteveAustin@Dec 7 2004, 01:51 PM

hey, c'mon now...its hard work. he's working hard.

 

:haha:

 

yeah, gotta love those official documents that state the painfully obvious.

Quoted post

workin about as hard as a broken watch

even a broken watch is right twice a day

and it took the cia how long to figure out what a average american can figure out in 10 minutes. i have got to move the fuck out of this country.

Falluja is now a wasteland and, while fantasies about its reconstruction abound, the fighting only continues. (At least 20 U.S. troops have died there, to almost no press attention, since the city was declared secure and the operation deemed a "success.") Falluja remains cordoned off; up to 250,000 Fallujan refugees are still unable to return; and American military strategists, who over the months since the first failed Marine attempt to take the city in April planned its eventual destruction, are now evidently planning to "ask" the "head of every household" (read: males) "to wear an identification badge" once back in the city.

But if the Old City of Najaf (evidently still largely unreconstructed) and the whole city of Falluja are now memorials to American fire power and an American willingness to call down retribution from the skies, air power has been used far more widely across much of heavily populated urban Iraq without any press comment whatsoever, on or off editorial pages. Let me offer just a few examples from many to give a sense of the range of Iraqi cities hit from the air in recent months:

Baqubah: "Some 30 insurgents were stationed in buildings near the stadium in eastern Baqubah, apparently to obstruct US forces from reaching downtown. Rather than clear the buildings -- two vacant schools and a swimming pool -- Colonel Pittard decided to demolish them with four 500-lb. bombs" (the Christian Science Monitor, July 21)

Tall Afar: "Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, also known as the Stryker Brigade, launched a fierce attack on Tall Afar on Thursday… The fighting, which included three airstrikes involving AC-130 gunships and F-16 fighter jets, killed 67 insurgents, according to the U.S. military." (the Washington Post, Sept. 12)

Sadr City, Baghdad: "Hospital officials in Sadr City, a vast slum in northeast Baghdad that is overwhelmingly hostile to the American occupation, said one person had been killed in an overnight airstrike by the Americans. For weeks, the military has been deploying an AC-130 gunship and fighter jets over the area to try to rout the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to the firebrand Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr." (the New York Times, Oct. 6)

Kut: "A U.S. helicopter struck Sadr's office in Kut, killing two people..." (the Washington Post, April 9)

Samarra: "By U.S. military estimates, about 125 rebels were killed and more than 80 captured. Most of the deaths occurred early Friday in the first hours of the strike, when U.S. helicopter gunships blasted suspected rebel positions with rocket fire." (the Los Angeles Times, October 4 [scroll down])

Mosul: "A semblance of calm has returned to Mosul after U.S. forces carried out air strikes on insurgents, but residents say Iraq's third largest city remains tense and Iraqi police are nowhere to be seen. U.S. war planes struck rebel areas in the southwest of the city late on Thursday after two days of widespread violence in which groups of insurgents rampaged, burning police stations, stealing weapons and tipping the city towards chaos." (Reuters, Nov. 12)

Karbala: "American AC-130 gunships and tanks battled militiamen near shrines in this Shiite holy city Friday." (the Associated Press, May 21)

Falluja: "Highly accurate, 500-pound bombs called JDAMs -- Joint Direct Attack Munition -- were dropped on suspected insurgent hideouts overnight in the southern sector of the city, military sources said. The U.S. Air Force also used AC-130 Spectre gunships, armed with 105 mm cannons and 40 mm guns, to blast remaining insurgent pockets." (CNN, Nov. 16)

Hiyt: "...near the town of Hiyt...[a]ir strikes were called in on the mosque position. The mosque is partially damaged and is currently on fire…" (Aljazeera, Oct. 12)

Baghdad Airport (and elsewhere): "US forces struck at targets near Baghdad airport on Friday evening while attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets carried out raids elsewhere in Iraq in operations against resistance fighters... Earlier, a US helicopter gunship killed seven people allegedly preparing to launch rocket attacks on an American military base in Iraq." (Aljazeera, Nov. 16)

Towns south of Baghdad: "More than 5000 men supported by Cobra helicopters, F-18 hornets and F-16s, will launch raids in and around the so-called Triangle of Death south of Baghdad." (the Scotsman, Nov. 24)

This far-from-exhaustive list is taken from the summary press reports on the war that appear almost daily. Normally, only a few lines, as above, are devoted to the air war against urban areas which is, by the nature of the situation, a war of terror.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/12/12_400.html

Originally posted by im not witty@Dec 7 2004, 03:14 PM

even a broken watch is right twice a day

Quoted post

well played highlander!!!!

seeking, sarcasm.

this picture just seemed really appropriate at this point in time.

Originally posted by symbols@Dec 8 2004, 07:24 AM

the "head of every household" (read: males) "to wear an identification badge" once back in the city.

 

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/12/12_400.html

Quoted post

aaah, i get it, so THATS what they meant by freeing the iraqi people...

does it remind you of something?