McClatchy: New U.S. intelligence assessment casts doubts on Bush's Iraq policy

[babylonsister]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17854.html

New U.S. intelligence assessment casts doubts on Bush's Iraq policy
By Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — The Shiite Muslim-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has made only "halting efforts" to end the power struggle fueling the war between Iraq's religious and ethnic communities, a new U.S. intelligence report said Wednesday.

Even if the bloodletting can be contained, Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders will be "hard pressed" to reach lasting political reconciliation, the report stated.

The report, reflecting the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, cast new uncertainty about the chances of success for President Bush's plan to contain the war through the deployment of an additional 28,000 U.S. troops, mostly in and around Baghdad.

The conclusions also appeared to be bleaker than a White House assessment produced by the top U.S. officials in Baghdad, which found that Iraqi politicians have made satisfactory progress on some of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress in May.

The new intelligence findings were contained in a 23-page Global Security Assessment presented to the House Armed Services Committee by Thomas Fingar, the chairman of the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community's top analytical body.

"The struggle among and within Iraqi communities over national identity and the distribution of power has eclipsed attacks by Iraqis against (U.S.-led) Coalition Forces as the greatest impediment to Iraq's future as a peaceful, democratic and unified state," said the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

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[Peace Patriot]

1. McClatchy News Service is sure doing some fine reporting. We should take note

of this and give credit where credit is due. They're going for the real journalism market.

Everybody was worried when they took over Knight Ridder (the ONLY reliable news source in the country throughout the Iraq War), but they seem to have taken some cues from Knight Ridder about journalistic standards. I hope they beat the shit out of Associated Press and the rest of the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, and drive those bastards out of business.

[babylonsister]

3. Agreed. They are currently my favorite to get honest reporting. nt

[radfringe]

2. whatsamatter? you anti-rug?

don't ya know we're makin' progress - you can now walk around the marketplace with body armor, helmet and armed escort to buy rugs...

buying rugs over there so we won't have to buy them over here...

or as my partner puts it "we invaded Iraq so we could buy rugs?"