Bush Told In July that Iraq future Bleak

Thanks to Bill in DC
U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future.

A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq, government officials said Wednesday.

The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.

"There's a significant amount of pessimism," said one government official who has read the document, which runs about 50 pages. The officials declined to discuss the key judgments - concise, carefully written statements of intelligence analysts' conclusions - included in the document.

But the administration continues to put on a happy face even though the situation in Iraq has deteriorated even more since the report was issued in July. Thoughtful Republicans like Lugar and Hagel are accused of being "handwringers" and "pessimists' by the administration.

As described by the officials, the pessimistic tone of the new estimate stands in contrast to recent statements by Bush administration officials, including comments on Wednesday by Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, who asserted that progress was being made.

Even in July, before the recent increase in violence, the best case scenario was long term instability and the worst case was outright civil war. It would appear that the only thing that has prevented civil war up to this point is a mutual hate of the U.S. Occupation.