A worst-case assessment

There is a new name for "reality based" first hand intelligence, "a worst-case assessment". The New York Times has a report today that :

Senior Marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that if American troop levels in the Falluja area are significantly reduced during reconstruction there, as has been planned, insurgents in the region will rebound from their defeat. The rebels could thwart the retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate the local population and derail elections set for January, the officers say.

But like with all "realty based" intelligence that does not fit the administration's group think it is being discounted.

Some senior military officers in Iraq and Washington who have read the report have cautioned that the assessment is a subjective judgment by some Marine intelligence officers near the front lines and does not reflect the views of all intelligence officials and senior commanders in Iraq.

"The assessment of the enemy is a worst-case assessment," Brig. Gen. John DeFreitas III of the Army, the senior military intelligence officer in Iraq, said of the Marine report in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "We have no intention of creating a vacuum and walking away from Falluja."

The report offers a stark counterpoint to more upbeat assessments voiced by military commanders in the wake of the Falluja operation, which they say completed its goals well ahead of schedule and with fewer American and Iraqi civilian casualties than expected.

I imagine the intelligence officers from Vietnam are seeing Deja Vu all over again. Oh, that's right. Iraq is nothing like Vietnam. Sorry, I keep forgetting.

See my post at Running Scared on the latest election boycott news.


Thanks to Bill in DC for the tip.