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New beheadings in Iraq...
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jay the Obscure: [QB] And something else too.... Apparently, "career professionals within national security agencies" dispute the general findings of Mr. Chrenkoff, linked to in another [URL=http://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/11/1354/6.html#000078]post[/URL]. The officials seem to [URL=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58183-2004Sep28.html]think[/URL] things are not going so well in Iraq. [QUOTE][b]Growing Pessimism on Iraq[/b] Doubts Increase Within U.S. Security Agencies By Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, September 29, 2004; Page A01 A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense. While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say. People at the CIA "are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper," said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials. "There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments." "Things are definitely not improving," said one U.S. government official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq. "It is getting worse," agreed an Army staff officer who served in Iraq and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail. "It just seems there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago." This weekend, in a rare departure from the positive talking points used by administration spokesmen, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell acknowledged that the insurgency is strengthening and that anti-Americanism in the Middle East is increasing. "Yes, it's getting worse," he said of the insurgency on ABC's "This Week." At the same time, the U.S. commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "we will fight our way through the elections." Abizaid said he believes Iraq is still winnable once a new political order and the Iraqi security force is in place. Powell's admission and Abizaid's sobering warning came days after the public disclosure of a National Intelligence Council (NIC) assessment, completed in July, that gave a dramatically different outlook than the administration's and represented a consensus at the CIA and the State and Defense departments. ----[/QUOTE]Via [URL=http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/09/index.html#004186]The American Prospect Online[/URL]. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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