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CIA memo paints bleak picture of Iraq's future
By DOUGLAS JEHL
New York Times
WASHINGTON -- A classified cable sent by the CIA'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 CIA 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 overall, 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, bringing more violence and sectarian clashes, unless
there were marked improvements soon in the ability of the Iraqi
government to assert authority and 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 CIA headquarters after
U.S. forces completed what military commanders have described as a
significant victory, with the retaking of Fallujah, a principal base
of the Iraqi insurgency, in mid-November.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John D. Negroponte, was said by the
officials to have filed a written dissent, objecting to one finding
as too harsh. But the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen.
George W. Casey Jr., also reviewed the cable and did not dispute its
conclusions, the officials said.
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 CIA spokesman would say
only that he could not comment on any classified document.
The senior CIA official who visited Iraq and then briefed
counterparts from other government agencies was Michael Kostiw, a
senior adviser to the CIA director, Porter Goss. One government
official who knew about Kostiw's briefings described them as "an
honest portrayal of the situation on the ground."