Former National Intelligence Council officer on the Middle East Paul Pillar writes in the National Interest about the intelligence assessments on Iraq he ordered and supervised that foretold the instability and violence:

... [The] weapons estimate was one of only three classified, community-coordinated assessments about Iraq that the intelligence community produced in the months prior to the war. ...

With the administration’s determination to go to war having become painfully clear during 2002, I undertook these assessments to help policymakers, and those charged with executing their policies, make sense of what they would be getting into after Saddam was gone. Following a common practice of the National Intelligence Council with many self-initiated projects, we got a policy office—in this case the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff—to provide cover of sorts by agreeing to be listed as the customer of record. ...

In contrast, the other two assessments spoke directly to the instability, conflict, and black hole for blood and treasure that over the past four years we have come to know as Iraq. The assessments described the main contours of the mess that was to be, including Iraq’s unpromising and undemocratic political culture, the sharp conflicts and prospect for violence among Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups, the Marshall Plan-scale of effort needed for economic reconstruction, the major refugee problem, the hostility that would be directed at any occupying force that did not provide adequate security and public services, and the exploitation of the conflict by Al-Qaeda and other terrorists. ...

The story of these pre-war assessments has other implications that are at least important, however, including ones for current debate over Iraq policy. The assessments support the proposition that the expedition in Iraq always was a fool’s errand rather than a good idea spoiled by poor execution, implying that the continued search for a winning strategy is likely to be fruitless. ... But the analysts had no reason to assume poor execution, and their prognosis was dark nonetheless. Moreover, amid the stultifying policy environment that prevailed when the assessments were prepared—in which it was evident that the administration was going to war and that analysis supporting that decision was welcome and contrary analysis was not—it is all the more remarkable that the analysts would produce such a gloomy view.

A second observation—bearing in mind how long it took for these assessments to be made public—is that evaluation of the intelligence community’s performance tends to be heavily politicized, with much criticism having more to do with agendas and interests of the critics than with anything the intelligence community does. ...

The two assessments are available in the appendix to a recent Senate Intelligence committee report.

Posted by Laura at June 6, 2007 04:26 PM