We never got to see them, and they were only released in redacted form late last month. But before the Iraq war, two classified intelligence reports were issued at the formal request of the State Department – in addition to the much-maligned one about WMDs. Those other reports are damningly prescient. It’s no surprise all parties in Washington have successfully kept them under wraps. Neither Democrats nor Republicans want the world to know that they were informed in almost excruciating detail of the chaos we now find ourselves mired in. One of the authors of the reports is now drawing attention to them, and what they say about the future of our enterprise. Money quote:
The tremendous notoriety the estimate on weapons programs achieved has been all out of proportion to any role it played, or should have played, in the decision to launch the war. The administration never requested it (Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee did), its public line about Iraqi weapons programs was well-established before it was written, and as the White House later admitted, the president (and the then national security adviser) did not even read it—nor did most members of Congress. Opposition to the war among many at home and abroad who shared the misperceptions about Iraqi weapons programs demonstrated that those perceptions did not, contrary to the administration’s enormous selling effort, imply that a war was necessary.
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 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. Some support for the poor execution hypothesis can be found in the assessments, such as the observation that Iraq’s regular army could make an important contribution in providing security (thus implicitly questioning in advance the wisdom of ever disbanding the army). But the analysts had no reason to assume poor execution, and their prognosis was dark nonetheless.
I should add that I’m not trying to mitigate my own misjudgment in this matter. I should have been far more alert to the unforeseen consequences of invasion. But the Congressional and executive leadership were clearly told of the grave risks of chaos from even the most competent invasion – in reports unavailable to the rest of us. One has to wonder: Did anyone read them?
The Dish 