By Douglas Jehl
New York Times
13 November 2003
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 — A bleak top-secret report by the Central Intelligence Agency suggests that the situation in Iraq is approaching a crucial turning point, with ordinary Iraqis losing faith in American-led occupation forces and in the United States-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.
The report, sent to Washington on Monday by the C.I.A.'s Baghdad station chief, suggests that the situation is creating a more fertile environment for the anti-American insurgency. Officials said the report was adding to the sense of urgency behind the administration's reappraisal of its policies in Iraq.
The officials said that the report, dated Nov. 10, had been explicitly endorsed by L. Paul Bremer III, the top American official in Iraq, and that the warnings it spelled out had been a factor behind Mr. Bremer's abrupt return to Washington for consultations this week.
The C.I.A. and the White House refused even to confirm the existence of the report, which was first disclosed by The Philadelphia Inquirer. But government officials outside those agencies said its conclusions were among the darkest intelligence assessments distributed since the American-led invasion of Iraq in March.
"It says that this is an insurgency, and that it is gaining strength because Iraqis have no confidence that there is anyone on the horizon who is going to stick around in Iraq as a real alternative to the former regime," one American official said.
The latest C.I.A. report follows earlier intelligence assessments that warned American commanders in Iraq of increasing resentment among ordinary Iraqis. The picture those reports presented was very different from the public view presented by administration officials. In particular, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has repeatedly spoken of the opponents of the American-led occupation as "dead-enders, foreign terrorists and criminal gangs."
But the Nov. 10 situation report was described by the officials as reflecting a more formal assessment. They said Mr. Bremer's unusual endorsement was intended to give the document added credibility.
A second American official said the grim conclusions were based in part on a classified opinion poll conducted by the State Department's intelligence branch, which found that a majority of Iraqis now regard American troops as occupiers rather than liberators. The concern has been reinforced, another official said, by an increasing consensus among intelligence analysts that appointed Iraqi leaders do not appear to be capable of carrying out the task of governing or working toward elections.
"The trend lines are in the wrong direction," a third government official said. "I haven't seen anything in any of the intelligence reports that offers a hard and fast recipe for how to turn things around."
The officials would speak about the report only on condition of anonymity, and all refused to quote directly from the document because of its classified nature. They said they had been briefed about its findings, and were discussing them publicly because they believed the warnings should have wider circulation inside and outside government.
Among other concerns raised by the C.I.A. report, the officials said, was the danger that Iraqi Shiite Muslims, who represent a majority of the country's population, could soon join minority Sunni Muslims in carrying out armed attacks against American forces. The report also described what it portrayed as major obstacles to efforts by the United States and American-led Iraqi forces to halt a small but steady infiltration of foreign fighters from Syria and Iran.
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Citation: Douglas Jehl, "C.I.A. Report Suggests Iraqis Are Losing Faith in U.S. Efforts," New York Times, 13 November 2003.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/politics/13INTE.html?pagewanted=print&position=
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