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Declassified Pre-War Reports Warned of Post-War Strife

May 25, 2007 2:13 PM

ABC News' Jonathan Karl and Z. Byron Wolf Report: The Senate is expected to release the latest installment of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-war intelligence Saturday, a release that will include two newly declassified intelligence assessments on post-war Iraq.  These reports focused on the challenges that would face the U.S. after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

ABC News has learned new details about these reports, which until Thursday, were classified and are still unreleased.

Unlike the weapons of mass destruction fiasco, in this case the intelligence community was largely on target.  It's not a "slam dunk," however.  In some cases, the situation in Iraq is actually worse than these assessments predicted. In others, the assessment predicts problems that did not occur.

The two assessments were written by the CIA's National Intelligence Council and delivered to the White House in January, 2003.  The reports have been described by officials who have seen them and some have been read by ABC News.

The first report, entitled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and running about 60 pages in length, asserts that Iraq is unlikely to break apart but that it is "a deeply divided society." 

The report says there is "a significant chance" that groups would "engage in violent conflict...unless there is an occupying force to prevent them from doing so."

Neighboring states could "jockey for position...fomenting ethnic strife inside Iraq," the report concludes.

"Iraq's political culture does not foster political liberalism or democracy," states the report. "A generation of Iraqis" who have been subjected to Saddam's repression are "distrustful of surrendering or sharing power."

The report also says that al Qaeda could operate from the countryside unless there is a strong central power in Baghdad and there would be "a heightened terrorist threat" that "after an initial spike would decline after three to five years."

The Kurds could try to seize oil fields in northern Iraq, the report warns, and also cautions that significant humanitarian assistance would be needed to deal with large refugee flows.

The second report, about 40 pages in length, is entitled "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq," and says that Al Qaeda could exploit U.S. focus on Iraq by re-establishing its presence in Afghanistan.

This second report, however, also outlines the potential regional benefits of success in Iraq.  With words echoing those of then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, it says success in Iraq "would increase the willingness of regional governments to cooperate with the U.S." 

May 25, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0)

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