A new, top-secret CIA report from Iraq warns that growing numbers of Iraqis are concluding that the U.S.-led coalition can be defeated and are supporting the resistance.
The report paints a bleak picture of the political and security situation in Iraq and cautions that the U.S.-led drive to rebuild the country as a democracy could collapse unless corrective actions are taken immediately.
L. Paul Bremer, head of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, who arrived unexpectedly in Washington for strategy sessions yesterday, essentially endorsed the CIA's findings, a senior administration official said.
The report's bleak tone and Bremer's private endorsement differ sharply with the upbeat public assessments President Bush, his chief aides and Bremer are giving as part of an aggressive publicity campaign aimed at countering rising anxieties at home over increasing U.S. casualties in Iraq.
Iraq is a mess. We have this CIA report on the state of the resistance. We have more from Juan Cole on the composition of the resistance. The Italians and Iraqis killed today died in Nasiriya, a long way from the Sunni triangle.
None of this matches the stream of sunny spin flowing from the White House. Nor does Bremer's sudden trip to Washington.
And what is the outcome of all this? From the New York Times:
"I'll be taking them a message from the president that he remains steadfast in his determination to defeat terrorism in Iraq and steadfast in his determination to give the Iraqis authority over their country, authority they're already beginning to assume very quickly in the area of security and in the area of running the Iraqi ministries," Mr. Bremer said.
Mr. Bremer repeatedly declined to discuss the substance of his talks at the White House, saying only that he had had "some very good discussions in the last couple of days with the president and his advisers." But the urgency of those discussions, on a hastily arranged visit to Washington that began even before today's deadly attack on an Italian police post, was self-evident.
"I'll be taking them a message from the president that he remains steadfast in his determination to defeat terrorism in Iraq and steadfast in his determination to give the Iraqis authority over their country, authority they're already beginning to assume very quickly in the area of security and in the area of running the Iraqi ministries," Mr. Bremer said.
We should be very afraid, every announcement of progress in Iraq seems to lead more bloodshed.
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