Friday, October 25, 2002
Iraq intelligence incites feud
Mercury News - San Jose, CA
Fri, Oct. 25, 2002
Iraq intelligence incites feud
CIA PROTESTS PENTAGON UNIT'S ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENTS
By Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay
Mercury News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon and the CIA are waging a bitter feud over secret intelligence that is being used to shape U.S. policy toward Iraq, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The dispute has been fueled by the creation within the Pentagon of a special unit that provides senior policymakers with alternate assessments of Iraq intelligence.
Administration hawks who have been leading proponents of invading Iraq oversee the Pentagon unit, which is producing its own analyses of raw intelligence reports obtained from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other agencies, the officials said.
The dispute pits hard-liners long distrustful of the U.S. intelligence community against professional military and intelligence officers who fear that the hawks are shaping intelligence analyses to support their case for invading Iraq.
A major source on contention is the Pentagon's heavy reliance on data supplied by the Iraqi National Congress. The INC, the largest group within the divided Iraqi opposition, has a mixed reputation in Washington and a huge stake in whether President Bush makes good on his threat to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein by force. Its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, sees himself as a potential successor.
At issue in the battle are the most basic questions behind Bush's threatened invasion.
They include whether Iraq is linked to the Al-Qaida terrorist network; whether Iraqi troops would fight or surrender; and under what conditions Saddam would use chemical and biological weapons.
The feud also reveals longstanding divisions over U.S. intelligence capabilities.
Top Pentagon officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, have long been critical of the CIA. They and their allies have participated in previous so-called ``B Team'' exercises to counter what they see as the spy agency's overly cautious views.
For their part, career intelligence officials accuse the Pentagon group of politicizing an intelligence process that is supposed to be unbiased and non-partisan.
``The entire intelligence community hates this,'' said one former intelligence official who, like most others interviewed, requested anonymity.
It is not clear whether the Pentagon solicits the views of the U.S. intelligence community on the material it collects directly from the Iraqi opposition.
A senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed grave fears that civilian officials in the Pentagon may be blindly accepting assertions by Chalabi and his aides that a U.S. invasion would trigger mass defections of Iraqi troops and a quick collapse of Iraqi resistance.
``Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch,'' one official said. ``But it's an article of faith among those with no military experience that the Iraqi military is low-hanging fruit.''
An INC representative did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.
Rumsfeld on Thursday defended the unit's creation as a way for Pentagon policymakers to familiarize themselves with information on which CIA assessments on Iraq are made.
``People are doing that all over town. They do it at the State Department. They do it in my office. I do it,'' he said. ``I take this information and read it and think about it and sort and ask questions and talk to other people about it.
``Any suggestion that it is an intelligence-gathering activity or an intelligence unit of some sort, I think, would be a misunderstanding of it.''
Rumsfeld insisted that relations between the Pentagon and the CIA and between himself and CIA Director George Tenet are excellent.
Others disputed that.
The biggest, and to critics most troubling, divide is over the involvement of the INC.
INC officials predict that Saddam's regular army, as well as the Iraqi Republican Guard, will not fight U.S. troops. Only specialized units personally devoted to Saddam, including the Special Security Organization and the Special Republican Guard, will put up resistance, they say.
If true, that would allow U.S. troops to take Baghdad and the rest of the country without the kind of massive military force used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. If wrong, U.S. troops could face a much fiercer fight, possibly one they are not prepared for.
Fri, Oct. 25, 2002
Iraq intelligence incites feud
CIA PROTESTS PENTAGON UNIT'S ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENTS
By Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay
Mercury News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon and the CIA are waging a bitter feud over secret intelligence that is being used to shape U.S. policy toward Iraq, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The dispute has been fueled by the creation within the Pentagon of a special unit that provides senior policymakers with alternate assessments of Iraq intelligence.
Administration hawks who have been leading proponents of invading Iraq oversee the Pentagon unit, which is producing its own analyses of raw intelligence reports obtained from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other agencies, the officials said.
The dispute pits hard-liners long distrustful of the U.S. intelligence community against professional military and intelligence officers who fear that the hawks are shaping intelligence analyses to support their case for invading Iraq.
A major source on contention is the Pentagon's heavy reliance on data supplied by the Iraqi National Congress. The INC, the largest group within the divided Iraqi opposition, has a mixed reputation in Washington and a huge stake in whether President Bush makes good on his threat to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein by force. Its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, sees himself as a potential successor.
At issue in the battle are the most basic questions behind Bush's threatened invasion.
They include whether Iraq is linked to the Al-Qaida terrorist network; whether Iraqi troops would fight or surrender; and under what conditions Saddam would use chemical and biological weapons.
The feud also reveals longstanding divisions over U.S. intelligence capabilities.
Top Pentagon officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, have long been critical of the CIA. They and their allies have participated in previous so-called ``B Team'' exercises to counter what they see as the spy agency's overly cautious views.
For their part, career intelligence officials accuse the Pentagon group of politicizing an intelligence process that is supposed to be unbiased and non-partisan.
``The entire intelligence community hates this,'' said one former intelligence official who, like most others interviewed, requested anonymity.
It is not clear whether the Pentagon solicits the views of the U.S. intelligence community on the material it collects directly from the Iraqi opposition.
A senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed grave fears that civilian officials in the Pentagon may be blindly accepting assertions by Chalabi and his aides that a U.S. invasion would trigger mass defections of Iraqi troops and a quick collapse of Iraqi resistance.
``Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch,'' one official said. ``But it's an article of faith among those with no military experience that the Iraqi military is low-hanging fruit.''
An INC representative did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.
Rumsfeld on Thursday defended the unit's creation as a way for Pentagon policymakers to familiarize themselves with information on which CIA assessments on Iraq are made.
``People are doing that all over town. They do it at the State Department. They do it in my office. I do it,'' he said. ``I take this information and read it and think about it and sort and ask questions and talk to other people about it.
``Any suggestion that it is an intelligence-gathering activity or an intelligence unit of some sort, I think, would be a misunderstanding of it.''
Rumsfeld insisted that relations between the Pentagon and the CIA and between himself and CIA Director George Tenet are excellent.
Others disputed that.
The biggest, and to critics most troubling, divide is over the involvement of the INC.
INC officials predict that Saddam's regular army, as well as the Iraqi Republican Guard, will not fight U.S. troops. Only specialized units personally devoted to Saddam, including the Special Security Organization and the Special Republican Guard, will put up resistance, they say.
If true, that would allow U.S. troops to take Baghdad and the rest of the country without the kind of massive military force used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. If wrong, U.S. troops could face a much fiercer fight, possibly one they are not prepared for.
All articles in this archive are used under "fair use" as they are important to the national discussion of whether or not the people of this country are being deceived by their government. These articles are used as evidence in that discussion.
