Kerry Hurls Essence of Report on Iraq at Bush
By Dana Priest and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 17, 2004; Page A20
Citing a new classified intelligence report predicting serious troubles ahead for Iraq, John F. Kerry yesterday accused President Bush of living in a "fantasy world of spin" and refusing to speak honestly about mounting casualties, indiscriminate killings and chaos in Iraq. "Stability and security seem further and further away," Kerry said.
The White House, which had planned a vigorous election-season defense of its Iraq strategy next week, was forced into the debate yesterday. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the intelligence assessment "states the obvious," and he dismissed skeptics of the Iraq policy as "pessimists and naysayers." Bush, at a campaign stop, repeated his generally upbeat assessment of Iraq: "Freedom is on the march."
The 60-page document produced by the National Intelligence Council set out three possible scenarios for the next year and a half in Iraq, the worst of which portrayed the country as descending into civil war. The assessment, which analyzed political, economic and security trends, blamed the mounting problems on Iraq's having no institutions and traditions upon which to build representative government and on resilient opponents, including Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents, foreign terrorists and common criminals.
Revelation of the report's existence came on a day when Kerry used some of the toughest language of the campaign to paint a markedly different portrait of Iraq than the one Bush offers audiences.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27270-2004Sep16.html?nav=rss_politics/elections/2004