Tenet: CIA Warned of 'Anarchy' in Iraq

[cal04]

The CIA warned the Bush White House seven months before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the U.S. could face a thicket of bad consequences, starting with ``anarchy and the territorial breakup'' of the country, former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book.

CIA analysts wrote the warning at the start of August 2002 and inserted it into a briefing book distributed at an early September meeting of President Bush's national security team at Camp David, he writes.

The agency analysis painted what Tenet calls additional ``worst-case'' scenarios: ``a surge of global terrorism against U.S. interests fueled by deepening Islamic antipathy toward the United States''; ``regime-threatening instability in key Arab states''; and ``major oil supply disruptions and severe strains in the Atlantic alliance.''

While the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have been widely criticized for being wrong about much of the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, the analysis Tenet describes concerning postwar scenarios seems prescient. Iraq is buffeted by brutal sectarian violence and there are suggestions that the country be partitioned into ethnic zones.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6592851,00.html

[KeepItReal]

1. I remember the CIA also said *if* Saddam had WMD, he would *only* use them if attacked

That little piece of analysis didn't matter much either, I guess.