Prewar intelligence on occupation correctly predicted violence (Phase II today or tomorrow)

[Adelante]

The Senate Intelligence Committee is poised to release another section of its Phase II prewar intelligence report on the Iraq war. The committee tells NBC that the report has been cleared and declassified by the Director of National Intelligence, and it could be released by the panel as early as today, but maybe tomorrow.

This section of the report deals with the prewar assessments of a postwar Iraq. In other words, were the intelligence community's judgments about what Iraq would look like after the war accurate?

The report, which was written by the Senate Intel Committee, is expected to be about 40 pages or so. It will also be accompanied by two declassified reports written by the National Intelligence Council: "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq."

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/05/24/202711.aspx

Intelligence predicted violence from Hussein overthrow
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post | May 21, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Two intelligence assessments from January 2003 predicted that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and subsequent US occupation of Iraq could lead to internal violence and provide a boost to terrorists in the region, according to congressional sources and former intelligence officials.

The two assessments, titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq," were produced by the National Intelligence Council and will be part of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Phase II report on prewar intelligence assessments about Iraq.

-snip

Congressional sources said the two National Intelligence Council assessments will be included in the Phase II report to be released soon.

The assessment on post-Hussein Iraq included judgments that while Iraq was unlikely to split apart, there was a significant chance that domestic groups would fight each other and that former regime military elements could merge with terrorist groups to battle any new government. It even talks of guerrilla warfare.

The second assessment discussed "political Islam being boosted and the war being exploited by terrorists and extremists elsewhere in the region," one former analyst said. It also suggested that fear of US military occupation of a Middle East country would attract foreign Islamic fighters to the area. The NIC assessments paint "a very sobering and, as it has turned out, mostly accurate picture of the aftermath of the invasion," according to a former intelligence officer familiar with the studies

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/05/21/intelligence_predicted_violence_from_hussein_overthrow/