L.A. Times: bu$h* was twice warned of Iraq challenges.

[spanone]

~snip~ WASHINGTON — Two months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies twice warned the Bush administration that establishing a democracy there would prove difficult and that Al Qaeda would use political instability to increase its operations, according to a Senate report released Friday.

These warnings were distributed to senior officials with daily access to President Bush and others at the very top of the administration, the report states.

Establishing "an Iraqi democracy would be a long, difficult and probably turbulent process, with potential for backsliding into Iraq's tradition of authoritarianism."

• Unless the occupying forces prevented it, "score settling would occur throughout Iraq between those associated with Saddam's regime and those who have suffered most under it."

• Among the majority Shiite population, which Saddam had kept out of power, a political form of Islam could take root, "particularly if economic recovery were slow and foreign troops remained in the country for a long period."

• Iran would probably try to shape the post-Hussein Iraq, in a bid to position itself as a regional power.

• Al Qaeda would probably take advantage of the war to increase its terrorist activities, and the lines between it and other terrorist groups "could become blurred."

Each of these assessments was prescient. And Bush now cites the danger posed by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq as a major reason for resisting calls that the U.S. begin decreasing its troop levels and set a firm deadline for withdrawal.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel26may26,0,1834215.story?coll=la-home-center

[flyarm]

1. k&r

[indepat]

2. The decider decided these but were small prices to pay for the joys of PNAC implementation