The Wasington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIC) said on Wednesday that the US is facing increasingly deadly attacks in Iraq because it has failed to honestly assess facts on the ground.
Aljazeera article[...]
The CSIC report, prepared by senior fellow Anthony Cordesman, said administration spokesmen had appeared to live "in a fantasyland" when giving accounts of events in Iraq.
Somebody phone Rumsfiend.
Are these thinktank guys traitors?
Cordesman said in the first year of the US occupation, Washington "failed to come to grips with the Iraqi insurgency ... in virtually every important dimension".
Under the heading "Denial as a method of counter-insurgency warfare", the report accused the US of minimising the anti-US and criminal threat in Iraq and of exaggerating popular support for US-led efforts.
Under the heading "Denial as a method of counter-insurgency warfare", the report accused the US of minimising the anti-US and criminal threat in Iraq and of exaggerating popular support for US-led efforts.
Dude. Call a spade a spade. I say CSIC traitors should pack lightly - provisions are provided at Guantanamo.
He said that as late as July 2004, administration spokesmen still lived "in a fantasyland in terms of their public announcements", including putting the core anti-US fighting force at 5000 individuals when experts in Iraq knew the correct number to be 12,000 to 16,000.
Sympathisers within the Iraqi interim government and Iraqi forces, as well as Iraqis working for US-led forces, media and non-governmental organisations, "often provided excellent human intelligence [about US-led operations] without violently taking part in the insurgency", the report said.
Cordesman said US attempts to vet these Iraqis cannot solve the problem because "it seems likely that family, clan and ethnic loyalties have made many supposedly loyal Iraqis become at least part-time sources".
Sympathisers within the Iraqi interim government and Iraqi forces, as well as Iraqis working for US-led forces, media and non-governmental organisations, "often provided excellent human intelligence [about US-led operations] without violently taking part in the insurgency", the report said.
Cordesman said US attempts to vet these Iraqis cannot solve the problem because "it seems likely that family, clan and ethnic loyalties have made many supposedly loyal Iraqis become at least part-time sources".
Hence, the candy canes to kids plan. We're on it, dude.
"Washington has to realise - you occupy the Iraq you have, not the Iraq you might wish to have later," said Robert Malley, director of the IGC's Middle East/North Africa Programme.
Ouch.
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