Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia.militare
Titolo: CIA: Irak, non se ne esce

Dove si vede che le bugie hanno le gambe corte.
Interessante anche per le cifre delle vittime che si avvicinano a quelle 
di The Lancet.
Pero' attenzione che il Guardian e' un giornale di parte! (secondo 
alcuni nel NG)
::))
Am.
Iraq faces descent into chaos, says CIA chief 
 Report leaked as 1,000th US soldier dies in action 
  Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Wednesday December 8, 2004
The Guardian 
  The Bush administration's robust assertions that the situation in Iraq 
would improve with next month's elections were badly shaken yesterday 
with the leak of a gloomy end-of-tour cable from the departing CIA 
station chief in Baghdad.
 The bleak assessment, reported in yesterday's New York Times, warned 
that Iraq would descend even deeper into violent chaos unless the 
government was able to assert its authority and deliver concrete 
economic improvements.
 It arrived on a day when US forces recorded the death of the 1,000th 
soldier to be killed in combat since the beginning of the war.
 In all, 1,275 US service personnel have died since the invasion on 
March 20 last year. This figure includes accidents, suicides and other 
deaths not classed as killed in action. A total of 9,765 US troops have 
been wounded.
 No official totals of Iraqi deaths are available. Estimates range from 
14,000 to tens of thousands of civilians and around 5,000 troops.
 The classified assessment was sent to CIA headquarters in Virginia late 
last month as the officer ended a year-long tour in Iraq. It was 
bolstered by a similar assessment from a second CIA officer, Michael 
Kostiw, who serves as a senior adviser to the agency chief, Porter Goss.
 The outlook offered by the station chief echoes several similar 
warnings from officials in Washington and Baghdad. An intelligence 
estimate prepared for the White House last August said that Iraq's 
security situation could remain tenuous at best until the end of 2005, 
and warned the country was at risk of civil war.
 But the latest warning is particularly ill-timed for the White House, 
which has been focused on assuring Americans that the situation in Iraq 
would improve with the coming elections. It is also a personal 
embarrassment for Mr Goss, a former Republican congressman who had made 
it his mission to stem the flow of embarrassing leaks from the agency.
 In a memo last month, Mr Goss wrote that the agency had a dual task - 
to provide intelligence, and to support administration policies. "As 
agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition 
to the administration or its policies," the memo said.
 As station chief, the unnamed CIA official supervised more than 300 
operatives, the largest intelligence operation since the Vietnam war, 
and their assessment carries authority.
 While the senior US military commander in Iraq, General George Casey 
Jr, initially raised no objections to the CIA assessment, the New York 
Times reported that the US ambassador, John Negroponte, had filed a 
lengthy message of dissent in which he argued that the US had made 
considerable progress in controlling the insurgency.
 Mr Bush did not directly comment on the CIA report yesterday, but in a 
speech to US marines in Camp Pendle ton, California, he described the 
war in Iraq as part of the global struggle against terrorism and warned: 
"As election day approaches, we can expect further violence from the 
terrorists.
 "You see, the terrorists understand what is at stake. They know they 
have no future in a free Iraq, because free people will never choose 
their own enslavement. They know democracy will give Iraqis a stake in 
the future of their country."
 Throughout the speech, Mr Bush referred to the insurgents, who are 
largely Iraqis opposed to the US occupation, as terrorists.
 In conversations with reporters about the assessment yesterday, agency 
officials admitted that efforts to train local Iraqi security forces 
were not keeping pace with the growth of an increasingly violent 
insurgency. So far, the official strength of the Iraqi security forces 
is put at 83,000 although only 47,000 have been fully armed and trained.
 The new Iraqi government could also expect a new wave of violence if 
the elections are boycotted by the Sunni minority.

Iraq faces descent into chaos, says CIA chief
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