NIE Released Friday - Newsflash: Iraq's a MESS

You can read it here.

For those few who don't yet know, "NIE" stands for "National Intelligence Estimate" and it is a coordinated judgement of the nation's intelligence services.

Here's what it says about the current state of Iraq:

Iraqi society’s growing polarization, the persistent weakness of the security forces and the state in general, and all sides’ ready recourse to violence are collectively driving an increase in communal and insurgent violence and political extremism. Unless efforts to reverse these conditions show measurable progress during the term of this Estimate, the coming 12 to 18 months, we assess that the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate at rates comparable to the latter part of 2006.

If strengthened Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), more loyal to the government and supported by Coalition forces, are able to reduce levels of violence and establish more effective security for Iraq’s population, Iraqi leaders could have an opportunity to begin the process of political compromise necessary for longer term stability, political progress, and economic recovery.

And it follows immediately with a rather important "However":

Nevertheless, even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this Estimate.

Larry Johnson over at TPMCafe sees that last bit this way:

Folks, that is the center of the earth, bottomline. Iraq is toxic or radioactive--pick your metaphor--and is not likely to improve, with or without a troop surge.

Here's the view from the Washington Post:

The U.S. intelligence community yesterday released a starkly pessimistic assessment of the situation in Iraq, warning that even if security improves, deepening sectarian divisions threaten to destroy the government and ultimately could lead to anarchy, partition or the emergence of a new dictatorship.

Citing "the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene," declassified judgments of a new National Intelligence Estimate predicted that Iraqi leaders will be "hard pressed" to reconcile over the next 18 months.

Despite the stepped-up training and U.S. support for Iraqi security forces -- major parts of the new Iraq strategy President Bush announced last month -- the estimate concluded that the Iraqi military will find it very difficult to carry out any new responsibilities or to operate independently against sectarian militias.

On that last part, did anyone else see this story in the McClatchy papers?

The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city's population and the front line of al-Sadr's campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr's militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they've trained and armed.

How much worse can it get? There's more:

The Bush administration's plan to secure Baghdad rests on a "surge" of some 17,000 more U.S. troops to the city, many of whom will operate from small bases throughout Baghdad. Those soldiers will work to improve Iraqi security units so that American forces can hand over control of the area and withdraw to the outskirts of the city.

The problem, many soldiers said, is that the approach has been tried before and resulted only in strengthening al-Sadr and his militia.

So the surge is nothing new, and when it was attempted before it made things worse. So I guess we know it can get worse.

Anyway, back to the NIE. They list a number of challenges facing the Iraqi government. Here's the first:

Decades of subordination to Sunni political, social, and economic domination have made the Shia deeply insecure about their hold on power. This insecurity leads the Shia to mistrust US efforts to reconcile Iraqi sects and reinforces their unwillingness to engage with the Sunnis on a variety of issues, including adjusting the structure of Iraq’s federal system, reining in Shia militias, and easing de-Bathification.

Many Sunni Arabs remain unwilling to accept their minority status, believe the central government is illegitimate and incompetent, and are convinced that Shia dominance will increase Iranian influence over Iraq, in ways that erode the state’s Arab character and increase Sunni repression.

Gee, didn't anyone see this coming? I know I did.

The NIE even has something to say about whether Iraq is in a "Civil War."

The Intelligence Community judges that the term "civil war" does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term "civil war" accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.

Coalition capabilities, including force levels, resources, and operations, remain an essential stabilizing element in Iraq. If Coalition forces were withdrawn rapidly during the term of this Estimate, we judge that this almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq, intensify Sunni resistance to the Iraqi Government, and have adverse consequences for national reconciliation.

We all need to take a careful look at that first sentence. Dubya's folks are trying to say that it means that Iraq is in something less than a "Civil War." In fact it says the exact opposite. I'll filter out some words so we can see the basic idea of the phrase. It says that they judge that the term:

"...does not adequately capture the complexity..."

So comparing the situation in Iraq to their definition of "Civil War," they're saying that the situation in Iraq is more complicated than their definition of the term allows - not less.

So what does the NIE say? It says that things in dubya's war are going horribly bad. The chances of things getting better are next to nil while the chances of things getting worse are huge.

You're doing a heckuva job, Georgie.