Prewar Assessment on Iraq Saw Chance of Strong Divisions

From the New York Times courtesy of Think Progress courtesy of Eschaton:

The same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, government officials said Monday.

The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.

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So the above excerpted article first appeared in September of 2004 and I totally missed it. I mean, I knew that the kind of sectarian violence we've been seeing for some time now in Iraq was totally predicted, but I had no idea that Bush had been informed, by his own people, that it was going to happen. It is very interesting to note that all the "cakewalk" talk, and the "greeted as liberators" bullshit, had no room for such an assessment, which is no doubt why Bush kept the report under wraps.

Are you getting this? Bush knew there was a very good chance that post-invasion Iraq would turn into a bloodbath, but he refused to allow the information into the pre-war debate, and invaded anyway. So we already know how awful a president Bush is: now we know he's even worse.

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