Today's National Un-Intelligence Estimate

[SteveGrenard]

From the unclassified portions of today's National Intelligence Estimate released to the press:

On the other hand, the judgments concluded, "a number of identifiable internal security and political triggering events ... have the potential to convulse severely Iraq's security environment" and could "spark an abrupt increase in communal and insurgent violence and shift Iraq's trajectory from gradual decline to rapid deterioration."

Are they serious? Where have they been?

Those events include sustained, mass sectarian killing; assassination of major political and religious leaders and a complete Sunni defection from the government. Any one of the three, the estimate said, could result in "chaos leading to partition ... emergence of a Shia strongman ... (or) anarchic fragmentation of power."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/4523199.html

A day late and a dollar short … somebody should tell whoever writes these national intelligence estimates that their reports are worse than a phony psychic's predictions.

130 killed in Baghdad bombing

By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent

Published February 3, 2007, 7:10 PM CST

The deadliest single bombing in Iraq since the 2003 invasion killed at least 130 people and wounded at least 300 in a crowded Baghdad street market Saturday, the latest in an escalating campaign of terror targeting shoppers that has claimed hundreds of lives in recent weeks.A fuel truck packed with a ton of explosives detonated in the narrow streets of the Sadriyah open-air market in central Baghdad just before dusk, at a time when the market was crammed with people stocking up on supplies before nightfall. Two buildings were obliterated, 10 others collapsed, dozens of stalls were incinerated, and many victims died instantly in the huge explosion, which reverberated across the city.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070203iraq-bombings,1,2915915.story?coll=chi-news-hed

oh, and we lost 5 more U.S. soldier's today also. And all this while the decider is getting applause from attendees at a Democratic Retreat somewhere in Virginia for a 16 minute speech. Talk about Alice in Wonderland.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Intelligence Estimate released to the press:

Are they serious? Where have they been?

oh, and we lost 5 more U.S. soldier's today also. And all this while the decider is getting applause from attendees at a Democratic Retreat somewhere in Virginia for a 16 minute speech. Talk about Alice in Wonderland.

So, Steve, tell me about what was in the classified Intelligence Estimate.

You have only told us part of the story.

DR

 

[Tony]

So, Steve, tell me about what was in the classified Intelligence Estimate.

You have only told us part of the story.

DR

He could tell you, but he'd have to kill you.

 

[SteveGrenard]

So, Steve, tell me about what was in the classified Intelligence Estimate.

You have only told us part of the story.

DR

You have a right to be skeptical. Here is what was got, knock yourself out. The report is on pages 6 to 9 if you want to skip the explanatrory intro:

http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20070202_release.pdf


Here's one reporter's issue that could be in the report next time, then again, maybe not:

News reporters frequently complain that their work isn't getting the attention it deserves, but CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan took the extra step.

She wrote to friends and family members asking for their help in getting her report on street fighting in Baghdad on the air. She never, the network said Wednesday, intended to make the plea public. But eventually it got out.

Logan filed the gritty report about dangerous conditions near the Green Zone on Jan. 18 for the "CBS Evening News." The network didn't air it, deeming some of the images of tortured bodies that it contained too graphic, and because another story Logan filed that day from Iraq was more newsworthy, said Sandy Genelius, news spokeswoman.

Instead, the report was streamed on the news division's Web site. It ends with an Iraqi blaming the United States for the "death and destruction" brought to the country.

http://nwitimes.com/articles/2007/0...nment/doc43fa321693d511b78625727500001360.txt

Lara: no man or woman is an island .....but you can try.

Lara's right though, the Green Zone is starting now to come into attack by rocket and possibly mortar fire:

Blast rocks Green Zone in central Baghdad
Sat 27 Jan 2007 13:42:13 GMT
BAGHDAD, Jan 27 (Reuters) - A loud explosion rocked central Baghdad on Saturday, prompting sirens and loudspeaker warnings in the international Green Zone and sending up a large plume of white smoke inside the heavily fortified area.

Loudspeaker warnings urged people to take cover. "This is not a drill," the warning said.

Several people in the Green Zone said they had heard what may have been a mortar or rocket go past, but could not say where it landed.

A double rocket attack on the Green Zone wounded six people earlier this week. The area, which stretches over several square kilometres (miles) houses Iraqi government offices, embassies and other foreign facilities.

Mortars and rockets frequently hit the area and usually do not cause casualties.

Saturday's loud blast shook windows across the river from the Green Zone in the central district of Karrada.

So even the conditions inside this "bubble", a well guarded zone filled with all kinds of restaurants, night clubs, shopping experiences for the Iraqui government and foreign personnel and military commanders and of course, the US and foreign embassies .... where according to guests on Russert the other day (who have been there) you can live for many many months at a time without ever leaving so the upper echelons don't have to be exposed to the same dangers the Iraqui people and our foot soldiers face is slowly but surely coming under attack. CBS may've felt embarassed to give wide coverage to Lara Logan's pathetic complaints.