"'I am not happy with the kind of information we are getting,'" a "senior intelligence official" tells the Washington Post 's Milbank and Ricks
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Bush Says Attacks Are Reflection of U.S. Gains
By Dana Milbank and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 28, 2003; Page A01
President Bush yesterday put the best face on a new surge of violence in Iraq as his top defense aides huddled to discuss additional ways of thwarting the anti-American rebellion there before it becomes more widespread.
The president, speaking after attacks on police stations and a Red Cross facility in Iraq killed at least 35 people, said such attacks should be seen as a sign of progress because they show the desperation of those who oppose the U.S.-led occupation.
"The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react," Bush said as he sat in the Oval Office with L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq. He added: "The more progress we make on the ground, the more free the Iraqis become, the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become, because they can't stand the thought of a free society."
While Bush argued that the latest violence -- attackers also hit the Baghdad hotel where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz was staying Sunday -- was vindication of the administration's approach, Pentagon officials conferred about how to prevent such attacks from foiling its plan to transfer power to Iraqi police and security forces.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, meeting with Bremer, and senior military officials including Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, brainstormed about how to stop the attacks on the very institutions that are needed to advance the U.S. occupation force.
The U.S. strategy is to turn over security missions to Iraqi soldiers and police forces as quickly as possible. "We're all doing a lot of thinking about it," said one official involved in the discussions. But, he said, no clear answers have emerged yet. In a sign of the matter's urgency, Rumsfeld scheduled another meeting for today with Abizaid, Myers and Bremer.
The deliberations are taking on increased urgency because U.S. intelligence and military officials are saying U.S. forces in Iraq have a limited time to break the resistance before the general population joins it.
A senior intelligence official told The Washington Post that the United States has a window of three to six months to put down the resistance. Iraqis generally are not aiding or abetting groups believed to be responsible for the violence. But, the official said, the anti-U.S. groups are trying to form a coordinated campaign across Iraq.
If successful, "they would be more effective and harder to prevent," the official said. "They would send a signal to the populace" that they are an alternative to the occupation.
Another senior intelligence official said the United States has not devoted enough attention to understanding the anti-American groups in Iraq because intelligence resources have been devoted to locating weapons of mass destruction. As a result, the intelligence community and the military have little precise information about the resistance. "I am not happy with the kind of information we are getting," the official said.
The military also believes that insurgencies like the one in Iraq coalesce into larger rebellions if allowed to fester. Adding to the need for rapid action, a senior U.S. military official involved in Iraq strategy said yesterday that the Pentagon expects to significantly pare its presence in Iraq when major troop rotations come in February. "The feeling is, get it done while we have the assets available," the official said.
Bush gave no hint of such backroom deliberations as he argued that the recent attacks only demonstrated foes' desperation. It was an amplification of a theme he struck after terrorists attacked the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on Aug. 19, when he said, "Every sign of progress in Iraq adds to the desperation of the terrorists and the remnants of Saddam's brutal regime."
Democrats reacted with ridicule. Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), a presidential candidate, likened Bush's statement to the "light at the end of the tunnel" claims during the Vietnam War. "Does the president really believe that suicide bombers are willing to strap explosives to their bodies because we're restoring electricity and creating jobs for Iraqis?" Kerry asked in a statement.
Bush got a similar reprimand earlier from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has supported the president on Iraq. "This is the first time that I have seen a parallel to Vietnam, in terms of information that the administration is putting out versus the actual situation on the ground," he told Newsweek. White House press secretary Scott McClellan defended Bush's assertion, saying: "Our military leaders have said that some of these attacks have become more sophisticated, but what you're really seeing is that the more progress we make, the more desperate these killers become."
Bush's senior diplomats were somewhat more measured than their boss in their assessments of the Iraq situation. Bremer, at the meeting with Bush, said: "We'll have rough days, such as we've had the last couple of days. But the overall thrust is in the right direction, and the good days outnumber the bad days." Secretary of State Colin L. Powell later told reporters "it's been a bad 24 hours" in Iraq.
Powell expressed concern that contractors, aid groups and the United Nations will withdraw in significant numbers. "Their work is needed," he said. "And if they are driven out, then the terrorists win." As the Red Cross assessed its future, Doctors Without Borders said it would reduce its presence in Baghdad.
Though Bush's argument that the violence indicated progress struck some as counterintuitive, those sympathetic to the administration said there was logic to the claim. Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute said that by attacking "soft targets" such as the Red Cross and the Iraqi police, the foes are demonstrating that "they don't have the strength" to inflict major losses on U.S. troops.
Experts in public opinion said it would be difficult for Bush to convince Americans that the violence was a byproduct of success. Jeremy Rosner, a Democratic pollster, said the public is "more and more worried as the drumbeat of casualties continues and the administration constantly shifts rationale and tactics." Frank Luntz, who has advised Republicans on use of language, said Bush's upbeat argument is "better than saying nothing, but it's not enough to say it. You've got to show the evidence."
Bush pronounced last week'sdonors conference in Madrid a success. Foreign governments offered about $13 billion in a combination of loans and grants toward the more than $50 billion the administration projects will be needed for Iraq's reconstruction. He did not repeat a veto threat, made by an aide, if Congress does not provide the $20 billion Bush requested entirely in grants rather than loans. "My attitude has been, and still is, that the money we provide Iraq ought to be in the form of a grant," Bush said.
The president linked the attacks on the Red Cross and the police stations to a toughening of targets involving U.S. personnel. He said the occupation authority is countering the attacks by training Iraqi security workers -- McClellan said there are 85,000 -- and "working hard with freedom-loving Iraqis to help ferret these people out before they attack and strike."
But several security experts said the latest round of attacks raises questions about the U.S. plan for an expeditious transfer of power to these Iraqi authorities.
"The attacks focus attention on our inability to provide security or prevent devastating attacks, and possibly deter collaboration by Iraqis and cooperation by outside actors," said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst of Iraqi affairs who teaches at the National Defense University. "They strike with impunity -- and there seems to be little we can do to prevent them."
This nettlesome issue was on the agenda yesterday as Rumsfeld met with top defense officials. According to an official involved, the tone of the meeting was similar to that of the Rumsfeld memo that leaked last week. In it, the defense secretary called for bolder ways to counter terrorism and predicted that the U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan would be "a long, hard slog."
But, this official added, "there's no sense of panic." Mainly, he said, the top officials were reviewing the state of Iraqi security forces, including the timetable for their development and the quality of different institutions, such as civil defense units, police forces and the slowly emerging new Iraqi army.
Some specialists said they fear the Bush administration, lacking many fresh troops, is trying to turn over security tasks to Iraqis too quickly. "The strategy of trying to rush in newly trained Iraqi military and police isn't necessarily an adequate and sufficient response," said Robert Gelbard, a retired U.S. diplomat.
Expressing a sentiment held by many, Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former head of U.S. Central Command, said, "Everyone knows you need more troops over there."
The National Intelligence Council, through which the CIA's 12 national intelligence officers provide analysis to the government's intelligence community, has been assessing the security situation in Iraq.
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