The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is about to release a report of pre-war intelligence in which the CIA warned the government of the danger and consequences of a military clash in the Middle East.
According to the statement, two important intelligence assessments were provided to the White House and congressional intelligence committee by the National Intelligence Council right before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
First, the senate report reveals that collapsing Saddam could lead to a perilous phase of internal violence and encourage terrorists, which is quite evident in the Iraq where not only clashes between allied forces and insurgents are taking place but sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims are killing scores of people across the country.
Second, the report also cautioned that Islamic extremists may recruit young people against the autonomous government as their rigid culture and society doesn’t allow democratic ways of living.
Apart from these, several other assessments cautioning the disastrous consequences, such as anarchy and the territorial breakup of Iraq; region-threatening instability in key Arab states; a surge of global terrorism against US interests fueled by (militant) Islamism and major oil supply disruptions and severe strains in the Atlantic Alliance, of the Iraq invasion were overlooked by the Bush administration.
The description, which is due to release today, will certainly received not only internal criticism but worldwide. Democrats as well as few Republicans in the US senate must be setting up to question the hasty decision of the Bush administration that forced a breaking nation into more chaos and provoked sectarian clashes across its borders.
