Intelligence calls Iraq's government precarious

WASHINGTON -- The nation's intelligence director released a grim assessment of the progress in Iraq yesterday, including the prediction that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be unable to broker reconciliation between the country's warring factions in the coming months and will instead become increasingly vulnerable to challenges to his own leadership.

"The Iraqi government will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months," states an unclassified summary of key judgments in the report, citing growing criticism in Iraq of Maliki's rule. "Broadly accepted political compromises required for sustained security, long-term political progress, and economic developments are unlikely to emerge unless there is a fundamental shift."

The National Intelligence Estimate report, an update of a similar assessment on Iraq released in January, highlighted some recent successes there since President Bush ordered an increase in the US troop presence. The estimate, compiled by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, cited what it said was a recent drop in the number of attacks on civilians and an expansion of the US alliance with Sunni tribes in the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But the report also outlined a host of looming problems -- including the likelihood that bloody battles between rival Shi'ite fac tions over political turf and control of the country's vast oil reserves will increase as US forces relinquish control of the provinces, and the possibility that the Sunni tribes the United States is arming in the fight against Al Qaeda could turn against Iraq's central government.

Yesterday, Senator John Warner of Virginia -- an influential Republican and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who just returned from a trip to Iraq -- used the report's dire predictions to publicly call on President Bush to bring home a symbolic number of troops by Christmas.

"Given the NIE, which says, 'Mr. President, it's up to 12 months before we can expect any particular degree of reconciliation,' we simply cannot as a nation stand and put our troops at continuous risk of loss of life and limb without beginning to take some decisive action which will get everybody's attention," Warner said.

A World War II veteran who was Navy secretary under President Nixon, Warner spent the morning at the White House meeting with Bush's top aides. Afterward, he told reporters that the withdrawal of at least a few thousand troops would send a "sharp and clear message" to Maliki's government that the US commitment in Iraq is not open-ended.

Democratic presidential candidates seized on the report yesterday to call for a sweeping withdrawal.

"We need to stop the surge and start to get our troops out," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.

"It is clear that President Bush's tactic of troop escalation has failed to achieve its goal of convincing Iraqi leaders that they must take bold steps to promote stability and reconciliation," said Senator Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat. "In fact, the report confirms that Sunnis and Shia remain deeply suspicious of each other with no sign of reversing that belief anytime soon."

Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, a Democratic presidential contender, called Wednesday for Iraq's parliament to oust Maliki, echoing a similar statement by Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who toured Iraq with Warner earlier this month.

The report, however, predicted that the belief that lawmakers will soon force US troops to leave Iraq will only create more violence, fear, and uncertainty, as Iraqis seek to protect themselves from their enemies and competing factions battle for the upper hand.

"Perceptions that the coalition is withdrawing probably will encourage factions anticipating a power vacuum to seek local security solutions that could intensify sectarian violence and intra-sectarian competition," said the report.

At a background briefing with reporters, senior intelligence officials said the Iraqi leaders' response to the debate in Washington has become a new, crucial variable in the conflict.

"The perceptions of a possible drawdown is a new element in the equation," said one official, who spoke on the condition that his name not be used. "How they respond -- hunker down, wait it out, cede some territory -- we don't know."

The report said other countries in the region are also reacting, trying to increase their influence in Iraq "in anticipation of a Coalition draw-down."

Although Syria has cracked down on insurgents crossing the border into Iraq, the report said, it has also expanded its support of other Iraqi groups in a bid to bolster its influence. Iran has been intensifying efforts to arm Shi'ite militias in Iraq, according to the report, a contention US officials have frequently made.

The intelligence report was given just weeks before the top general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker are due to release their own assessment of the progress in Iraq.

Intelligence officials said they completed their report first to share their input with Petraeus and Crocker; NIE reports are compiled at the request of senior civilian and military policy makers under the direction of National Intelligence Director John Michael McConnell. NIE reports are almost always kept classified, but what has been leaked to the media in recent years indicates that intelligence agencies have long had dire predictions about Iraq.

Key judgments in yesterday's report were declassified, intelligence officials said, because of the compelling public interest in the debate over Iraq.

Yesterday, as Bush continued his monthlong vacation in Crawford, Texas, deputy White House press secretary Gordon Johndroe told reporters that the updated judgments in the National Intelligence Estimate "show that our strategy has improved the security environment in Iraq."

He cited the report's assessment that Iraq has made modest improvements in economic output and in forming a budget, but acknowledged that Maliki's government "is not moving nearly as fast as everyone in Washington, D.C., would like it to move."

The intelligence officials at the briefing yesterday said it is likely that Maliki will have to defend his office against a continued stream of challengers in Parliament, but it does not appear likely that any would succeed -- principally because it is unclear whether another Iraqi politician can do better.

Despite the somber assessments, the report gives the Bush administration some ammunition in the fight to maintain a large and active troop presence in Iraq. It states that paring down the troops' mission to focus solely on targeting Al Qaeda in Iraq -- as some of Bush's critics have suggested -- would "erode security gains achieved thus far."

It also predicted further improvement in securing the country, as long as US troops continue "robust counterinsurgency efforts."

The intelligence officials said yesterday that the new US alliance with Sunni tribesmen could produce the foundation of a localized, "bottom-up" reconciliation effort, if Shi'ite leaders, including Maliki, use it as an opportunity to reach out to Sunnis. But the report and the intelligence officials also said the US-Sunni alliance could backfire if Sunnis decide to turn against Maliki's government, an admission that US officials rarely make publicly.