Report says Iraq could be torn apart

WASHINGTON -- A muchanticipated US intelligence report warned yesterday that the rising violence in Iraq could permanently tear the country apart and, in the worst case, create a state of anarchy with no legitimate authority that combines "extreme ethnosectarian violence with debilitating intragroup clashes."

The secret National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, the first in more than two years, said Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence now far outpaces the anti-US insurgency, according to an unclassified summary. It said there is only a fleeting opportunity over the next 12 to 18 months for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and US forces to secure the population and craft a viable political settlement.

But all the efforts of US and Iraqi authorities could rapidly collapse following another "triggering" event like the Sunni attack on a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in February 2006 that set off the current cycle of sectarian violence, according to the published excerpts of the 90-page report.

"Should these events take place, they could spark an abrupt increase in communal and insurgent violence and shift Iraq's trajectory from gradual decline to rapid deterioration with grave humanitarian, political, and security consequences," according to the estimate, titled "Prospects for Iraq's Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead."

The report by President Bush's top intelligence analysts said that if the violence continues to get worse, there are three possible outcomes: The country will disintegrate into three separate enclaves (Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurdish), a strongman will seize power, or anarchy will set in, bringing with it "the greatest potential for instability."

The Iraq NIE, the first broad assessment of the situation since July 2004, was compiled by the National Intelligence Council, including top experts from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and other spy agencies.

The council also drafted the October 2002 NIE that was used to justify the US invasion in 2003 by mistakenly concluding that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

The new estimate, which many critics of the war said was long overdue, provided more fuel yesterday for opponents of President Bush's Iraq strategy, especially his decision last month to send 21,500 additional US combat troops to help secure Baghdad and the restive Sunni province of Anbar.

"It's abundantly clear that what we need is not a troop surge, but a diplomatic surge, working closely with other countries in the region," responded Senator Edward M. Kennedy , the Massachusetts Democrat who was among a handful of senators who requested the NIE, which can be commissioned by either Congress or the executive branch.

Still, the intelligence report also said that US troops remain the only bulwark keeping Iraq from spinning completely out of control and that a precipitous American withdrawal would make matters worse.

"If coalition forces were rapidly withdrawn . . . we judge that this almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq, intensify Sunni resistance to the Iraqi government, and have adverse consequences for national reconciliation," the authors wrote.

The report held out some hope that the situation could improve, especially if the Sunni Muslim minority accepts the current Shi'ite-led government and both the Shi'ite and Kurdish populations make significant concessions to welcome the Sunnis into the governing structure.

But the report, whose findings some Democrats accused the Bush administration of delaying until after the November congressional elections, expressed deep concern that the situation is so sensitive that a single event could derail any progress that is being made.

It said another high-profile event -- such as a mass killing, the assassination of major religious or political leaders, or a decision by the Sunnis to defect completely from the government -- could push Iraq to break up into sectarian states or simply disintegrate into chaos.

Such a cataclysmic event could topple Maliki's government and disband the security services, resulting in a de facto partition of the country into "three mutually antagonistic parts," the assessment asserted. Such an outcome would probably generate "fierce violence" for at least several years.

Another possible outcome if the government is toppled would be the emergence of a Shi'ite strongman to assert what the NIE called the sect's "latent strength" as the overwhelming majority in the country.

Far more worrisome, however, would be a situation the NIE called the "anarchic fragmentation of power," described as a "checkered pattern of local control."

Under this scenario, the country would not only break apart, but would lack even legitimate regional authorities, leaving tribal chiefs, religious factions, foreign terrorists, and others to establish their own fiefdoms.

Ivan Eland , a national security analyst at The Independent Institute, a liberal Washington think tank, said the most likely outcomes were either partition or anarchy, what he called an "atomized Iraq."

"The atomized situation is the worst because you don't have an underlying social agreement," he said.

Eland and others, including Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. , Democrat of Delaware and a 2008 presidential candidate, said they saw the NIE as more reason to consider a formal partition of the country into a confederation of Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurdish areas -- along with a resource-sharing agreement on Iraq's oil reserves -- to prepare for the inevitable.

Doing so sooner rather than later, supporters believe, could provide incentive for warring factions to stop fighting.

"I think Iraq has already been partitioned on the ground," Eland said. "It's not a clean partition, so that is why you're having the violence."

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.