re-post
from March 2003
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More Grounds for Impeachment:
C.I.A. Warned Pentagon of Guerrilla Tactics.
Bush's Reign of Incompetence and Deception in America.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/28/international/worldspecial/28INTE.html?ex=1049872321&ei=1&en=7c9926fe19c6a06aC.I.A. Warned Pentagon of Guerrilla Tactics
By JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, March 27 — Intelligence analysts warned senior Pentagon officials before the war in Iraq began that Iraqi paramilitary units would fight back and could pose a significant threat to American-led coalition forces, officials said today.
The Central Intelligence Agency issued a report last month that said that paramilitary units loyal to Saddam Hussein could threaten rear areas during an allied advance. The agency report also raised concerns about the possibility that the paramilitary forces could mount attacks against Iraqi civilians and use other irregular methods to try to tie down coalition forces.
Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency also voiced concerns about the paramilitary forces in the months leading up to war with Iraq, and warned the military leadership about the threat from guerrilla-style attacks. Officials said the issue was also raised by analysts at the National Ground Intelligence Center, another branch of military intelligence. Still, intelligence officials cautioned that the warnings provided by analysts about paramilitary forces should not be overstated, since other potential threats received much more attention. "You can't overspin this and say this was considered the biggest threat by the analysts," one official said. "A lot more attention was paid to the Republican Guard and to the possible use of weapons of mass destruction," the official added. "Those were considered the biggest problems."
The fact that analysts had raised the issue in intelligence reports but did not make it a dominant theme might help explain why commanders in the field, who might not have read the fine print of every report, were caught by surprise when the paramilitary forces first appeared.
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