"Obviously, there were things that were not foreseen," Rice

WASHINGTON, September 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies warned Bush administration policymakers before the invasion of Iraq that there would be significant armed opposition to a U.S.-led occupation, according to administration and congressional sources familiar with the reports.

Although general in nature, the intelligence agencies' concerns about the degree of resistance U.S. forces would encounter have proved broadly accurate in the months since rolling into Baghdad on April 9, said the sources quoted by the Washington Post Tuesday, September 9.

Among the threats outlined in the intelligence agencies' reporting was that "Iraqis probably would resort to obstruction, resistance and armed opposition if they perceived attempts to keep them dependent on the U.S. and the West," one senior congressional aide told the daily.

Another senior administration official said the general tenor of the reports was that the period after the invasion would be more “problematic” than the invasion itself.

As U.S. military casualties mount and resistance forces wage a campaign of daily attacks, some administration officials have begun to fault the CIA and other intelligence agencies for being overly optimistic and failing to anticipate such widespread and sustained opposition to a U.S. occupation, according to the Post.

But several administration and congressional sources interviewed for the Post article said the opposite occurred.

The sources quoted by the paper said that senior policymakers at the White House, Pentagon and elsewhere received classified analyses before the invasion warning about the dangers of the period after the end of the offensive.

"Intelligence reports told them at some length about possibilities for unpleasantness," said a senior administration official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The reports were written, but we don't know if they were read," he added.

Size Of Troops

The paper also touched upon how senior Pentagon officials were privately optimistic about post-war Iraq and their assessment shaped calculations about the size of the occupation force that would be required and how long it would have to be there, while the most pessimistic view remained submerged.

But the controversy did occasionally break into the open, most notably when then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki told Congress in February that several hundred thousand occupation troops would be needed, said the Post.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz rejected his estimate at the time as "wildly off the mark”, as the paper put it.

Although the Pentagon has said it has no plans to increase the number of U.S. forces in Iraq - now nearly 130,000 - the Bush administration has launched a new diplomatic campaign to win foreign pledges of more troops to help stabilize the country.

The paper quoted one senior intelligence plan as saying before the invasion, the CIA passed on intelligence that some members of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard military units and his Baathist Party had plans to carry on resistance after the invasion.

"They had been given instructions should the regime fall," the official told the daily.

U.S. military and civilian leaders in Iraq have said they believe the daily attacks against U.S. forces are being carried out by some Saddam loyalists, although observers blame the anti-American sentiments prevalent among the Iraqis seeking an end to occupation and return of order to their oil-rich country.

There is not universal agreement about the clarity of the prewar intelligence that was forwarded by the CIA and its counterpart agencies at the Pentagon and State Department. Some administration officials said the intelligence was murkier than others now depict it, said the Post.

"The possibility there would be armed opposition was based on inductive reasoning," one administration official said of reports from the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Former Army Secretary Thomas E. White said that during discussions he had in the Pentagon before the invasion, he was told "the situation once the war was over would be contentious."

Although White said he did not see intelligence on post-war Iraq first hand, it was discussed in meetings with Shinseki, who said there were reports that "you could expect a major influx of Islamic fighters."

It was for those reasons, White said in a telephone interview, that Shinseki saw the need "to size the postwar force bigger than the wartime force."

Speaking of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, White said, "their view of the intelligence was much different. Their notion of it was resistance would run away as the few remaining Saddam loyalists were hunted down."

White, who resigned his Army post in April, has published a new book sharply critical of the administration's Iraq policy.

Pentagon spokesmen did not immediately reply to telephone questions about the prewar intelligence.

But a White House official said the administration is not surprised by the level of resistance U.S. forces are encountering.

Things ‘Not Foreseen’

Several senior policymakers, however, have said recently that they were not totally prepared for what has occurred.

On Sunday, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was asked on CNN's "Late Edition" if there could have been better planning for the postwar period. She responded, "Obviously, there were things that were not foreseen. They have now - [and] are now being addressed", according to the paper.

Before the war, intelligence analysts also questioned whether the administration would be able to achieve its goal of rapidly introducing democracy in Iraq, administration and congressional officials told the Post.

Critics have accused the U.S. administration of underestimating the costs of the Iraq invasion and overestimated possible Iraqi oil revenues.

Lawrence Lindsey, a former chief economic adviser to Bush, said late last year that the Iraq invasion would cost between 100 billion to 200 billion dollars.

At the same time, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had argued that the military operation would cost less than 50 billion dollars.