Page "Iraqi National Congress" Paragraph 7

Notwithstanding these concerns, Hersh reported that " INC supporters in and around the Administration, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, believe, like Chalabi, that any show of force would immediately trigger a revolt against Saddam within Iraq, and that it would quickly expand.

" In December 2002, Robert Dreyfuss reported that the administration of George W. Bush actually preferred INC-supplied analyses of Iraq over analyses provided by long-standing analysts within the CIA.

" Even as it prepares for war against Iraq, the Pentagon is already engaged on a second front: its war against the Central Intelligence Agency .," he wrote.

" The Pentagon is bringing relentless pressure to bear on the agency to produce intelligence reports more supportive of war with Iraq.

... Morale inside the U. S. national-security apparatus is said to be low, with career staffers feeling intimidated and pressured to justify the push for war.

" Much of the pro-war faction's information came from INC, even though " most Iraq hands with long experience in dealing with that country's tumultuous politics consider the INC's intelligence-gathering abilities to be nearly nil.

...

The Pentagon's critics are appalled that intelligence provided by the INC might shape U. S. decisions about going to war against Baghdad.

At the CIA and at the State Department, Ahmed Chalabi, the INC's leader, is viewed as the ineffectual head of a self-inflated and corrupt organization skilled at lobbying and public relations, but not much else.