U.S. SPY CHIEFS SAY OUTLOOK IN IRAQ IS GRIM

Iraq is unraveling at an accelerating rate, and even if U.S. and Iraqi forces can slow the spreading violence, the country’s fragile government is unlikely to deliver stability to its people during the next year, according to a much-anticipated assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies.

The report, titled “Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead,” catalogs an array of forces pulling the country apart and concludes that to call the situation a civil war “does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict” because the causes of violence are so varied.

The assessment, delivered to Congress on Friday, says there are scenarios that could lead to political progress and a slow recovery, but it also identifies “triggering events” that could push Iraq into complete chaos, with neighboring nations choosing sides in what could become a regional conflagration.

“Given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard-pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the [18-month] time frame of this estimate,” the report says in a blunt, bottom-line summary.

The document, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, represents the consensus of all 16 U.S. spy agencies. The director of national intelligence took the unusual step of releasing the document’s key judgments publicly even as the full, 90-page classified version was being delivered to members of Congress and senior government officials.

The assessment does not specifically address the prospects for success of President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq. But it notes that “even if violence is diminished” over the next 12 to 18 months, prospects for “sustained political reconciliation” among Iraq’s warring factions are dim.

That means that even under optimistic scenarios, the nation’s top intelligence analysts do not envision meaningful stability within the period during which Bush has said additional U.S. troops would be deployed -- raising the prospect that the so-called surge might drag on much longer than the administration has indicated.

Beyond that, the report provides fodder for proponents and critics of Bush’s plan.

It warns that the presence of U.S. troops remains “an essential stabilizing element in Iraq” and that if there were a rapid withdrawal, Iraqi security forces “would be unlikely to survive as a nonsectarian national institution.”

In such a scenario, neighboring countries -- including Iran and Saudi Arabia -- “might intervene openly in the conflict; massive civilian casualties and forced population displacement would be probable.”

White House officials said that prospect helped make the case for the president’s plan, which is under increasing fire on Capitol Hill.

The intelligence estimate is “not at war with this ... new strategy the president has developed,” national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley told reporters. The assessment, he said, “explains why the president concluded that a new approach, a new strategy was required” and “generally supports” that idea.

But Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a contender for his party’s 2008 presidential nomination, called the report “a devastating repudiation of the president’s new tactics in Iraq.”

“It plainly shows the current strategy isn’t working and that there is a dire need for a political settlement to give [breathing] room to the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds,” Biden said in a statement. “Without it, Iraq will slide into further chaos and violence.”

The report comes as the Senate is arguing over whether to approve a nonbinding resolution sponsored by Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) that criticizes the president’s plan to increase troop levels.

Most Democrats and some Republican senators have lined up behind Warner’s measure, expected to be debated next week. But Republican Senate leaders emerged from meetings Friday leaving no doubt they would seek to keep the measure from coming to a vote unless they were allowed to present alternative resolutions less critical of the president’s policies. Democrats were working to line up the 60 votes needed in the 100-member Senate to thwart an effort to block the Warner resolution.

The assessment by the intelligence agencies was requested in July by senators alarmed by the deteriorating security situation in Iraq. The violence has worsened since then, and the NIE concludes that without significant political and military progress soon, “the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate at rates comparable to the latter part of 2006.”

In outlining the factors that have pushed Iraq toward chaos, the report cites the “insecurity” of Shiites, who were repressed for decades under dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab; the refusal of Sunnis to accept their declining political fortunes after Hussein’s regime was toppled in early 2003; and the disappearance of a large portion of the Iraqi “professional and entrepreneurial classes” as people fled to other countries.

The report offers a bleak assessment of the Iraqi security forces who are supposed to play the leading role under Bush’s plan to stem violence.

These forces will be “hard-pressed” to carry out their responsibilities and operate against Shiite militias, the report concludes.

That assessment seems at odds with recent assertions by U.S. military officials, including Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who testified before Congress on Thursday that “Iraqis are poised to assume responsibility for their own security by the end of 2007, still with some level of support from us.”

Echoing concerns Bush has raised, the NIE warns that if the United States withdrew, Al Qaeda “would attempt to use parts of the country -- particularly Al Anbar province -- to plan increased attacks in and outside of Iraq.”

But the document does not indicate that intelligence officials believe Iraq is poised to become an Al Qaeda sanctuary, a scenario cited by Bush in his rejection of calls to set up timetables for a withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The NIE is measured in its assessment of the roles Iran and Syria play in fostering violence in Iraq.

It says that Iran has fueled the fighting by providing “lethal support” to groups of Iraqi Shiite militants and that Syria continues to shelter displaced members of Hussein’s Baath Party.

Even so, the report finds that meddling by Iran and Syria “is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq’s internal sectarian dynamics.”

The role played by Iraq’s neighbors was the subject of some dissension among intelligence officials involved in assembling the report.

The classified portion of the NIE is said to include “alternate” judgments that reflect disagreements over whether Syria is directly involved in allowing Islamic militants to cross its border into Iraq and the extent to which Iran is aware of and tolerating Al Qaeda activity in its territory.

In giving the alternate assessments prominent placement alongside the document’s key judgments, U.S. intelligence officials said, they were responding to criticism of previous NIEs in which dissenting views were often relegated to footnote status and overlooked by policymakers.

Downplaying of dissenting views was one of many major flaws in an NIE produced before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, which concluded erroneously that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.

The new NIE concludes with a discussion of scenarios that could push Iraq into deeper chaos. The triggering events could include mass sectarian killings, assassinations of major religious or political figures and a Sunni defection from the government, it says. Those events could lead to “rapid deterioration with grave humanitarian, political and security consequences.”

greg.miller@latimes.com

Times staff writers Maura Reynolds and Noam N. Levey contributed to this report.

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Major findings of the report

From Times Staff and Wire Reports

Here are the main findings of the declassified portion of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, with excerpts from the report in quotes. The full text of the summary, produced by 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, can be found at www.dni.gov.

* Growing polarization of Iraqi society, weak security forces and a weak government are driving violence and political extremism.

* If new plans for Iraq don’t work over the coming year to 18 months, security in Iraq will continue to deteriorate as in the second half of 2006.

* Even if the violence lessens, Iraqi leaders will be hard-pressed to stabilize the country by mid-2008 “given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene.”

* Iraq faces daunting challenges driven by Shiite Muslim insecurity after years of Sunni Arab domination, Sunni unwillingness to accept minority status, divided leaders who can’t control the groups they represent, a movement by ethnic Kurds toward autonomy, an ineffective Iraqi army, extremist groups inside and outside Iraq and problems with refugees.

“Despite real improvements, the Iraqi security forces (ISF) -- particularly the Iraqi police -- will be hard-pressed in the next 12 to 18 months to execute significantly increased security responsibilities, and particularly to operate independently against Shia militias with success. Sectarian divisions erode the dependability of many units, many are hampered by personnel and equipment shortfalls, and a number of Iraqi units have refused to serve outside of the areas where they were recruited.”

* The term “civil war” “accurately describes key aspects of the conflict in Iraq, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization and population displacements.” Nevertheless, the term doesn’t encompass all of the conflict’s complexities.

* American and other foreign forces play a key role in the country, and the Iraqi army probably wouldn’t survive a rapid U.S. withdrawal. “If coalition forces were withdrawn rapidly during the [12- to 18-month] term of this estimate, 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. If such a rapid withdrawal were to take place, we judge that the ISF would be unlikely to survive as a nonsectarian national institution.”

* Political developments, particularly Sunni acceptance of the current government, concessions from the Shiites and the Kurds and efforts to reduce violence in neighborhoods could help calm the conflict. “A key enabler for all of these steps would be stronger Iraqi leadership.”

* Iraq’s neighbors have some influence in the country and in some cases have intensified the conflict, but they don’t play a major role because the sectarian divisions are firmly entrenched and driven by internal political forces.

* Other Sunni Arab regimes in the region are reluctant to support the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government and are considering supporting Sunni groups in Iraq. Turkey wants a stable Iraq to keep a Turkish Kurdish separatist group from finding safe haven in northern Iraq.

* “A number of identifiable internal security and political triggering events, including sustained mass sectarian killings, assassination of major religious and political leaders and a complete Sunni defection from the government have the potential to convulse severely Iraq’s security environment. 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.”

* If the security situation worsens, one of three scenarios might emerge: The central government could disintegrate and lead to a de facto partition of Iraq along sectarian lines, resulting in protracted violence; a Shiite strongman could emerge; or an anarchic pattern of local control could arise, leading to chaos and extreme violence.