The Daily Background

The New York Times and the Washington Post, the two most influential newspapers in Washington (the Post does not publish nationwide unlike the Times) have matching headlines today calling the situation in Iraq “bleak.” From the Times:

The release on Friday of portions of a bleak new National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s future left the White House and its opponents vying over whether its findings buttressed their vastly different views about how to arrest the worsening sectarian chaos there.
[…]
The analysis, the first such estimate on Iraq in more than two years, described in sober language a rapidly unraveling country in which security has worsened despite four years of efforts by the administration.

The Washington Post:

The U.S. intelligence community yesterday released a starkly pessimistic assessment of the situation in Iraq, warning that even if security improves, deepening sectarian divisions threaten to destroy the government and ultimately could lead to anarchy, partition or the emergence of a new dictatorship.
[…]
The administration struggled yesterday to put the best face on the NIE’s assessment of a bleak situation that it says will sharply worsen unless “measurable” military and political progress is made.

Both papers also used the word pessimistic to describe US prospects in Iraq according to the NIE. Very difficult to spin.

By the way, the full report, released to members of Congress yesterday, is about 90 pages long. The findings in the “key judgments” summary released to the public yesterday are universally accepted in the intelligence community (made up of 16 separate governmental intelligence agencies), and were unanimous.

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