US intelligence issue pessimistic re****t on Fallujah offensive
from: Yahoo News
http://news.yahoo.com/
Thu Nov 18, 5:29 AM ET
Mideast - AFP
WA****NGTON (AFP) - Marine intelligence officials have issued a
re****t warning that any significant withdrawal of troops from the
Iraqi city of Fallujah would strengthen the insurgency.
The *****sment, distributed to senior Marine and Army officers in
Iraq (news - web sites), also said that despite the heavy fighting
with coalition forces, the insurgents would continue to increase in
number, carrying out attacks and fomenting unrest in the area.
One officer said the seven-page classified re****t -- parts of which
were provided to Thursday's edition of The New York Times -- was
"brutally honest" and appears to contradict the US government's
victorious account of the US-led fight against insurgents in
Fallujah and other parts of northern Iraq.
Although the resistance crumbled in the face of the offensive, the
re****t warned, "the enemy will be able to effectively defeat I MEF's
ability to accomplish its primary objectives of developing an
effective Iraqi security force and setting the conditions for
successful Iraqi elections."
The pessimistic analysis was prepared by intelligence officers in
the First Marine Expeditionary Force, or I MEF, last weekend as the
offensive in Falluja was winding down.
Senior military officials in Iraq and Wa****ngton disputed the
findings of the re****t, describing it as a subjective judgement
of some Marines that did not reflect the views of all intelligence
officials and commanders in Iraq.
"The *****sment of the enemy is a worst-case *****sment," Brigadier
General John DeFreitas, the senior military intelligence officer in
Iraq, said of the Marine re****t in a telephone interview with The
New York Times.
The general insisted that there were no plans to withdraw forces
from Fallujah.
"We have no intention of creating a vacuum and walking away from
Fallujah," he told the broadsheet.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&u=/
afp/20041118/wl_mideast_afp/us_iraq_falluja_re****t&printer=1
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