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US unclear on size of Iraq enemy
US intelligence agencies had failed to provide any reliable estimates of the size of Iraq's insurgency, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.During a hearing of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, he declined to publicly answer politicians who asked him the numerical strength of the insurgency fighting the roughly 150,000 US troops deployed in Iraq. "The intelligence community looks at that. The CIA does, DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency) does, others do. And they have differing assessments," Mr Rumsfeld said. "My job in the Government is not to be the principle intelligence officer and try to rationalise differences between Iraqis, the CIA and the DIA. I see these reports. Frankly, I don't have a lot of confidence in any of them, on that number." The Pentagon has struggled to come to grips with the size, composition and organisation of the insurgents who have waged a bloody guerrilla war in Iraq since an American-led invasion toppled President Saddam Hussein in 2003. Mr Rumsfeld told the hearing: "I am not going to give you a number for it, because it's not my business (to do intelligence work)." He added that he could not reveal CIA and Defence Intelligence Agency estimates because they were classified. Mr Rumsfeld did not explain his lack of confidence in the various estimates. But he has been outspoken about the need for more and better human intelligence to be gathered by the US intelligence community. Also at the hearing, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, disputed an estimate on the size of the insurgency offered recently by General Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, director of the Iraqi intelligence service. Gen Shahwani had said there were 200,000 insurgents, including at least 40,000 hard-core fighters, with the remainder being part-time fighters and supporters who provided money, intelligence, food and shelter. Gen Myers said US intelligence estimates were "considerably lower", and Mr Rumsfeld called Gen Shahwani's numbers "totally inconsistent" with US estimates. Gen Myers said getting an accurate count of insurgents was difficult. "I'd say the insurgents' future is absolutely bleak. So precise numbers in an insurgency where people, some people, come and go is always going to be hard to estimate. And that's what we're trying to say," he said. Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Mr Rumsfeld said: "It's not clear to me that the number is the overriding, important thing. "The size of the problem is one thing. The lethality of it is quite a different thing, the nature of it and the quality of it." Some critics have accused Mr Rumsfeld of trying to encroach on the CIA by expanding Pentagon intelligence gathering and analysis. Mr Rumsfeld also testified that the Pentagon's schedule called for 200,000 Iraqi security personnel to be trained and equipped by September or October in time for elections on a new Iraqi constitution, up from the current 136,000. He said the plan was for 230,000 Iraqi security forces to be in place by December or January for the next round of elections, and the ultimate goal was for 270,000 to be fielded by June 2006. Posted by: tipper 2005-02-16 |
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