The Civil War... Inside the CIA

From the New York Times, we learn that the CIA station chief thinks things are heading downhill in Iraq:

ut over all, the officials described the station chief's cable in particular as an unvarnished assessment of the difficulties ahead in Iraq. They said it warned that the security situation was likely to get worse, including more violence and sectarian clashes, unless there were marked improvements soon on the part of the Iraqi government, in terms of its ability to assert authority and to build the economy.

Together, the appraisals, which follow several other such warnings from officials in Washington and in the field, were much more pessimistic than the public picture being offered by the Bush administration before the elections scheduled for Iraq next month, the officials said. The cable was sent to C.I.A. headquarters after American forces completed what military commanders have described as a significant victory, with the retaking of Falluja, a principal base of the Iraqi insurgency, in mid-November.

The problem here is the source. No, not the New York Times, though that does certainly raise some bells. Rather, it is the CIA. As well all know President Bush has plans for reforming the CIA, and Porter Goss, the new head of the CIA, is intended to carry out those reforms. Needless to say, many in the CIA are unhappy with said reforms, and doing their best to fight back. Leaking documents to the NYT is one example of such behavior. We can expect much more. Of course, knowing that, how trustworthy are said documents?

1) The CIA doesn't have a great track-record in Iraq. This raises my hopes some, as the reports might be the product of either incompetence, or be deliberately pessimistic, perhaps for CYA purpoes.

2) The documents also might not be real, or perhaps, not entirely real. After that little bit with Dan Rather and falsified National Guard Documents, its not out of the question.

Overall, its too early to tell how much faith we can put in these documents.