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Tenet: CIA warned White House of 'anarchy' in Iraq

SAN FRANCISCO -- The CIA warned the Bush White House seven months before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the U.S. could face a thicket of bad consequences, starting with "anarchy and the territorial breakup" of the country, former CIA Director George Tenet writes in a new book.

CIA analysts wrote the warning at the start of August 2002 and inserted it into a briefing book distributed at an early September meeting of President Bush's national security team at Camp David, he writes.

The agency analysis painted what Tenet calls additional "worst-case" scenarios: "a surge of global terrorism against U.S. interests fueled by deepening Islamic antipathy toward the United States"; "regime-threatening instability in key Arab states"; and "major oil supply disruptions and severe strains in the Atlantic alliance."

Related Links

  • Early Tenet book review (NYT)
  • Read entire article at AP