What the Intelligence Community Got Right About Iraq

Although widely criticized for inaccurate estimates of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in 2002, the United States Intelligence Community was far more prescient about the likely consequences of a military campaign to remove Saddam Hussein. Intelligence assessments of the challenges likely to be faced by a post-war Iraq were widely disseminated within the Executive Branch and Congress and may have served to justify the Bush Administration's decision to undertake extensive reconstruction efforts rather than to turn power over at once to Iraqi leaders.