Judicial Watch has released a heavily retracted version of a 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment of Iraq and Syria which provides fairly damning evidence that the US intelligence community saw in advance the threat that growing radicalization in Syria, if unchecked, would pose to Iraq. In short, the DIA recognized how Al Qaeda in Iraq sought to compromise the Syrian opposition and succeeded in doing so.
It has become fashionable to blame Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the disaffection of many Iraqi Sunnis, but this may not be entirely accurate:
There was a regression of AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] in the Western provinces of Iraq during the years 2009 and 2010; however, after the rise of insurgency in Syria, the religious and tribal powers in the regions began to sympathize with the sectarian uprising. This (sympathy) appeared in Friday prayer sermons, which called for volunteers to support the Sunni’s in Syria.
More prescient was the DIA’s speculation about the future. It suggested that radicals fighting in Syria would first try to use the Iraqi side of the border as safe-haven. But:
If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition [Turkey, the Gulf States] want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime… The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows:
This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI [the Islamic State of Iraq] could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.
Now, to be fair to President Obama, the intelligence community sometimes floods its audience with reports that say the opposite things, or spends dozens of pages saying nothing at all. In the aftermath of the Iraq war, it selectively leaked documents in order to play a political game. W. Patrick Lang, a former DIA official (and later a registered foreign agent for a pro-Syrian Lebanese politician) spoke back in 2005 about how his former colleagues would leak selectively:
They told me about it at the time. They thought it was funny. They’d say things like, ‘This last thing that came out, surely people will pay attention to that. They won’t re-elect this man [President Bush].’”
So, it is important to see what the preponderance of the intelligence reporting said. But at the same time, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would attend intelligence briefs and ask analysts questions. At the time, the DIA reported on the consequences of the chaos growing in Syria, however, President Obama was declining to attend his intelligence briefs. Sometimes, ignorance has consequence. Today, both Iraqis and Syrians are paying the price.
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