IRAQ

Washington Times: National Intelligence Council Predicts Bleak Future for Iraq

The National Intelligence Council, a group under CIA Director George J.
Tenet, has released a paper that is part of an effort by intelligence
analysts to predict global events in the next 17 years. For its Middle
East section, one analyst predicts Iraq faces a broad range of outcomes,
mostly bad. Baghdad in 2020 could have democraticlike rulers, such as those in
current Lebanon, or could become a democratic "Switzerland-on-the-Tigris,"
the analyst states. In its section on future "shocks," the paper lays
out four negative outcomes, including the emergence in Iraq of a radical
Islamic regime similar to Iran's dictatorship.