November 11, 2003: Alarming Report from CIA Baghdad Station Chief Leaked to Press

A CIA report warning of the growing insurgency in Iraq is leaked to the press. After the report, drafted by CIA Baghdad station chief Gerry Meyer, arrives in Washington on November 10 (see November 10, 2003), an article about it by Jonathan Landay of Knight Ridder newspapers appears the following day. Landay, who knows of the report from “two senior administration officials,” comments that the report’s “bleak tone” contrasts “sharply” with accounts recently offered by President Bush and other officials. He also reveals that the report was drafted by the station chief, although Meyer’s identity is not revealed, and that the report is time-sensitive Aardwolf priority. Landay adds, “The speed of the leak suggested that senior policymakers want to make sure the assessment reaches Bush,” because, “Some senior policymakers have complained of being frustrated in their efforts to provide Bush with analyses of the situation in Iraq that are more somber than the optimistic views of Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and other hardliners.” A senior administration official also tells Landay that L. Paul Bremer, head of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, has essentially endorsed the report. [Knight Ridder, 11/11/2003]