Consider this, Mr. and Ms. Swing Voter

Dubya's been painting a rosy picture of our "progress" in Iraq, but what do the real experts have to say?

Growing Pessimism on Iraq
Doubts Increase Within U.S. Security Agencies
By Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers

A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.

While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.

People at the CIA "are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper," said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials. "There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments."

"Things are definitely not improving," said one U.S. government official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq.

"It is getting worse," agreed an Army staff officer who served in Iraq and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail. "It just seems there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago."...

Dubya and Co.are lying, Mr. and Ms. Swing Voter. I know it's not easy to accept. We all want to believe in our "elected" leaders. It's not easy to come to terms with the notion that our president -- not just this one, but any U.S. president -- would lie about matters of such import, but it's so. Bush has been lying since the 2000 campaign, and he hasn't for a moment stopped since.

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