A rchive Date
[ 07-02-2006 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11201491/site/newsweek/
Plenty of Warning?
The Bush administration downplayed pre-election indications of a Hamas victory.
By Mark Hosenball and Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 5:08 p.m. ET Feb. 6, 2006
WEB EXCLUSIVE
Feb. 6, 2006 - Was the surprise win by Hamas in the Palestinian elections another failure of U.S. intelligence? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice implied so last week. "I've asked why nobody saw it coming," Rice told reporters. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse on the Palestinian population."
In fact, warnings about Hamas' electoral strength were pulsing all over the place, though almost no analyst - either American or Israeli - expected the militant group to take control of the Palestinian Parliament. On Saturday, several days after Rice's remarks, a senior U.S. official conceded to NEWSWEEK that the Bush administration had downplayed warnings from both the Israelis and Palestinians that Hamas' popularity was dramatically on the rise.
Last September, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his deputy Ehud Olmert both warned the Bush administration that in upcoming elections Hamas could take control of many localities in Gaza and the West Bank. Before he became incapacitated by a stroke, Sharon declared he would not recognize the results of an election that empowered Hamas. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, representing the rival Fatah party, voiced his own concerns as early as last spring.He warned U.S. officials that he did not have the popular support to disarm Hamas, although the Bush administration's "Roadmap" to peace had called for the dismantling of terror groups as a preliminary step to elections and Washington considered Hamas to be such an organization. In fact, in June, 2005, Abbas postponed legislative elections scheduled for mid-July. The delay was partly a response to fears about Hamas' growing strength, Palestinian officials said at the time.
Despite repeated warnings about Hamas throughout the fall - especially from the Israelis - both Elliott Abrams, the deputy U.S. national security advisor in charge of the issue, and David Welch, the assistant secretary of State for Near East, insisted that the January elections go forward, said the senior U.S. official, who spoke only on condition that he be identified. "The line was that following the [Israeli] withdrawal from Gaza, we need to move the process forward or inertia will set in," he said. "Eventually Abbas came around, although the Israelis didn't." Now, the official said, some U.S. officials at the "working-group level" are second-guessing their insistence on elections, without first requiring that Hamas disarm, renounce violence or recognize Israel. "I have to admit, in retrospect the Israelis had a more accurate assessment of this," the official said.
And what of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies? An official familiar with U.S. intelligence assessments, who wouldn't be named discussing sensitive materials, says U.S. agencies also warned the Bush administration of a trend toward Hamas, but concedes they didn't "shout from the rooftops" that Hamas would win huge. A senior official familiar with Rice's views (who also asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters) says virtually all predictions were that Hamas would do well, but that Fatah, Abbas' ruling party, was likely to squeak back into power.
Still, as Rice herself said last week, it's not clear whether postponing the election any longer would have helped. "I just don't understand the argument that it somehow would have gotten better the longer it went on," the secretary of State said. "What became clear, I think, from this is that you had a lot of pent-up frustration, a lot of pent-up anger, and I don't think that was going to dissipate in four or five or six months." Perhaps not, but the Bush administration has learned, once again, that democracy is ultimately unpredictable.
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
© 2006 MSNBC.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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