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Cia incorrect on hamas election { February 6 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/hamas.htmhttp://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/hamas.htm
Issue Date: February 6-12, 2006, Posted On: 2/6/2006
Saudi intel, Abbas predicted Hamas win; CIA wrong again
The U.S. intelligence community has been shaken in its failure to predict Hamas's victory in Palestinian legislative elections.
The intelligence failure came despite a Saudi assessment relayed to the United States that Hamas would win the elections. Officials said the CIA was influenced by an Israeli assessment that predicted a victory by the ruling Fatah movement led by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
"There are a lot of questions going to be asked when the dust settles," an official said. "The biggest question is: do we really know what's going on out there?"
Officials said the U.S. intelligence community detected the rise in Hamas support in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But they said the State Department, particularly outgoing security coordinator Gen. William Ward, assured the president that U.S. support for Mr. Abbas would help swing the election to Fatah.
Over the last four weeks of the election campaign, the State Department's Agency for International Development spent more than $2 million in a propaganda campaign meant to bolster Fatah. Most of the campaign consisted of ads in the newspapers of U.S. projects in the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Officials said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been the one most embarrassed by the Hamas victory. They said Miss Rice pushed Israel hard to enable Hamas, an organization on the State Department's terrorist list, to participate in the elections and campaign in Jerusalem, deemed the capital of the Jewish state.
"Maybe we didn't have a good feel for the political pulse of the Palestinian people," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "So she's asked her staff to take a look at that, why it is that that happened, why it is that this was missed."
Miss Rice also rejected a request from Mr. Abbas to postpone the elections, officials said. They said Mr. Abbas telephoned Miss Rice about a month before the election and expressed fear of a Hamas victory.
Officials said Miss Rice is eager to get the results of the intelligence community’s review of the Palestinian elections. "And she will also ask them, when she has those answers, to go back and take a look and see how in the future you don't miss such things," Mr. McCormack said. "I think that clearly we need to do better and she's going to talk to her staff about how we can do better."
Congress has responded to the Hamas victory with a threat to cut off all U.S. aid to the PA. A bill formulated in the House, led by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and chair of the House subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, would place the PA on the State Department’s list of terrorist sponsors.
But the administration plans to oppose the bill. Officials said President Bush has quietly decided to continue aid to the PA to prevent an Arab backlash as well as Iranian efforts to take over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"The president will tell Congress that helping the PA is an integral part of the U.S. withdrawal strategy from Iraq," an official said.
The intelligence community review of the Palestinian elections could also include Israel, officials said. They said Miss Rice, as well as other senior aides of the president, are concerned over the stability of Israel amid unprecedented violent opposition to the government of acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Israel has scheduled elections for March 28 and Mr. Olmert's Kadima Party is expected to be a clear winner. The administration has quietly been supporting Kadima, the party formed by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was incapacitated by a massive stroke in January.
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