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09/30/2005:

"US trying to understand Iraq insurgency: Negroponte"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence is still struggling to understand the nature of Iraq's insurgency more than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte said on Thursday.

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Negroponte, a former ambassador to Iraq who became director of national intelligence five months ago, said not enough had been done to come to grips with the insurgents who by some estimates have killed more than 5,000 Iraqi civilians and security forces.

Some 1,780 U.S. troops have also died in Iraq since U.S. President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat operations.

"It's a very, very difficult issue," Negroponte told an audience of intelligence officials in Washington.

"There's no analytical issue that is more important, no intelligence issue more important, than understanding the nature of the insurgency in all of its aspects.

"There's a desirability, a thirst really, to get as much fidelity about what is happening within the insurgency, and I think also a feeling that much more could still be done in terms of finding out now what the nature of that insurgency is," he said.
news.yahoo.com

A 'desirability, a thirst' for 'fidelity.' Too funny. 'Geez, we just don't understand this'... It would be slightly more believable if they weren't orchestrating it.