David Frum is worried about the impending anti-American, pro-dictatorship rallies awaiting Bush in London, but he offers greater insight as to why evaluating the CIA report I noted yesterday should be done understanding the agency's hostility to the White House:

Thus far, the CIA/State mutiny has failed to have the desired impact on the president. Bush’s important speech at the National Endowment for Democracy last week emphatically recommitted the administration to a large policy against terror and for liberty in the region. The administration's stand-patters and accommodationists cannot have enjoyed hearing Bush rededicate himself to the ambitious principles that led the United States into Iraq - and that logically lead the United States against Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

So ask yourself this. Suppose you were a senior State Department or CIA official interested in jolting the president away from the “destabilizing” policies you oppose? You might try to stir up public and congressional against him by carefully placed and timed press leaks. But if those subtle did not succeed, you might be tempted to squeeze harder. And what could hurt an American president worse than plunging him into three consecutive days worth of Chicago 1968 style mass protests? Then, on the planeride home, perhaps somebody might soothingly insinuate that his terrible reception really ought to be blamed on those hawkish advisers of his ....

There's more empirical refutation of the CIA's assumption that Iraqis (or Arabs, or any non-Western culture) will bet on the strongest horse regardless of what it stands for. With such a great record of debunking inaccurate reports on the strength of lesser-known news, Brit Hume and his staff ought to run a weblog:

The Army general responsible for keeping the streets of Baghdad secure says Iraqi insurgency there is on the decline despite recent major attacks in Baghdad.

General Mark Hertling of the Army's First Armored Division, quoted by the Stars and Stripes newspaper, says "the [insurgents] who continue to fight are losing their support. ... The Iraqi Baghdad population is tired of others disrupting their peace." He notes that after last month's deadly blast at a Red Cross office in Baghdad, the military was swamped with tips from Iraqis, and he estimates 90 percent of such intelligence pays off.

Sounds to me as if the Iraqis view assaults on the people and governments trying to build a peaceful, self-governing society as a threat to Iraq itself - not the sign of a stronger competitor. The question is, does the CIA care?