Portions of pre-war intelligence warning the administration of risk to be released Friday

NBC: CIA warned of risks of war in the Mideast
Pre-war reports say agency predicted dangers of toppling Saddam's regime
By Lisa Myers and Robert Windrem
NBC News Investigative Unit
Updated: 49 minutes ago
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18854414/

In a move sure to raise even more questions about the decision to go to war with Iraq, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will on Friday release selected portions of pre-war intelligence in which the CIA warned the administration of the risk and consequences of a conflict in the Middle East.

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In January 2003, two months before the invasion, the intelligence community's think tank — the National Intelligence Council — issued an assessment warning that after Saddam was toppled, there was “a significant chance that domestic groups would engage in violent conflict with each other and that rogue Saddam loyalists would wage guerilla warfare either by themselves or in alliance with terrorists.”

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Both assessments were given to the White House and to congressional intelligence committees.

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“These should have been very sobering reports,” says Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst at the Brookings Institution. “The administration should have taken them very serious in preparing plans for a difficult post-Saddam period. And yet the administration did not do so.”

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It is likely that Democrats and Republicans on the Hill will question how the administration could have predicted a short, easy war given these warnings and why it has taken more four years for them to surface.

Here's the dump.