IRAQ WAR DECLARED TO BE NUMBER ONE RECRUITER OF TERRORISTS
Bush and the NeoCons were warned, repeatedly, before the War On Iraq began that attacking and killing Muslims would turn Muslims in other nations against them, and would lead to further, greater acts of terrorism.
The War On Terror creates more terrorism. It's a simple, easily proved paradigm. But BushCo. have worked hard to keep this reality out of the mainstream media and out of the minds of as many Americans as possible.
The fact that such an explosive, and classified, report has been leaked shows that the US intelligence agencies are waging their own quiet low-boil war against BushCo., if only to get the truth out to the American public.
From the Washington Times :
An angry President Bush said yesterday that a secret terrorism assessment had been leaked for "political purposes" and disputed that the classified report had concluded the Iraq war is spreading Islamic extremism across the world.
The four-page section declassified yesterday calls the Iraq war a "cause celebre" for Islamic terrorists and says that despite U.S. troops' wreaking serious damage on al Qaeda leadership, the number of terrorists is spreading in number and geographic dispersion.
"If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide," the document says. "The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups."
Although the report -- completed in April and based on data collected through February -- states that the "global jihadist movement is decentralized, lacks a coherent global strategy and is becoming more diffuse," the document also says that new jihadist networks are increasingly likely to emerge and that they will be harder to track or infiltrate.
But at the White House, the president called critics who say the Iraq war was a mistake "naive."
"I think it's a mistake for people to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm to the American people makes us less safe," he said.
He also took issue with the conclusion that the Iraq war is responsible for creating new terrorists, saying that those who "see a rosier scenario with fewer extremists joining the radical movement" if not for the Iraq war are ignoring 20 years of history.
"We weren't in Iraq when we got attacked on September 11. We weren't in Iraq when thousands of fighters were trained in terror camps," Mr. Bush said. "We weren't in Iraq when they first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. We weren't in Iraq when they bombed the Cole. We weren't in Iraq when they blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania."
"We'll stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy," Mr. Bush said. "Then everybody can draw their own conclusions about what the report says."
Although the redacted report had several bleak assertions, it also said:
•"Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."
•"The underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the" next five years.
•A newly increased role of Iraqis in fighting al Qaeda could lead the terror group's veteran foreign fighters to focus their efforts outside the country.
•Iran and Syria are the most active state sponsors of terror, but many other countries will be unable to prevent their resources from being exploited by terrorists.
•Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement -- entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; the Iraq war; the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among most Muslims.
"Exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists' propaganda would help to divide them from the audiences they seek to persuade," the report says.
From Time Magazine :
The report warns that the Iraq "jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives," and adds that fighters with experience in Iraq "are a potential source of leadership for jihadists." Its forecast about terrorism is stark: Current trends will mean "increasing attacks worldwide" over the next five years. The global terrorist network is "becoming more diffuse," and new cells "are increasingly likely to emerge" and will be "harder to find and undermine."
From the UK Guardian :George Bush yesterday suffered a blow to his argument that the removal of Saddam Hussein had made Americans safer after he ordered the release of an intelligence report warning the war in Iraq had become a "cause celebre for jihadists".
Mr Bush's decision to declassify a small portion of a leaked National Intelligence Estimate, six weeks before the midterm elections, was seen as an attempt to get in front of Democratic critics, led by Bill Clinton, who accuse the administration of not doing enough to catch Osama bin Laden.
After five years of relative civility, the unspoken entente cordiale between the Bush and Clinton administrations to avoid assigning blame for the 9/11 attacks came to an abrupt end yesterday, with both leaders and their aides fighting for their respective legacies. But Mr Bush's "war on terror" narrative was contradicted by the report.
"The Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success [in Iraq] would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere," it said.
"The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world. If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide."
The report, reflecting a consensus of 16 intelligence agencies, acknowledged some US success in disrupting al-Qaida. But it said these gains were outweighed by other factors, fuelling al-Qaida's spread: anger at corrupt Muslim regimes, anti-US sentiment, and a decentralised leadership that made it harder to penetrate.
Also from the UK Guardian :The Iraq war has acted as a "recruiting sergeant" for extremists in the Muslim world, according to a paper prepared for a Ministry of Defence thinktank, which also said the British government sent troops into Afghanistan "with its eyes closed".
The paper, which describes the west as being "in a fix" and includes a savage attack on Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, was written by an officer attached to the Defence Academy, according to BBC2's Newsnight programme. Its release provoked a furious response from the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, who has been touring the US.
The MoD was quick to play down the significance of the report. However, the study reflects what the MoD, military commanders, and the Foreign Office, have been saying in private. What is embarrassing is the timing of the leak, a day after Tony Blair's defence of Britain's military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The research paper blamed the ISI for indirectly supporting terrorism and extremism.
It adds: "The war in Iraq ... has acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists across the Muslim world ... Iraq has served to radicalise an already disillusioned youth and al-Qaida has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act."
On Afghanistan, the paper said Britain went in "with its eyes closed". It claims that a secret deal to extricate UK troops from Iraq so they could focus on Afghanistan failed when British military leaders were overruled.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Three years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote a memo to his colleagues in the Pentagon posing a critical question in the “long war’’ against terrorism: Is Washington’s strategy successfully killing or capturing terrorists faster than new enemies are being created?
Until Tuesday, the government had not publicly issued an authoritative answer. But the newly declassified National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism does exactly that, and it concludes that the administration has failed the Rumsfeld test.
Portions of the report appear to bolster President Bush’s argument that the only way to defeat the terrorists is to keep unrelenting military pressure on them. But nowhere in the assessment is any evidence to support Mr. Bush’s confident-sounding assertion this month in Atlanta that “America is winning the war on terror.’’
While the spread of self-described jihadists is hard to measure, the report says, the terrorists “are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.”
It says that a continuation of that trend would lead “to increasing attacks worldwide’’ and that “the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities.’’
RUMSFELD SAYS HE CAN'T MEASURE IF TERROR IS GROWING
From YahooNews.com :
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday there was no way to measure if more Islamic extremists were being created than killed in American-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Asked about a U.S. intelligence report that concluded the Iraq war had spread Islamic radicalism, Rumsfeld said intelligence could be faulty and sometimes "flat wrong."
Rumsfeld, who was speaking to reporters after a NATO meeting in Slovenia, would not comment on the details of the report, a portion of which was declassified by President George W. Bush.
Bush faced criticism from political foes after parts of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate leaked out, revealing intelligence experts' conclusion that Islamic extremists were "increasing in both number and geographic dispersion" due to the Iraq war.
The White House said the disclosures offered an incomplete assessment, and Rumsfeld deferred to Bush's statements.
Rumsfeld said there still was no clear way to determine if more extremists were being funded and trained than killed in current U.S. operations in Iraq and the war on terror.
"Are more terrorists being created in the world? We don't know," he said.
"The world doesn't know. There are not good metrics to determine how many people are being trained in a radical madrassa school in some country that's being funded by an extremist teaching young people to go out and kill people. There's no metric that you could gather all that information and pull it together and know what's being produced."
He said that while the impact of U.S. operations on the growth of terrorism could not be known, the numbers being killed and captured could.
"At any given day, at any given week, at any given month, is the pool going up or down?" he asked without answering.
"The implication that if you stop killing or capturing people who are trying to kill you that therefore the world will be a better place is obviously nonsensical," he said.
"Anyone who thinks that there is a single answer or a single reason or a silver bullet that can solve the problem can't be right. It's too complex. It's going to take time and it's going to take a lot of work by a lot of people who are patient and who believe in freedom," he added.
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