Intelligence Analysts Say War Spread Terrorism

Iraq war fuels threat, report says

Intelligence paper shows far less rosy post-9/11 picture than White House claims

MARK MAZZETTI; The New York Times
Published: September 24th, 2006 01:00 AM
WASHINGTON – A stark assessment of terrorism trends by U.S. intelligence agencies has found that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington, D.C., who were involved in preparing the assessment or have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by U.S. intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began. It represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,” it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than retreating, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology. The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one U.S. intelligence official.

More than a dozen U.S. government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article. All spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document.

The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified. Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would again strike on U.S. soil.

The relationship between the Iraq war and terrorism, and the question of whether the United States is safer, have been subjects of persistent debate since the war began in 2003.

National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue, and they are approved by John Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by the spy agencies.

Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, said the White House “played no role in drafting or reviewing the judgments expressed in the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism.”

On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a more ominous report about the terrorist threat. That assessment, based entirely on unclassified documents, details a growing jihad movement and says that “al-Qaida leaders wait patiently for the right opportunity to attack.”

For more than two years, there has been tension between the Bush administration and U.S. spy agencies over the violence in Iraq and the prospects for a stable democracy in the country. Some intelligence officials have said that the White House has consistently presented a more optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than has been justified by intelligence reports from the field.

 

Stay the course?

 

No comments yet from the "democracy at the point of a gun" supporters yet?

Since "talking points" are what the republican political spinners proffer to spew, I provided a talking point memo for the brain-washed to be able to follow more easily.

 

Every action spreads terrorism period.

Cartoons of Mohammed, a speech by the pope, Isreal responding to kidnappings of it's soldiers and so on.

It really doens't make a difference what you do the lunatics in the muslim world see it as a humiliation and use it to recruit the feeble minded people that are so abundant in their world.

 

I think you have to be awfully careful about forming opinions based on leaks. Do you really think the NYTimes is presenting a full contextual analysis of a leaked document or is it more likely they are pursuing a political agenda? There is a reason these types of reports are classified. For them to be meaningful, you want to encourage debate and challenges to the conventional wisdom. It is highly misleading however to just quote those parts of a report.

One of the more unsettling aspects of the post 9/11 period has been the willingness of certain elements within the intelligence community to engage in selective leaking to try to undermine the administration. Part of this is no doubt the internecine warfare that has always existed among the various players, eg Defense, CIA, State, NSA, etc. If 9/11 taught us anything, it was that we can't afford that anymore.

More upsetting is the overt politicization of the CIA. Clearly Clinton forced out many professionals and replaced them with affirmative action/ politically connected hacks like Valery Plame and others of her ilk. I blame Bush in part for leaving George Tenet in charge of the CIA, then there was the short-lived tenure of Porter Goss. Bush is reaping in large part the results of his own weak leadership.

To turn to the leaked report, no doubt there is an argument that Iraq has energized terrorism. There is a counter argument that it has caused them to waste their resources there and many of thme have been killed. Really the whole discussion is irrelevant now. The crucial question now is whether we quit and turn Iraq over to the terrorists or unleash our power and achieve a decisive victory.

 

Do you in any way doubt that Iraq has led to more terrorism?

Do you doubt that the failed "stay the course" has actually strengthened the terrorist mindset?

Nothing breeds success like success...

 

I think the answer is more nuanced than you are prepared to accept. I think we have made a huge mistake in allowing the iraqi insurgency to get out of hand. We should never have allowed the atmosphere of anarchy that developed after saddam was deposed, we should never have let variosu clerics raise private militias, we should never have allowed open defiance of us in insurgent hotbeds like the infamous Fallujah. All these led to a growing sense that it was safe to oppose our presence. The failure to exert control by killing a few people early on, people like al Sadr, lead to many more getting killed.

As for whether "Iraq has lead to more terrorism", I think it has in Iraq obviously, but there is a good argument that it has led to less elsewhere. Compare what happned during the period leading up until 9/11 with what has happened since.

The problemwith making fun of "staying the course" is that you don't set out an alternative, at least not one that is realistic. I'm not impressed with the "course" so far, but I don't think cutting and running is a viable option.

 

We made a huge mistake driving into war on false precepts to begin with.

Remember that whole WMD charge that later proved nothing more than a useful mirage?

There is far more to this picture than 'terrorism' and 'security'.

Osama bin where?

Afghanistan, where a small smattering of our troops are.

 

Idiot.

If it is not stay the course, it has to be cut and run, right?

Idiotic.

 

I said your side has not provided any realistic alternatives. I don't like the current course, but I don't like cut and run either. Is that so hard to understand?