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| Fighting the war you can afford? |
paraclete |
09/26/06 |
Bush releases Iraq intel papers
September 27, 2006 - 8:26AM
A declassified government intelligence report says the war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that is likely to get worse before it gets better.
In the bleak report, released on President Bush's orders, the nation's most veteran analysts conclude that despite serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaida, the threat from Islamic extremists has spread both in numbers and in geographic reach.
"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."
Bush ordered a declassified version of the classified report released after several days of criticism sparked by portions that were leaked. Asked about those Tuesday, Bush said critics who believe the Iraq war has worsened terrorism are naive and mistaken.
The intelligence assessment, completed in April, has stirred a heated election-season argument over the course of U.S. national security in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Bush and his top advisers had said the broad assessment on global terrorism supported their arguments that the world is safer. But more than three pages of stark judgments warning about the spread of terrorism contrasted with the administration's glass-half-full declarations.
The report said:
- The increased role of Iraqis in opposing al-Qaida in Iraq might lead the terror group's veteran foreign fighters to focus their efforts outside the country.
- While Iran and Syria are the most active state sponsors of terror, many other countries will be unable to prevent their resources from being exploited by terrorists.
- The underlying factors that are fueling the spread of the extremist Muslim movement outweigh its vulnerabilities. These factors are entrenched grievances and a slow pace of reform in home countries, rising anti-U.S. sentiment and the Iraq war.
- Groups "of all stripes" will increasingly use the Internet to communicate, train, recruit and obtain support.
The assessment also lays out weaknesses of the movement that analysts say must be exploited if its spread is to be slowed. For instance, they note that extremists want to see the establishment of strict Islamic governments in the Arab world - a development they say would be unpopular with 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.
It also argues that the loss of key leaders - Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - in "rapid succession" would probably cause the group to fracture.
Al-Zarqawi was killed in June, but the top two al-Qaida leaders have remained elusive for years. |
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