Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat

[Scrum]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/wo...rror.html?_r=1

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American 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 involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and 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 being in retreat, 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 American intelligence official.

More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and 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 once again strike on United States 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 are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies.

Analysts began working on the estimate in 2004, but it was not finalized until this year. Part of the reason was that some government officials were unhappy with the structure and focus of earlier versions of the document, according to officials involved in the discussion.

Previous drafts described actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, and some policy makers argued that the intelligence estimate should be more focused on specific steps to mitigate the terror threat. It is unclear whether the final draft of the intelligence estimate criticizes individual policies of the United States, but intelligence officials involved in preparing the document said its conclusions were not softened or massaged for political purposes.

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.” The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives.

Documents released by the White House timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks emphasized the successes that the United States had made in dismantling the top tier of Al Qaeda.

“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America and its allies are safer, but we are not yet safe,” concludes one, a report titled “9/11 Five Years Later: Success and Challenges.” “We have done much to degrade Al Qaeda and its affiliates and to undercut the perceived legitimacy of terrorism.”

That document makes only passing mention of the impact the Iraq war has had on the global jihad movement. “The ongoing fight for freedom in Iraq has been twisted by terrorist propaganda as a rallying cry,” it states.

The report mentions the possibility that Islamic militants who fought in Iraq could return to their home countries, “exacerbating domestic conflicts or fomenting radical ideologies.”

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, “Al Qaeda leaders wait patiently for the right opportunity to attack.”

The new National Intelligence Estimate was overseen by David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, who commissioned it in 2004 after he took up his post at the National Intelligence Council. Mr. Low declined to be interviewed for this article.

The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of “self-generating” cells inspired by Al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants.

It also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan.

In early 2005, the National Intelligence Council released a study concluding that Iraq had become the primary training ground for the next generation of terrorists, and that veterans of the Iraq war might ultimately overtake Al Qaeda’s current leadership in the constellation of the global jihad leadership.

But the new intelligence estimate is the first report since the war began to present a comprehensive picture about the trends in global terrorism.

In recent months, some senior American intelligence officials have offered glimpses into the estimate’s conclusions in public speeches.

“New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-Western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge,” said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, during a speech in San Antonio in April, the month that the new estimate was completed. “If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide,” said the general, who was then Mr. Negroponte’s top deputy and is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

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

Spy agencies usually produce several national intelligence estimates each year on a variety of subjects. The most controversial of these in recent years was an October 2002 document assessing Iraq’s illicit weapons programs. Several government investigations have discredited that report, and the intelligence community is overhauling how it analyzes data, largely as a result of those investigations.

The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts.

The panel investigating the London terrorist bombings of July 2005 reported in May that the leaders of Britain’s domestic and international intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, “emphasized to the committee the growing scale of the Islamist terrorist threat.”

More recently, the Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of “D+” to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism. The council concluded that “there is every sign that radicalization in the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking.”

This is terrible news, but not surprising to many.

We may actually be making things worse by helping them recruit people into jihad. This is why we needed to win the hearts and minds of the people.
The bad people who already hated us we never going to change their minds and like us, but we could have at least not given them a powerful recruiting tool to bring in people who may not have joined their cause.

[motivez]

The real question is: Why do our spy agencies hate America? Why do they always want to blame America for the problems in the world?

They're no better than the hollywood hate america first liberals, what, with their illegal spying and tie dye t-shirts!

In all seriousness, though.. this is what many of us have been saying for awhile, and it's always been dismissed as "oh, stop being such a negative nancy" or some variation of what I said up top.

With the half assed way Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have managed this war -- ignoring their generals, failing to adequately plan for the peace, etc, etc, this is simply an obvious consequence of those actions.. and once again highlights, for me at least, why we need a different direction for the country.

While I don't agree with the Democrats on everything, and doubt they'll manage it perfectly, at least they're willing to admit that we fucked up and we need to change strategies if we want to be able to leave Iraq with some semblance of success.

Unfortunately, the Administrations blatent failures are being successfully used by them to campaign. With all the new terrorists they've created through their incompetence, they're the only ones who can keep us safe! Democrats hate America! and so on and so forth.

Of course, they leave that first part about blatent failures, and incompetence out.

Lets hope that the American people will do what's needed to get us back on track in this current "armed and hostile conflict against global islamo-fascist extremism against freedom and democracy" or whatever they're calling it nowadays.

Anyway, yeah.

sadDayForAmerica++;

[Diamond Cross]

Personally i'm skeptical of their claims. I'd like to see the evidence first myself.

The militant Islamist have never needed a real reason to hate America beyond their misunderstandings and misuse of the Islam Religion. ISlam is a religion of peace, but the problem is the militants hold the power and have the peaceful Muslims afraid for their very life.

The second problem is the peaceful Muslims don't know that they are in the majority and have the numbers to turn against those militant Islamic. If they did that then they would put an end to the terrorisism. Their silence only empowers the militant muslims.

[Donkey®]

Some of us have thought this for years....now it is confirmed by the goverment. I am sure though that the right will question the credibility of the source or something stupid.

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

The militant Islamist have never needed a real reason to hate America beyond their misunderstandings and misuse of the Islam Religion.

Right, but the problem is that Iraq is creating more militant Islamists than its killing. Or put another way, Iraq is turning moderate Mulsims into militants. Your statement sounds as if you're assuming the number of militants is always static, as if a certain number will always exist regardless of what we do.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

Personally i'm skeptical of their claims. I'd like to see the evidence first myself.

The militant Islamist have never needed a real reason to hate America beyond their misunderstandings and misuse of the Islam Religion. ISlam is a religion of peace, but the problem is the militants hold the power and have the peaceful Muslims afraid for their very life.

The second problem is the peaceful Muslims don't know that they are in the majority and have the numbers to turn against those militant Islamic. If they did that then they would put an end to the terrorisism. Their silence only empowers the militant muslims.

You are skeptical of our own military on their own efforts?

[Diamond Cross]

Yes.

It's not like the military nor government has lied to Americans, or have been mistaken on their intelligence, or have worked against the American people before.

For example, before Operation Iraqi Freedom was enacted, the intelligence community warned that their intelligence in regards to WMDs could be wrong. So far only scant amounts of WMDs have been found, not like the huge caches that were said to have existed. And usually when they do think they've found something, they recant.

I may be a patriot, but I am not a blind Patriot nor extreme patriot.

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

What I don't understand is how, even this report aside, people could think Iraq is lessening terrorism. It seems completely common sensical that when Americans tear down a country, don't really build it back up, and you have all this chaos and death, it'll be a dream come true for jihad recruiters. And then you have this report, which is really a consensus among several different agencies, that all come to the same conclusion, that comports with the common sense conclusion...how could you still possibly think Iraq is lessening terrorism? Is it a totally faith based stance?

[Thorgrim]

See, but there were voices of dissent on WMD, there are none here

[kinggovernor]

drawing cartoons worsens terror threat as well

[motivez]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

drawing cartoons worsens terror threat as well

Completely the same.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

Completely the same.

my point was that it takes next to nothing to inflame the fundamentalists

[motivez]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

my point was that it takes next to nothing to inflame the fundamentalists

And the point of this is that rather than make us safer, as Bush claims, it's done the opposite.

Talking about the cartoons is a red herring and irrelevent to the implications of this.

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

drawing cartoons worsens terror threat as well

Using a bit of common sense, what do you think is more likely to turn a moderate muslim into a miltant freak? An offensive cartoon? Or having as many as 100,000 innocent civilians in your country blown up by bombs, delivered by an invading/occupying force?

Surely some could be turned militant by the wind blowing in the wrong direction, but that doesn't really speak to the reality of what turns most people into killers, does it? The cartoon's ability to turn a few muslims into terrorists does not mitigate the reality that having your family killed by an invading army would probably turn most people into psychopaths.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

And the point of this is that rather than make us safer, as Bush claims, it's done the opposite.

Talking about the cartoons is a red herring and irrelevent to the implications of this.

its not a red herring, it is a good example of how fucking passionate and crazy they are.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo

Using a bit of common sense, what do you think is more likely to turn a moderate muslim into a miltant freak? An offensive cartoon? Or having as many as 100,000 innocent civilians in your country blown up by bombs, delivered by an invading/occupying force?

Surely some could be turned militant by the wind blowing in the wrong direction, but that doesn't really speak to the reality of what turns most people into killers, does it? The cartoon's ability to turn a few muslims into terrorists does not mitigate the reality that having your family killed by an invading army would probably turn most people into psychopaths.

the cartoon did not affect a few muslims, and it took less than 100 to completely change our country.

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

the cartoon did not affect a few muslims, and it took less than 100 to completely change our country.

Okay, so what are you saying? That it doesn't matter if act X creates 100 new terrorists, and act Y creates 1,000,000 new terrorists, because all it takes is 100 to completely change our lives? Therefore, we should have no regard to how many terrorists our actions create because any act could potentially create a terrorist, and all it takes is 1 to do something very bad?

[motivez]

But it's not relevant to the fact that our incursion into Iraq has not made us any safer, and has infact done the opposite.. contrary to the main reasoning used for continuing to stay there, ie: "The world is a safer place"

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by motivez

But it's not relevant to the fact that our incursion into Iraq has not made us any safer, and has infact done the opposite.. contrary to the main reasoning used for continuing to stay there, ie: "The world is a safer place"

What's not relevant? It sounds like kinggovernor is dismissing the notion that creating more terrorists makes us less safe...it sounds like he's saying the number of terrorists created because of Iraq is immaterial because anything could create a terrorist, and all it takes is a few to change our lives.