Has the war in Iraq made threat worse? Pessimism stands out in document

[Guest Sid9]

sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-flaintelassess0718psjul18,0,2398808.story

 

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Has the war in Iraq made threat worse?

Pessimism stands out in document

By Scott Shane

 

The New York Times

 

July 18, 2007

 

Washington Nearly six years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the hundreds of

billions of dollars and thousands of lives expended in the name of the war

on terror pose a single, insistent question: Are we safer?

 

On Tuesday, in a dark and strikingly candid two pages, the nation's

intelligence agencies offered an implicit answer, and it was not

encouraging. In many respects, the National Intelligence Estimate suggests,

the threat of terrorist violence against the United States is growing worse,

fueled by the Iraq war and spreading Islamic extremism.

 

The conclusions were not new, echoing the private comments of government

officials and independent experts for many months. But the stark

declassified summary contrasted sharply with the more positive emphasis of

President Bush and his top aides for years: that two-thirds of al-Qaida's

leadership had been killed or captured; that the Iraq invasion would reduce

the terrorist menace; and that the United States had its enemies "on the

run," as Bush has frequently put it.

 

After years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and "targeted killings" in

Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere, the major threat to the United States has the

same name and the same basic look as in 2001: al-Qaida, led by Osama bin

Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, plotting attacks from mountain hide-outs near

the Afghan-Pakistani border.

 

The headline on the intelligence estimate, said Daniel L. Byman, a former

intelligence officer and the director of the Center for Peace and Security

Studies at Georgetown University, might just as well have been the same as

on the now-famous presidential brief of Aug. 6, 2001: "Bin Laden Determined

to Strike in U.S."

 

The new estimate does cite some gains; known plots against the United States

have been disrupted, it says, thanks to new vigilance and countermeasures.

 

But the new estimate takes note of sources of worry that have arisen since

2001. The Iraq war has spawned Al-Qaida in Iraq as the "most visible and

capable affiliate" of the original terrorist group, inspiring jihadists

around the world and drawing money and recruits to their cause.

 

The explosion of radical Internet sites has created self-generating cells of

would-be terrorists in many Western countries. Hezbollah, a Lebanese group

rarely considered likely to attack in the United States, now "may be more

likely to consider" doing just that in response to a perceived threat from

American forces to itself or its sponsor, Iran.

 

And if there had been progress after Sept. 11 in isolating and immobilizing

al-Qaida's leaders in the tribal areas of Pakistan, some of it has unraveled

in the past year, with Pakistani troops abandoning patrols in North

Waziristan and allowing greater freedom of movement to al-Qaida's core.

 

All told, despite the absence of any new attack on American soil since 2001,

the conclusion that al-Qaida "will continue to enhance its capabilities" to

attack the United States suggests some miscalculation in the

administration's basic formula against terrorism: that attacking the

jihadists overseas would protect the homeland.

 

"I guess we have to fight them over here even though we're fighting them

over there," said Steven Simon, a terrorism expert who served in the Clinton

administration and the co-author of The Next Attack.

 

Democrats proclaimed the document a "devastating indictment" of Bush

administration policies, in the words of Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the

chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential candidate.

 

The document's pessimism was striking; it may reflect a determination of the

intelligence agencies, accused of skewing some reports to back the

president's Iraq invasion plans in 2003, to make clear that their findings

have not been tailored to suit the White House this time around.

 

But Max Boot, a security analyst who has generally supported the president,

said the estimate "cuts both ways" politically. Even if some administration

policies have been ineffective or have backfired, the estimate also

concludes that al-Qaida will likely try to capitalize on the network built

up by its affiliate in Iraq, lending some support to the argument that a

rapid exit from Iraq might prove dangerous for American security, said Boot,

a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of War

Made New.

 

"It makes clear that the threat from al-Qaida in Iraq is not just to

Iraqis - it's to the U.S. homeland as well," Boot said.

[Guest Hatto von Aquitanien]

Sid9 wrote:

> But Max Boot, a security analyst

 

The Past as Prologue: An Imperial Manual

Thomas Donnelly

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2002

 

The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. Max

Boot. New York: Basic Books, 2002, 448 pp. $30.00.

 

Purchase Book from barnesandnoble.com

 

Summary: Max Boot's history of America's small wars shows that the republic

actually has a long, underappreciated imperial past. It offers lessons for

the new Pax Americana and a call not to retreat from policing the imperial

frontier.

Thomas Donnelly is Deputy Executive Director of the Project for the New

American Century.

 

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