September 24, 2006

"The Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse."


Whoops

From the New York Times:
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.
Here's the response from The White House:
"The New York Times' characterization of the NIE is not representative of the complete document," White House spokesman Peter Watkins said.

"Their (terrorists') hatred for freedom and liberty did not develop overnight, those seeds were planted decades ago. Instead of waiting while they plot and plan attacks to kill innocent Americans, the United States has taken the initiative to fight back," he said.

The spokesman said he would not comment on information contained in the classified document.
In other words, the article isn't "representative" but we're not going to tell you why or how because it's "classified." Wouldn't want to give aid to the enemy now, would we?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. Interesting..Iraq is definitely not doing well, I mean they have an elected Government, by their own people, in which a dictator wasn't 'elected'....and what? women? in school? and in the government? what a shame!!! that is nuts?! that should have never have had happened...huge mistake on USA's part...weird that our country hasn't been attacked since then, and they are now shifting their focus to other countries or yet, embassy offices....or better yet, killing their OWN PEOPLE, which they do often, which really 'spreads the ideaology'...USA bad = kill your fellow muslims while they go to temple to pray to the same god...= real intelligent. I sure hope you lefties don't own a car that uses gasoline, otherwise you support Bush-Cheney, bc they only went in there for the oil and to become personally rich..and if you do own that gas-guzzling car, and not a bicycle..then hello hypocrite club!, well that is what "one American intelligence official" said, from what I read...but what do I know? not much , that's for sure.

Krup said...

People! People! Please don't post comments at 2:03 in the morning, especially if they're going to consist of incoherent rantings and Fox News talking points such as "weird that our country hasn't been attacked since (the Iraq war)." Want to hear something even weirder Martin? After the first attack on the World Trade Center, a mere 38 days into Clinton's presidency, our country wasn't attacked...until 8 years later, 9 months into Bush's presidency. I'm freaking out how fucking weird that is.

Anonymous said...

People! Don't freak out! well, unless you are a former president on Fox News Sunday, then its okay. though i will say its weird that the current president's ratings are attached to gas prices, i would think our country (left, right, and middle) would be a bit more intelligent than that, and not such fair-weather sheep. a lot of good stuff happens in the middle of the night, you shouldn't dissuade your reading public to be quiet during those magic hours. also, if i could see some positive news from whatever angle you do believe in, that would be cool to read about, just a personal opinion.

Anonymous said...

People! Don't freak out! well, unless you are a former president on Fox News Sunday, then its okay. though i will say its weird that the current president's ratings are attached to gas prices, i would think our country (left, right, and middle) would be a bit more intelligent than that, and not such fair-weather sheep. a lot of good stuff happens in the middle of the night, you shouldn't dissuade your reading public to be quiet during those magic hours. also, if i could see some positive news from whatever angle you do believe in, that would be cool to read about, just a personal opinion.