US President George W. Bush gestures as he answers questions from the media during a press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. The Iraq war has become a "cause celebre" for global terrorists, fuelling recruitment and hostility to the United States in the Muslim world, according to declassified intelligence findings.(AFP/Jim Watson)It appears that President Bush released a part of the NIE report. This is off The Washington Post:
The Bush administration yesterday released portions of a classified intelligence estimate that says the globaljihadist movement is growing and being fueled by the war in Iraq even as it becomes more decentralized, making it harder to identify potential terrorists and prevent attacks.
The war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and drawing new adherents to the movement, the assessment says. The growth in the number of potential terrorists is also being fed by corruption, slow-moving political reform in many Muslim countries and "pervasive"anti-American sentiment, according to the report.
The jihadist movement is potentially limited by its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam and could be slowed by democratic reforms in the Muslim world, says the document, which reflects the collective judgment of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies. In addition, it asserts that ifjihadists are perceived to be defeated in Iraq, "fewer fighters would be inspired to carry on the fight."
A whole four pages of this 30-page report can be downloaded here.
Iraq has become "cause celebre" for jihadists. That is a pretty sobering analysis of just how bad the situation has become in Iraq. We're not just losing the war in Iraq, but we've also created a breeding ground for new terrorists. The longer we stay in Iraq, the stronger and more experienced this anti-American jihadist movement becomes in the Middle East.
The big question I would ask here is why did President Bush release the conclusion of this report? The conclusions of this report actually refute everything the president and his administration has said about Iraq and how we aresupposedly winning the war. Continuing with the Post story:
President Bush took the extraordinary step of releasing portions of the classified report, which was completed in April, to counter assertions made after information from the document was leaked to media outlets over the weekend. Articles based on those leaks said the report blames the war in Iraq for worsening the global terrorist threat -- an interpretation that the administration calls a distortion of its contents.
Speaking at a White House news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Bush angrily called the leak a political act intended to affect the upcoming midterm elections. "Somebody has taken it upon themselves to leak classified information for political purposes," he said.
The president added that it is naive to think that terrorism would be any less pervasive if the United States had not invaded Iraq, repeating his oft-made point that extremists attacked U.S. interests around the world long before the start of the war.
"My judgment is, if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse, because they have ambitions," Bush said. "They kill in order to achieve their objectives."
Bush said he reluctantly ordered the release of the National Intelligence Estimate so people can form their own conclusions about it. "You can read it for yourself," he said. "We'll stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy."
It is just amazing. Even after publishing the conclusions of this report, Bush continues to claim that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was necessary to stop the terrorists--this time it is the terrorists who have ambitions to kill people and find excuses to conduct their terror attacks elsewhere. So we must invade and occupy Iraq in order to bring the terrorists into Iraq so that the terrorists will not achieve their terrorist ambitions to kill people in other parts of the world? The absurdity is simply amazing becauseNIE report concludes that the U.S. war in Iraq is actually fueling a rise in jihadist and anti-American extremism, which could then spill over to global terrorism--thus showing the complete failure of the Bush administration's argument that we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here or in the rest of the world. It is absurd.
There is more here. Now we come to President Bush's reason for releasing the report. First Bush is angry that this report has been leaked out--it pretty much destroys all the feel-good Bush PR-spin about how we're winning the war in Iraq, just before the
congressional midterm elections. And yes, this report could affect the midterm elections--resulting in losses to the Republicans. President Bush ordered the release of theNIE conclusions so that the American people could draw their own conclusions from the report. "You can read it for yourself," he said. "We'll stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy." This Bush statement is interesting. It is obvious that President Bush wants to limit the political damage thisNIE report is generating before the midterm elections. The Bush administration is probably hoping that by releasing the conclusion of this report, the controversy will die down by next week, and the Republicans can continue spinning their Iraq-war fears to the American public. In one sense, this release of theNIE conclusion actually plays into the Republican pro-war claims--where the possible rise of jihadist extremism requires the U.S. to remain in Iraq to complete its mission and contain this extremism in Iraq, rather than adopting the Democratic plan of cutting and running which would continue fueling the rise of suchjihadist extremism throughout the world.
But there is this last Bush statement, "[S]omebody [is] trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy." My question here is who is trying to confuse the American people about the nature of the enemy? The NIE report pretty much lays down the conclusions of who the enemy is, and their growing strength and numbers. For five years, the American people were never given a true reason as to why we had to invade Iraq, who our enemy in Iraq was, how we are going to fight our enemy in Iraq, and what exactly will be the criteria for determining a success or victory in Iraq. Instead, this Bush administration has continued to give us lies and political spin, designed to frighten and confuse the American people about the true nature of our enemies. It is President Bush and his PNAC neoconservatives that has consistently confused the American people in defining the nature of the enemy in their Great War on Terrorism, shifting our attention away fromOsama bin Laden and al Qaida, to focus on their PNAC dream of creating a Pax
American of American military imperialism in Iraq and the Middle East, while also controlling Iraqi oil production. And in confusing the American people about the true nature of our enemy,al Qaeda, jihadist extremism, or even anti-American extremism, President Bush has ignored and allowed this dangerous enemy to become even more powerful and more difficult to fight against because of the Bush administration's desire for itsPNAC war in Iraq.
We will pay the price of this disaster in American blood and American treasure for decades to come.
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