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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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 Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2006 1:07 pm Post subject: Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html?hp&ex=1159070400&en=003f596f66422cfd&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat
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By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: September 24, 2006
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.. in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee,
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.
...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 Guant�namo 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 that its conclusions were not softened or massaged for political purposes.
And, yet, they admit the truth:
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 that �Al Qaeda leaders wait patiently for the right opportunity to attack.�
...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.
...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...
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 that the White House has consistently presented a more optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than justified by intelligence reports from the field.
The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts.
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.� |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2006 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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This NIE and its implications fit into a broader context. It helps us see that events like the Iraqi War are mostly driven by headstrong national leaders and their appointees rather than the professionals in the bureaucracy -- including many ambassador-rank foreign service officers, high-ranking military officers, and others like executives at CIA.
Political scientists have shown, for instance, that JFK's total disregard of the professional bureaucracy during the Missile Crisis, where he concentrated his analysis and advice in the so-called Special Group (Augmented) and used back-channel diplomacy with the Soviets rather than go through State, nearly provoked a kind of bureaucratic explosion.
Neither LBJ nor Nixon, to cite another example, listened to CIA's intelligence directorate or the broader NIEs that they coordinated on Vietnam (where CIA argued that we were not going to win the war and that "lossing" Vietnam would hardly have affected U.S. interests in any case).
Nixon and Kissinger simply ignored not only CIA's estimates on Allende's election in Chile, but Kissinger ignored his own staff's opinions at the NSC, all of whom said much the same thing: Allende is no threat.
The following question arises, then: Should we modify our presidential system in some way that somehow forces national leaders and their appointees to heed professional advice? If so, what does giving more power to the professional bureaucracy at the expense of the commander-in-chief mean for a democratic system that has such civil-military relations as ours? |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2006 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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| If mideast nations go after those within their own nations who support terror then well - almost no terror. |
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Alias
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 10:55 am Post subject: |
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The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts.
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I wonder how the neo-cons will explain this one away? |
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Alias
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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Got an answer to my question. Apparantely there really were ties with Saddam and AQ. Well not really. Just with people with the same mentality.
This has been on some Neo-Cons boards. It is pre-war intelligence.
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http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/salman_pak.htm
Iraq told UN inspectors that Salman Pak was an anti-terror training camp for Iraqi special forces. However, two defectors from Iraqi intelligence stated that they had worked for several years at the secret Iraqi government camp, which had trained Islamic terrorists in rotations of five or six months since 1995. Training activities including simulated hijackings carried out in an airplane fuselage [said to be a Boeing 707] at the camp. The camp is divided into distinct sections. On one side of the camp young, Iraqis who were members of Fedayeen Saddam are trained in espionage, assassination techniques and sabotage. The Islamic militants trained on the other side of the camp, in an area separated by a small lake, trees and barbed wire. The militants reportedly spent time training, usually in groups of five or six, around the fuselage of the airplane. There were rarely more than 40 or 50 Islamic radicals in the camp at one time.
http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/National_Security/wwwboard/messages/826.html
From the INTELbriefing article linked to below:
AFI Daily OSINT
Salman Pak - Iraq�s own terrorist training camp
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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Geopolitical Diary: Assessing the Leaked NIE
September 27, 2006 02 00 GMT
U.S. President George W. Bush announced Tuesday that he will release a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that was partially leaked to the New York Times and published on Sunday. The NIE reportedly says that the war in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism by increasing the number of people who have been radicalized and are willing to be recruited by militant Islamist organizations. Bush argued today that, had there not been a war in Iraq, radical organizations would have simply recruited operatives elsewhere, and he reasserted the claim that the United States is safer from attack because of the Iraq war.
This report and the debate surrounding it go to the heart of Bush's strategy, of course. He has argued that the Iraq war helped disrupt terrorist attacks against the United States by diverting the jihadists' energies to Iraq -- while his critics have argued that the war created a breeding ground for both anti-Americanism and Islamic radicalism, swelling the pool of potential recruits. It would appear that this is an argument in which only one side could be right; but in fact, both sides could have part of the picture correct.
There is no question but that anti-Americanism increased in the region as a result of the war, as did Islamic fundamentalism. The pool of people willing to carry out terrorist attacks in Iraq certainly grew. The pool of people willing to carry out such attacks in the United States also grew. What is not clear is that the pool of willing people capable of carrying out such attacks also grew. It is not the number of people who want to carry out an operation that matters, nearly as much as the number of people able to carry out the operation.
Begin by distinguishing strategic terror attacks from tactical terror attacks. A tactical terror attack is characterized by being carried out within a society where the attacker is able to blend in, on a scale that is relatively easy to organize and that causes limited casualties. A suicide bomber in Iraq or Israel that causes a few dozen casualties is tactical. By itself it does not destabilize a society. It rises to the strategic level only when a very large number of such attacks take place. Thus, in Iraq, a large series of tactical events combine to create strategic destabilization.
A strategic terrorist attack has three characteristics. It is carried out at some distance, and certainly outside the geographical area where the attacker is at home. It causes massive casualties, sufficient to destabilize a society simply by itself. In order to protect it from penetration by security, a relatively few conspirators are involved. The obvious example of a strategic attack was 9/11, an attack carried out on an intercontinental basis outside the attacker's society, causing massive casualties and involving relatively few people.
The key to the 9/11 attacks was not the attackers' willingness to die. It was the ability to organize a small number of people to penetrate the United States undetected, to conceive of the attacks and to execute them. The primary skill was not carrying box cutters through security; it was the ability to operate covertly in enemy territory for an extended period of time and then execute the attack. If you think that's easy, imagine an American team of 19 people (plus support personnel) moving to Saudi Arabia or Iran and pulling off a 9/11 style attack. Strategic terrorism is hard to do.
There has been a massive increase in tactical terrorism in Iraq. That means that there has been a huge number of attacks in Iraq by Iraqis and by other Arabs and some Iranians. These attacks have certainly destabilized Iraq, but these attackers either have not been able to, or have chosen not to, conduct strategic attacks on the United States. This does not mean that they will not do so later, nor that they will not succeed. It does mean that to this point, the very real upsurge in radical Islamist sentiment in Iraq has been tactical and not strategic in nature.
In this sense, the NIE is certainly correct if it winds up saying that there has been a massive increase in the terrorist pool. Bush is correct in saying that, while this might be the case, it has not so far risen to the level of strategic operations. It might also be argued that the type of people being recruited are unsuited for strategic operations because of background or training. That argument is not altogether persuasive, as we would suspect that you could find 20 potential candidates in Iraq, assuming that you had the training infrastructure needed to prepare them for strategic operations without detection.
The argument should be phrased this way. The number of tactical terrorists in Iraq has soared because of the war. The number of radical Islamists in the region has also risen by an indeterminate but substantial amount. This does not by itself translate into a strategic threat to the United States, because sentiment turns itself readily into tactical attacks but not into strategic ones. Therefore, until now, Bush's argument is compatible with the NIE.
The problem with Bush's argument is the phrase "until now." Bush can have no confidence that another team may not be in place or on its way. But his critics also cannot make the argument that if they are on the way, it was because of the Iraq war. After all, Osama had no problem recruiting a strategic team prior to 9/11, without the Iraq war. Having a larger pool does not necessary increase or decrease the strategic threat.
There are many reasons to criticize the war in Iraq and Bush's execution of it; but even though on the surface this seems to be one of the strongest arguments against it, it seems to us to be one of the weakest. Strategic covert operations do not depend on large recruitment pools. They depend on strong expertise in strategic covert operations. Few people have that, few people are suitable for it -- and al Qaeda did not need a huge pool to hit the United States painfully.
Copyright 2006 Strategic Forecasting Inc. All rights reserved. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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Good one Joo. Man I feel soooooo much better to learn that right now they only have the means to kill people in Iraq -- like, I dunno, American soldiers, American aid workers, American diplomats... oh yeah. Iraqi kids too.
Remember when al Qaida was only interested in killing Russians? That one worked out great for us. I have every confidence this one will too. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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When was AQ only interested in killing Russians?
The way to get rid of AQ once and for all woudl be to force mideast regimes to slaughter their supporters.
And it wouldn't be at all difficult in the least for mideast regimes to find them either. |
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Atassi
Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Location: 평택
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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When was AQ only interested in killing Russians?
The way to get rid of AQ once and for all woudl be to force mideast regimes to slaughter their supporters.
And it wouldn't be at all difficult in the least for mideast regimes to find them either. |
Yup, let's slaughter them, and while we're at it Presidents and everyone else in the world that is advocating violence. Oh, shoot...that would include some on this forum. Well, all these supporters of terrorism on innocent people need to perish. We're fighting terrorism. We must win.
But, you fail to mention that "slaughtering" others in the western sense is indeed the "terrorism" you claim we're fighting. Sending a missile into a building is the same as putting a plane into a building. Why the distinction? These "smart missiles" being used aren't even smart, so several are launched at one target while some of them veer off target. Just look at the casualty reports for US bombing campaigns. No one terrorizes like the US military does.
We are producing the war against us. Isn't that nice? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
When was AQ only interested in killing Russians?
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Back in the days when we were finding the nastiest most extreme and brutal terrorists and crazed fundamentalist loonies we could find, flying them to Afghanistand, bankrolling them and of course sending the CIA to train them up in camps in Afghanistan, so that they'd be even more effective murderers. Remember those fabulous days when we used them to orchestrate horrific terrorist attacks on Russian conscripts, and the unfortunate citizens who had chosen some of their more enlightened ways, like educating their girls. Those wicked Russians emancipating the girls. Of course our AQ guys could be counted upon to blowup co-ed schools (with their unfortuante students in them) and put a stop to all that modern feminist nonsense! Tsk tsk. Until 2001 - and then we felt such a sudden interest in helping to strip them of their Burkas!
But back in those early days - terrorism was just fine. Oh My - how we applauded it! |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
The way to get rid of AQ once and for all woudl be to force mideast regimes to slaughter their supporters.
And it wouldn't be at all difficult in the least for mideast regimes to find them either. |
Ok. But since there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of that happening we have to be smart rather than dumb and blundering.
As for when AQ only wanted to kill Russians -- 20 years ago that was precisely the argument made in favor of funding them. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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difficult in the least for mideast regimes to find them either.[/quote]
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| Yup, let's slaughter them |
,
why not kill your enemies
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| and while we're at it Presidents and everyone else in the world that is advocating violence. |
Yes that mideast govenrment and elties teach hate and incite violence that is the major perhaps the major reason for terror.
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| Oh, shoot...that would include some on this forum. Well, all these supporters of terrorism on innocent people need to perish. We're fighting terrorism. We must win. |
No cause what the terrorsts fight for is illegitmate. They fight for an evil cause.
there is no moral equivlence- zero.
Bin Laden supporters , Khomeni supporters and Bathist are all fascist bigots who have no business having O2.
besides killing terrorsts saves lives. Lives saved cause of US actions count too. Well not in your book but the count just the same.
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| But, you fail to mention that "slaughtering" others in the western sense is indeed the "terrorism" |
How could killing Bathists , Khomeni supporters or Bin Laden followers be terrorism.To be one of them is to be a fascist and a war criminal.
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| you claim we're fighting. Sending a missile into a building is the same as putting a plane into a building |
.
Well it depends on what your target is . Bathists , Khomeni supporters and Bin Laden lovers are not innocent civilans. They are fascist war criminals.
I don't care about their religon . I don't care if there is a mosque next door to me. I think Shaira law is only as bad / good as those doing the interpretation of the law.
However there politics and ideology is a problem.
At any rate justification of your actions depends on what on what you fight for .
Saddam fought to conquer the mideast and kill the Kurds and Jews.
Khomeni fought to conquer the mideast and kill the non believers (including Sunni Muslims) or at least make them second class citizens.
Bin Laden fights for a fascist caliphate where those of different religions (include Shias in that) are made into slaves or killed.
There is a difference.
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| Why the distinction? These "smart missiles" being used aren't even smart, so several are launched at one target while some of them veer off target. |
well
1) the target isn't civilians
2) the US fights for a good cause
3) lives saved cause of US actions count too.
Bathism , KHomenism and Al Qeadaism are offensive movements.
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| Just look at the casualty reports for US bombing campaigns. No one terrorizes like the US military does. |
Oh if they had the power of the US military they would terrorize a whole lot worse. Is there any doubt.
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| No one terrorizes like the US military does |
questionable.
On the other hand probably no one or not many tries to avoid civilans like the US miltary does.
No one or not many behave better in war time like the US military does.
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| We are producing the war against us. Isn't that nice? |
The real reason is that mideast regimes , elties and many clerics teach hate and incite violence. That the the real reason for the war. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 11:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
When was AQ only interested in killing Russians?
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Back in the days when we were finding the nastiest most extreme and brutal terrorists and crazed fundamentalist loonies we could find, flying them to Afghanistand, bankrolling them and of course sending the CIA to train them up in camps in Afghanistan, so that they'd be even more effective murderers. Remember those fabulous days when we used them to orchestrate horrific terrorist attacks on Russian conscripts, and the unfortunate citizens who had chosen some of their more enlightened ways, like educating their girls. Those wicked Russians emancipating the girls. Of course our AQ guys could be counted upon to blowup co-ed schools (with their unfortuante students in them) and put a stop to all that modern feminist nonsense! Tsk tsk. Until 2001 - and then we felt such a sudden interest in helping to strip them of their Burkas!
But back in those early days - terrorism was just fine. Oh My - how we applauded it! |
Was there an Al Qadea then. Al Qeda was started up in 1987 when the US was already cutting support for the war againt the Russians in Afghanistan.
Oh the Russias?
You mean Stalin and Breshev?
Well don't forget the Soviet Union was an evil empire out to destroy the US.
Well not when Gorby was in power but it certainly was when Stalin and Breshnev were in power.
Both Stalin and Breshnev were evil , dangerous and would have nuked the US in a heart beat.
Oh shame on the US for taking actions against those who wanted to destroy it. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Hater Depot wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
The way to get rid of AQ once and for all woudl be to force mideast regimes to slaughter their supporters.
And it wouldn't be at all difficult in the least for mideast regimes to find them either. |
Ok. But since there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of that happening we have to be smart rather than dumb and blundering.
As for when AQ only wanted to kill Russians -- 20 years ago that was precisely the argument made in favor of funding them. |
There was no Al Qaeda 20 years ago.
The US also supported those who were in the Northern alliance and look they never attacked the US. |
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Atassi
Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Location: 평택
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| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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The real reason is that mideast regimes , elties and many clerics teach hate and incite violence. That the the real reason for the war.
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That wouldn't be a reason for war if the US hadn't make the past "mistakes" as you called them.
The regimes are bad in many cases, but who put them together in this way? Who divided them up and colonized them? Was anything done to ensure that they would be prosperous countries when the European colonizers left?
No. The reason they were split up is that the West wanted them to be weak. Not only that, but the West also didn't mind when they fought each other. It was planned that way.
The west also turned many of them to the Soviet Union at the time. After all, Palestinian Arabs had been terrorized from their homes, and the West offered them no support.
And don't even mention the cleric that visited Hitler. First of all, the Ottomans felt threatened by Europe before. Second of all, that was one cleric. This was never the reason for driving out a million Palestinian Christians and Muslims from their homes. And it is not a justification.
And does anybody really think the cleric knew about the atrocities about to take place under Hitler? If he knew by the way, then hell with him. But I seriously doubt that he knew those things when other western countries were still unsure or completely unaware of it.
"The real reason for the war"? The "real reason" is more than you claim it to be.
Let's raise the standard of this debate shall we? Why blame regimes that we (as the West) created? The leaders are terrible in many cases, but it seems we often like to blame the countries and forget that the people in those countries have nothing to do with it.
And if our actions are morally questionable, why do we expect others to accept our criticism of their leaders? We definitely don't accept theirs.
Edit: Typo
Last edited by Atassi on Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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