Posted on 06/18/2004 6:37:24 PM PDT by Pikamax
Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands Al-Qaida may 'reward' American president with strike aimed at keeping him in office, senior intelligence man says
Julian Borger in Washington Saturday June 19, 2004
The Guardian
A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands. Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, due out next month, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that Bin Laden and al-Qaida are "on the run" and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer.
In an interview with the Guardian the official, who writes as "Anonymous", described al-Qaida as a much more proficient and focused organisation than it was in 2001, and predicted that it would "inevitably" acquire weapons of mass destruction and try to use them.
He said Bin Laden was probably "comfortable" commanding his organisation from the mountainous tribal lands along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Pakistani army claimed a big success in the "war against terror" yesterday with the killing of a tribal leader, Nek Mohammed, who was one of al-Qaida's protectors in Waziristan.
But Anonymous, who has been centrally involved in the hunt for Bin Laden, said: "Nek Mohammed is one guy in one small area. We sometimes forget how big the tribal areas are." He believes President Pervez Musharraf cannot advance much further into the tribal areas without endangering his rule by provoking a Pashtun revolt. "He walks a very fine line," he said yesterday.
Imperial Hubris is the latest in a relentless stream of books attacking the administration in election year. Most of the earlier ones, however, were written by embittered former officials. This one is unprecedented in being the work of a serving official with nearly 20 years experience in counter-terrorism who is still part of the intelligence establishment.
The fact that he has been allowed to publish, albeit anonymously and without naming which agency he works for, may reflect the increasing frustration of senior intelligence officials at the course the administration has taken.
Peter Bergen, the author of two books on Bin Laden and al-Qaida, said: "His views represent an amped-up version of what is emerging as a consensus among intelligence counter-terrorist professionals."
Anonymous does not try to veil his contempt for the Bush White House and its policies. His book describes the Iraq invasion as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantage.
"Our choice of timing, moreover, shows an abject, even wilful failure to recognise the ideological power, lethality and growth potential of the threat personified by Bin Laden, as well as the impetus that threat has been given by the US-led invasion and occupation of Muslim Iraq."
In his view, the US missed its biggest chance to capture the al-Qaida leader at Tora Bora in the Afghan mountains in December 2001. Instead of sending large numbers of his own troops, General Tommy Franks relied on surrogates who proved to be unreliable.
"For my money, the game was over at Tora Bora," Anonymous said.
Yesterday President Bush repeated his assertion that Bin Laden was cornered and that there was "no hole or cave deep enough to hide from American justice".
Anonymous said: "I think we overestimate significantly the stress [Bin Laden's] under. Our media and sometimes our policymakers suggest he's hiding from rock to rock and hill to hill and cave to cave. My own hunch is that he's fairly comfortable where he is."
The death and arrest of experienced operatives might have set back Bin Laden's plans to some degree but when it came to his long-term capacity to threaten the US, he said, "I don't think we've laid a glove on him".
"What I think we're seeing in al-Qaida is a change of generation," he said."The people who are leading al-Qaida now seem a lot more professional group.
"They are more bureaucratic, more management competent, certainly more literate. Certainly, this generation is more computer literate, more comfortable with the tools of modernity. I also think they're much less prone to being the Errol Flynns of al-Qaida. They're just much more careful across the board in the way they operate."
As for weapons of mass destruction, he thinks that if al-Qaida does not have them already, it will inevitably acquire them.
The most likely source of a nuclear device would be the former Soviet Union, he believes. Dirty bombs, chemical and biological weapons, could be home-made by al-Qaida's own experts, many of them trained in the US and Britain.
Anonymous, who published an analysis of al-Qaida last year called Through Our Enemies' Eyes, thinks it quite possible that another devastating strike against the US could come during the election campaign, not with the intention of changing the administration, as was the case in the Madrid bombing, but of keeping the same one in place.
"I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now," he said.
"One way to keep the Republicans in power is to mount an attack that would rally the country around the president."
The White House has yet to comment publicly on Imperial Hubris, which is due to be published on July 4, but intelligence experts say it may try to portray him as a professionally embittered maverick.
The tone of Imperial Hubris is certainly angry and urgent, and the stridency of his warnings about al-Qaida led him to be moved from a highly sensitive job in the late 90s.
But Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations at the CIA counter-terrorism centre, said he had been vindicated by events. "He is very well respected, and looked on as a serious student of the subject."
Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy.
He said: "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?"
Make that a lot more dead, after a few hours ago...
Oh really. For all the painting of Imperial Hubris, seems Anonymous would do better if he stopped hiding behind his false bravado and revealed his name.
Jeez, sounds like another Bush haters dream. According to the author, Bush has done everything wrong and Bin Laden is a genius. He even know UBL's living conditions!!
So this is an anonymous article by Anonymous from the Anonymous Intelligence Agency with permission from anonymous authorities to tell an anonymous story.
Either it's completely bogus, like deep throat, or that rat George Tenet approved it, which wouldn't surprise me a bit, the lousy clintonoid.
Just look at the list of Kerry foreign affairs advisers. Probably one of them.
"Deep Anonymous" is really Bob Woodward.
In other words, he hasn't been privy to the really "sensitive" data since well before 9/11.
Well, Osama ranted about the sanctions and enforcement below so I guess the only solution was to pull out and let Saddam genocide the Kurds in their autonomous zones.
Should be interesting...sounds like another Campaign for Kerry book release.
Is Julian Borger any relation to Gloria Borger? If so, it seems that they deserve each other.
If anyone watched "her" interview with VP Cheney last night, you will know what I'm talking about.
Well surprise surprise someone else writes a bush bashing book praising our enemies as genious freedom fighters
I guess stupidity falls hand in hand with freedom of speach but these people are traitorous wreches deserving of a swift traitorous justice !
The source is Bill W. from Alcoholics Anonymous. He always does this kind of thing when he falls off the wagon.
Just a guess...
A good guess too
I'd love to catch 'Anonymous' in an empty parking lot so we could 'discuss' some to his theories.
FMCDH(BITS)
It's a load of crap!
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