Posted on 09/24/2006 7:10:40 AM PDT by Sergeant Tim
Their headline is Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror and the New York Times and Mark Mazzetti will surely get away with revealing another of America’s secrets:
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… [emphasis added ours]
Before we continue, let us first list Mr. Mazzetti’s “reliable, non-partisan, law-abiding, and patriotic” sources for his report:
…according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.
…
…said one American intelligence official.
…
More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article…
…
Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate…
…
…according to officials involved in the discussion.
…
Some intelligence officials…
On to the crux of the Times’ report editorial… ah hell, we’ll let you figure out which:
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.
As usual, there is the Times’ nefarious claim that even those who support the administration say the war in Iraq has created more terrorists:
More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document [emphasis added ours]. The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified.
Nowhere in the Times’ report does it mention what the sources say about the growing state-sponsorship of terrorism by Iran and Syria.
Yet, as always, the Times’ implied the administration attempted to delay and manipulate the outcome:
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.
In addition, and as usual, the Times slips Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib into its report:
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 Guantánamo 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 its conclusions were not softened or massaged for political purposes.
Not until the eleventh paragraph do see someone quoted on the record and learn from Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, that:
[T]he White House “played no role in drafting or reviewing the judgments expressed in the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism.” The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives.
In other words, the administration knew what we all know to be true: during war, people take sides.
The Times slipped in another dig:
Documents released by the White House timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks emphasized the successes that the United States had made in dismantling the top tier of Al Qaeda.
“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America and its allies are safer, but we are not yet safe,” concludes one, a report titled “9/11 Five Years Later: Success and Challenges.” “We have done much to degrade Al Qaeda and its affiliates and to undercut the perceived legitimacy of terrorism.”
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.
All of the world’s press significantly ramps up is writing about terrorism to coincide with each anniversary of September 11. Is the White House supposed to remain silent while thousands of reports and editorials are published on this subject? Even the New York Times surely must agree that, “Iraq [has] been twisted by terrorist propaganda” seeing how its editors and a good number of its reporters have lent a hand to that rope.
Perhaps the most interesting passage in the Times’ report was this one:
[The National Intelligence Estimate] also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan.
Sounds to us like a good reason to keep a robust Terrorist Surveillance Program going, including of those communications into or out from the United States when one or more of the parties is suspected of having ties to terrorism.
Like the Times, we digress. Let us skip down to the end:
The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts.
The panel investigating the London terrorist bombings of July 2005 reported in May that the leaders of Britain’s domestic and international intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, “emphasized to the committee the growing scale of the Islamist terrorist threat.”
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.”
Who are the six members of the Council on Global Terrorism? Yes. We know we parsed their resumes below yet, unlike the New York Times, at least we provided you their names. Besides, unlike the Times and its unnamed sources, we did not willingly and knowingly reveal another secret that the enemy will use to kill more Americans:
David G. Bradley: Among other things, Mr. Bradley owns Atlantic Monthly and he hired New York Times reporter James Bennet as the magazine's editor six months ago.
Lee H. Hamilton: All of us should know by now his extensive resume includes that he is a life-long Democrat and co-chaired the 9/11 Commission
Brian Michael Jenkins: In 1996, President Clinton appointed him to be a member of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security.Paul Pillar: ... retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier, he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA, covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia.
Bruce Hoffman ... was an adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis Office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad. Dr. Hoffman is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars ... In November 1994, the Director of Central Intelligence awarded Dr. Hoffman the United States Intelligence Community Seal Medallion, the highest level of commendation given to a non-government employee which recognizes sustained superior performance of high value that distinctly benefits the interests and national security of the United States... A revised and updated edition of his acclaimed 1998 book, Inside Terrorism, was published in May 2006 by Columbia University Press and by S. Fischer Verlag in Germany. Foreign language editions of the first edition have been published in ten countries. Dr. Hoffman is also a regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly and was the author of "The Logic of Suicide Terrorism," which was the cover story of the June 2003 issue.
Xavier Raufer ... also is Associate Professor at both the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (School of High Commercial Studies), one of the top four business schools in France, and at the Chinese People's Public Security University in Beijing and Shenyang. Editorial Advisor to Éditions Odile Jacob in Paris, Xavier is the author of several books on criminology, terrorism, and related topics.
Walter Reich ... Dr. Reich also holds positions as Lecturer in Psychiatry at Yale University and Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences... His articles, essays and chapters have appeared in scholarly and scientific publications as well as in such newspapers and magazines as The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times… Working for the protection of human rights around the world since the early 1970s, Dr. Reich has been a Co-Chair of the Committee of Concerned Scientists since 1995...
Fernando Reinares ... Dr. Reinares has been Chairman of the European Commission experts group on violent radicalization since it was formally created in May 2006. He is a member of the academic committee of the Queen Sofía Center for the Study of Violence, the United Nations roster of experts on terrorism prevention, and the Terrorism Studies Programme Board at the University of St Andrews. A contributing Editor of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, he also belongs to the editorial board of Terrorism and Political Violence. Dr. Reinares served as Senior Adviser on Antiterrorist Policy to the Minister of the Interior of Spain from 2004 to 2006.
stop those that are talking to the NYT
Can you say "UNNAMED SOURCES"?
ping!
The Bush Haters love the NY Times. They love Al Quaeda because they see its existence as anti-Bush. If only we could we reverse history, and trade that Gray Hag for the Twin Towers.
Front page news in the LA Slimes today also.
Because, the last time they revealed U.S. secrets, absolutely no legal action was taken against them.
Ask yourself, "What would Abraham Lincoln have done with a Copperhead press that revealed Union secrets to the enemy?"
So then Iraq IS the major battleground in the war on terror, just like President Bush says. So much for the Democrats' talking point that the war in Iraq is separate from the war on terrorism and leaving now would not harm that effort. You cannot have it both ways Democrats!! The NYTimes may have inadvertently HELPED the administration here.
The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,”
That's like saying WW II made Nazism worse.
Thanks for the breakdown, great report.
The Keystone Cops (DUmocrats) long for the days when terrorism was just a "nuisance".
You mean that our fighting a war against terror has made terrorists more likely to want to fight us? I'm amazed. I wonder if when we declared war on fascism it made fascists and their sympathisers more likely to want to attack us.
See, I actually suspect that all these people this report refers to were just out there waving American flags until we decided to invade Iraq.
(sarcasm off)
Bump Photos - never forget these images.
This is "REVEALED" pretty coincidently to the both the election AND Clinton's meltdown on national TV..right???
.
Translation: Clinton appointees.
Isn't it better to stir up the ant-hill and apply the pesticide now, rather than after 5 more countries in the Middle East have nukes? The danger we fight is not terrorism. It is the convergence of terrorists and sources of WMDs. 9-11 was horrible. 9-11 with an anonymous nuke is beyond imagination. Of course, the threat still exists, and of course the ostriches don't get it.
John Useful Fools Blog
P.S. Of course, the Bush Administration needs to grow cojones and start espionage prosecutions against those leaking classified information. And, of course, the Times might as well be a wholly owned subsidiary of Al Qaeda. But we all agree on that anyway.
The analysis may be correct; the assertions by the unnamed sources is false. In fact, the Times' report is fake reporting. There is only the Times' characterization of the discussion about the report. They bank on their written words being perceived as truth. In any "discussion," both what is said, unabridged, and who is saying it gives the argument substance and weight. The Times adds weight with very parsed extracts and the unnamed characterizing them. There is no give and take, no dissenting opinion from anyone including those the Times says support the administration. It is all birdcage lining.
Fine with me - let that be their last protest on Earth. I'm not forgiving or forgetting, and maybe I'm just pissed today, but I have had it up to HERE with our traitorous, treacherous news media Toyko Rose would have been embarassed by this bunch.
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