[FredZarguna]

The book is direct, lucid, and a quick read. Highly recommended. From this source and a number of others informed readers will understand that the current wisdom regarding the connection between al Qaeda and a number of state actors, including--but not limited to--Iraq is nothing but a sedulously constructed legend courtesy of the CIA. Like Hoover's FBI which denied the existence of the Italian Mafia because the FBI had not uncovered it, the CIA must maintain the fiction cultivated during the disastrous Clinton administration that terrorism is not the result of state sponsorship.

That the CIA would arrive at this conclusion is genuinely breathtaking, given that before the fall of the Soviet Union there was overwhelming evidence that nearly every single terrorist organization on earth--from Irish Republican Army terrorists to Palestinians received money, training, communication, and even direction from the KGB. Why the collapse of Russian Communism required a similar collapse in the state direction of terrorist organizations has never really been explained--simply accepted.

A fatal mistake, and one that Bush needs to correct with a complete overhaul of US Intelligence in his second term.