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Entries by tag: nie

Mission Accomplished!

A classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessing terrorism trends by 16 American intelligence agencies says that our 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, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

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.
(emphasis is mine) "Metastasized." There's a lovely mental image.

We should keep in mind that NIEs have been wrong before. Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste is one of several retired military leaders who have gone public, saying they agree with the report's conclusions and blame Rumsfeld. Place your bets: how long do you think it will take the GOP to paint them as appeasing, yellow-bellied, liberal, communist terrorist sympathizers?

The White House is trying to downplay the damage and says the Times is providing an incomplete picture. (More here.) This begs the question of what exactly else is in the document that could possibly refute a clear conclusion that our President's war in Iraq to combat terrorism has not only failed but actually made the overall problem worse.

In the meantime, VP Cheney's still sounding the "Dems Soft on Terror" alarm. (I'd say it was in response to the NIE, but Cheney's been saying exactly the same thing since 9/11.) One has to wonder how calling for a resolution to a conflict that is actually helping terrorist goals is being "soft on terror".

Oh and our military says its budget is stretched too thin. By billions of dollars. Thanks to the Iraq quagmire.

Second-term Presidents are often concerned with what their legacy will be. Do you think Bush will be the "Misunderestimator"?

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