The White House faced fresh political peril yesterday in the form of a new intelligence assessment that raised sharp questions about the success of its counterterrorism strategy and judgment in making Iraq the focus of that effort.
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush has been able to deflect criticism of his counterterrorism policy by repeatedly noting the absence of any new domestic attacks and by citing the continuing threat that terrorists in Iraq pose to U.S. interests.
But this line of defense seemed to unravel a bit yesterday with the release of a new National Intelligence Estimate that concludes that al-Qaeda “has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability” by reestablishing a haven in Pakistan and reconstituting its top leadership. The report also notes that al-Qaeda has been able “to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks,” by associating itself with an Iraqi subsidiary.
These disclosures triggered a new round of criticism from Democrats and others who say that the administration took its eye off the ball by invading Iraq without first destroying Osama bin Laden’s organization in Afghanistan.
The latest NIE, however, is a strange product. According to highly reliable sources in the intelligence community, no new intelligence at all is reflected in the NIE. Its conclusions, on one level, are a rehash of obvious facts that anyone who reads a daily newspaper could glean, such as the protected status of al-Qaida in frontier regions of Pakistan. Other conclusions lack contextual analysis, partly because of the continuing pressure from the administration to politicize information and cherry-pick intelligence. The NIE, for example, does not explain that al-Qaida in Iraq, while lethal, is a very small part of the Sunni insurgency, and that a number of Sunni insurgent groups are its sworn enemies. Nor did the NIE note how few foreign fighters are in Iraq and what a small percentage of insurgents they constitute. (A Los Angeles Times story published on July 15 reported that of the 19,000 Iraqi prisoners held by the U.S. military there, only 135 are foreign fighters, and nearly half are Saudis.) The NIE is utterly devoid of political analysis.
According to intelligence sources, CIA director Michael Hayden has been under attack within the administration from Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives since testifying frankly to the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group that urged a strategic redeployment of U.S. forces and new diplomatic efforts in the region, which were rejected by President Bush. A virtual paralysis is setting in within the intelligence community. Analysts are even anxious about putting their names on their reports. While they are homogenizing information, the administration is still unhappy with the result, as it was with the new NIE.
Is there anyone, Republican or Democrat, who DOESN’T now believe that we pulled the focus off Afghanistan too soon and will be paying for it for some time to come? Regardless of your views on the invasion of Iraq, it has to be pretty obvious to everyone by now that we failed to meet our objectives in Afghanistan.
If the new leadership in Al-Qaida wasn’t more concerned with putting Sunni’s back in power than it is in hitting Western targets I’d be a lot more worried. Hell, I still am worried, not that Western intelligence hasn’t been working like mad to root these guys out and shut them down, but honestly the insurgents seem to have made the same mistake we did, they shifted focus and it’s cost them momentum and support. Ironic.
You would think so, wouldn’t you? Except the Republicans are too busy spouting the party line to risk dissension, and the Democrats don’t want to appear to be weak on terror so are going along with it.
Sadly, the level of ignorance of people in this country is beyond fantastic. People are either too stupid to care, or too wrapped up in themselves to care, or are benefiting financially from the situation… thus care only about themselves. No matter how you dice it, too many people in this country don’t care to understand the truth, or cover their ears and eyes because the reality sucks.
If the new leadership in Al-Qaida wasn’t more concerned with putting Sunni’s back in power than it is in hitting Western targets I’d be a lot more worried. Hell, I still am worried, not that Western intelligence hasn’t been working like mad to root these guys out and shut them down, but honestly the insurgents seem to have made the same mistake we did, they shifted focus and it’s cost them momentum and support. Ironic.
I don’t really know what exactly you mean with the “ironic” half of your statement, but there is no question that longterm Sunni success in Iraq was not a priority for AQI. They used them mercilessly to foment division and disorder in Iraq, all the while fully understanding that the end result can only be the slaughter of the Sunni population. The important aspect is to weaken America’s perceived power and ensure instability regardless of the cost to the locals. Sunni leaders are beginning to grasp this as of my tour this year in Ramadi, as evidenced by the complete absence of violence in “the most dangerous city in Iraq” since we initially turned it around in December-January indicates as a sample. Al Anbar as a whole is intensely more quiet, the problem is that the antes have been raised so high in sectarian/tribal clashes along the major divides (eg Baghdad) that there are certain areas where Sunni violence is simply a reaction to Shiite pressure, and vice versa.
Anyhow, I’m not saying the situation isn’t dismal. I’m just saying that AQI has a much different use for Iraqi Sunnis than the one you imply.
Now we return to the regularly scheduled disgruntled leftist platitudes. And…GO!!!
Your perspective having had eyes and ears on the ground over there is far better than mine (glad you’re back safe by the way, welcome home belatedly). I had read article recently dealing with the shift in power at the top levels of AQI away from the unified anti-Western front that Osama preached and more towards a divisionist stance where Sunni and Shiite conflict became a priority once more.
It was my understanding that a lot of the Iraqi on Iraqi violence that has been so prevelant the past couple of years was a direct result of this, and is an effort to undermine Shiite control and confidence with the dual purpose of turning public opinion against the Western presence and returning Sunni leaders to power in places destabliazed by the violence.
The Iraq war grabs the headlines, though increasingly it, too, is seen through the prism of the American political campaign for 2008, which is already in full swing. The U.S. public seemed little interested in the bin Laden videotape praising al-Qaida martyrs, the first to appear since October 2004. The Italian arrests barely registered on public consciousness. The connection of the Red Mosque events and the subsequent turmoil in Waziristan to the revitalized al-Qaida presence in Pakistan was seldom recognized by the U.S. press.
Astonishingly, al-Qaida may be back, and the signs of its resurgence are everywhere, but there is little reaction from an American public that has everything to fear from the group. War-weary, bogged down in a fruitless guerrilla war in Iraq, disillusioned with the Bush team (which has lied to it assiduously), the public appears to be taking its eye off al-Qaida. If so, it would be making the same mistake as Bush, who is obsessed with Iraq to the detriment of urgent counterterrorism measures. Those efforts, to be successful, will require international cooperation rather than unilateral grandstanding, not something in which this administration has proved adept.
The U.S. public seemed little interested in the bin Laden videotape praising al-Qaida martyrs, the first to appear since October 2004. The Italian arrests barely registered on public consciousness. The connection of the Red Mosque events and the subsequent turmoil in Waziristan to the revitalized al-Qaida presence in Pakistan was seldom recognized by the U.S. press.
Astonishingly, al-Qaida may be back, and the signs of its resurgence are everywhere…
I’m deeply dismayed by the lack of urgency on this threat. It’s not even so much that al-Qaeda are “back,” in the sense of OBL’s operation reconstituting itself, but rather that OBL-inspired cells are maturing and may now be bringing their attack-preparation cycles to a close.
This is already the conclusion of several private terror-watch NGOs, who note that all the preliminary omens of a Qaeda-style attack – including the pulse of “forewarning/fair-warning” communications that are the network’s PR trademark – seem to be have been issued publicly in recent months.
I agree, the AP News description (care of MSNBC) definitely left me thinking WTF.
[ul]
[li] San Diego, July 7. A U.S. person — either a citizen or a foreigner legally here — checked baggage containing two ice packs covered in duct tape. The ice packs had clay inside them rather than the normal blue gel.
[/li] [li] Milwaukee, June 4. A U.S. person’s carryon baggage contained wire coil wrapped around a possible initiator, an electrical switch, batteries, three tubes and two blocks of cheese. The bulletin said block cheese has a consistency similar to some explosives.
[/li] [li] Houston, Nov. 8, 2006. A U.S. person’s checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a 9-volt battery, wires, a block of brown clay-like minerals and pipes.
[/li] [li] Baltimore, Sept. 16, 2006. A couple’s checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a block of processed cheese taped to another plastic bag holding a cellular phone charger.
[/li][/ul]
As it says: “a U.S. person — either a citizen or a foreigner legally here”. I assume that means it could include someone here with a Green Card. I suppose it also might include people on Student Visas.
For some reason i can’t edit my previous quote, so…
The bulletin said the ice packs found in San Diego contained clay.
But local TSA Security Director Michael J. Aguilar – and the chief of the police agency that patrols the airport – said Wednesday that while screeners initially thought the packs held a clay-like substance, it was quickly determined they contained the usual blue gel.
Aguilar said he didn’t know why the TSA memo, issued in Washington, reported the substance as clay.
Christopher White, a spokesman with the TSA in Washington, contradicted the San Diego officials and said the agency stood by its bulletin.
“The information that we have in the report is for official use only and I am not going to discuss our sources,” White said.
Aguilar said TSA screeners at Lindbergh spotted the ice packs while working an X-ray machine. He said he believed the incident occurred in Terminal 2.
San Diego Harbor Police Chief Kirk Sanfilippo said the incident involved a bag checked by a woman in her 60s flying out of Lindbergh Field.
Sanfilippo said a routine swab test of the bag indicated the presence of a chemical that is sometimes used in explosives or medications. Inside the luggage, inspectors found cold packs, wrapped in clear packing tape, that were old and leaking.
The TSA bulletin said the ice packs were covered in duct tape and had clay inside of them.
Sanfilippo said they weren’t covered in duct tape and didn’t have clay inside of them. “It is a little bit off,” he said of the bulletin.
The chief said a Harbor Police officer found what appeared to be hardened old gel that had seeped out of the ice packs and dried, leaving a clay-like substance around the outside edge of the pack.
Investigators with the county’s Metro Arson Strike Team were called in to assess the ice packs, and they determined there was no risk.
In all, it took about three hours for the woman’s luggage to be cleared by security officials.
At a South Carolina Air Force base yesterday,Bush mentioned al-Qaeda and bin Laden 118 times in 29 minutes, arguing that the violence unleashed by the U.S. invasion in Iraq would somehow come to America’s shores if U.S. troops were to withdraw.
