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Sobering Conclusions on Why Jihad Has Spread    [

    Read It Yourself, Says Bush as Threat Report Made Public
    By Tim Reid
    The Times

    Wednesday 27 September 2006

    President Bush took the extraordinary step last night of authorising the public release of his government's classified terror threat assessment, a move that seemed to bolster claims by his opponents that the Iraq war was fueling global terrorism.

    In excerpts of the usually highly classified National Intelligence Estimate released by the White House, the US intelligence community states that the Iraq war has provided Islamist militants with a "cause célèbre" that allowed the global movement to cultivate supporters. The office of John Negroponte, the US intelligence director, released a 3-page section of the 30-page report, containing its key judgments, hours after Mr Bush ordered it to be declassified to counter media reports that he said misrepresented conclusions about Iraq.

    "We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives," said the declassified segment of the report, titled Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States. It was completed in April but stands as America's current intelligence threat assessment.

    "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause célèbre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement." The report added: "If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide. The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups."

    During a White House press conference with President Karzai of Afghanistan, Mr Bush said it was a mistake to think that the Iraq war had increased the terrorism threat. He said he was ordering parts of the report to be declassified because using a portion of the report to attack his Iraq policy was misleading.

    Calling the leak politically motivated in the run-up to mid-term elections in November, Mr Bush said of the intelligence assessment: "You can read it for yourself. [It] will stop all the speculation."

    According to press reports, the document - a summary of the assessments delivered by America's 16 intelligence bodies - concluded that the Iraq war had created a new generation of Islamic terrorists and that the threat to the US was now greater than before the September 11 terror attacks.

    Part of the summary released last night stated: "United States-led counter-terrorism efforts have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qaeda and disrupted its operations; however, we judge that al-Qaeda will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organisation. We also assess that the global jihadist movement - which includes al-Qaeda, affiliated and independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells - is spreading and adapting to counter-terrorism efforts.

    "Although we cannot measure the extent of the spread with precision, a large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion."

    The document adds that underlying factors that are fuelling the spread of extremist Muslim movements outweigh their vulnerabilities. The factors that are fuelling the spread of Islamic extremism are entrenched, and are centred on a slow pace of reform in Arab countries, rising anti-US sentiment and the Iraq war.

    Mr Bush's opponents seized on the excerpts as proof that his Iraq policy was not working. "The Bush Administration's failed policies in Iraq are fuelling global terrorism and making America less safe," Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, said.

    "These results are the unfortunate consequences of the Administration's decision to cherry-pick pre-war intelligence, ignore our senior military leaders and completely fail to plan for the post-Saddam occupation," he added.

    Terror in the Post-Iraq World

    Madrid: March 11, 2004

    Co-ordinated explosions onboard commuter trains, above, kill 191 people and wound more than 1,700

    London: July 7, 2005

    Near-simultaneous blasts by suicide bombers on the capital's public transport system during morning rush hour kill 52 people and injure 700

    Sharm el-Sheikh: July 23, 2005

    Eighty-eight people were killed and more than 150 injured by a series of blasts at the Egyptian holiday resort

    Bali: October 1, 2005

    Bombs at two sites kill twenty people and three suicide bombers

    Amman: November 9, 2005

    Three hotels are bombed in the Jordanian capital, killing 60 people and injuring 115

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    Read the declassified sections of report.

 

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    Go to Original

    Sobering Conclusions on Why Jihad Has Spread
    By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus
    The Washington Post

    Wednesday 27 September 2006

    In announcing yesterday that he would release the key judgments of a controversial National Intelligence Estimate, President Bush said he agreed with the document's conclusion "that because of our successes against the leadership of al-Qaeda, the enemy is becoming more diffuse and independent."

    But the estimate itself posits no such cause and effect. Instead, while it notes that counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged and disrupted al-Qaeda's leadership, it describes the spreading "global jihadist movement" as fueled largely by forces that al-Qaeda exploits but is not actively directing. They include Iraq, corrupt and unjust governments in Muslim-majority countries, and "pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among most Muslims."

    The overall estimate is bleak, with minor notes of optimism. It depicts a movement that is likely to grow more quickly than the West's ability to counter it over the next five years, as the Iraq war continues to breed "deep resentment" throughout the Muslim world, shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and cultivating new supporters for their ideology.

    In describing Iraq as "the 'cause celebre' for jihadists," the document judges that real and perceived insurgent successes there will "inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere," while losses would have the opposite effect. It predicts that the elimination of al-Qaeda leaders, particularly Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed after the estimate was completed in April, would probably leave that organization splintered into disparate groups that "for at least a time, pose a less serious threat to U.S. interests" than the current al-Qaeda structure.

    On the relative bright side, the assessment notes the unpopularity with "the vast majority of Muslims" of the jihadists' brutal tactics and ultraconservative ideology. Democratic reforms and peaceful political alternatives in Muslim countries will also counter terrorist aims, it says.

    But "the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the timeframe of this estimate," the report notes. An intelligence official who was not authorized to speak on the record said the time frame is until early 2011.

    The key judgments released yesterday made up slightly more than three pages of a much longer document that includes supporting background information. The judgments were intact except for what the official called "a small amount, and I emphasize small, of sensitive text" that was removed "to protect sources or address sensitivities" of allied intelligence agencies, or to "protect tactical recommendations that could become a part of future policy actions."

    "What you're seeing here is really the key judgments," the official said.

    Descriptions of the unseen document in media reports last weekend quoted intelligence officials as saying it described a global terrorist threat that was worsening as a result of the Iraq war. The reports led to an explosion of reaction, with the Bush administration and leading congressional Republicans saying that the published portions did not reflect the document's balanced view of successes and remaining challenges. It was no accident, Bush charged, that selective and potentially damaging parts had been "leaked" on the eve of the midterm elections.

    Democrats, sensing advantage, contended that the administration had withheld a negative assessment for political reasons and demanded its release. The clamor apparently led Bush, in a meeting yesterday with Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, to authorize publication of the judgments.

    Democratic claims of an administration coverup seemed less justified yesterday as it became apparent that the complete classified report had been made available to lawmakers within days of its completion in April.

    Copies of the NIE were sent to the House and Senate intelligence, armed services and foreign affairs committees at the time, through normal electronic information channels available to all members, intelligence and congressional sources said. It arrived at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on April 26.

    In the House, "there was a bit of a snafu with this particular document," said a spokesman for Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the intelligence committee chairman. "We had a massive computer failure on our classified side." The first that the committee knew of its existence was late last week, when "it was requested specifically by a member. That was when it was found and scanned into our system."

    Whether the document was ignored or disappeared into cyberspace, however, it seemed to have made little impact on Capitol Hill at the time. No one in either chamber, on either side of the aisle, requested a briefing or any further information on its conclusions until now, the sources said.

    The intelligence community has had its own problems with the attention the document is now receiving. Several active and retired intelligence officials stressed that the judgments were nothing new and followed a series of similar assessments made since early 2003 about the impact of the Iraq war on global terrorism.

    "This is very much mainstream stuff," said Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005. "There are no surprises."

    Several active and retired intelligence officials, who were not authorized to speak on behalf of the intelligence community, expressed resentment at the administration's decision to have Negroponte issue the first official reaction to the weekend reports. They said he should not have become involved in what quickly became a political battle.