Yet another Iraq "I hate to say I told you so, but... I told you so," situation
 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Jan13.html


Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground
War Created Haven, CIA Advisers Report

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A01

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

Low's comments came during a rare briefing by the council on its new report on long-term global trends. It took a year to produce and includes the analysis of 1,000 U.S. and foreign experts. Within the 119-page report is an evaluation of Iraq's new role as a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists.

President Bush has frequently described the Iraq war as an integral part of U.S. efforts to combat terrorism. But the council's report suggests the conflict has also helped terrorists by creating a haven for them in the chaos of war.

"At the moment," NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchings said, Iraq "is a magnet for international terrorist activity."

Before the U.S. invasion, the CIA said Saddam Hussein had only circumstantial ties with several al Qaeda members. Osama bin Laden rejected the idea of forming an alliance with Hussein and viewed him as an enemy of the jihadist movement because the Iraqi leader rejected radical Islamic ideals and ran a secular government.

Bush described the war in Iraq as a means to promote democracy in the Middle East. "A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East," he said one month before the invasion. "Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both."

But as instability in Iraq grew after the toppling of Hussein, and resentment toward the United States intensified in the Muslim world, hundreds of foreign terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders. They found tons of unprotected weapons caches that, military officials say, they are now using against U.S. troops. Foreign terrorists are believed to make up a large portion of today's suicide bombers, and U.S. intelligence officials say these foreigners are forming tactical, ever-changing alliances with former Baathist fighters and other insurgents.

"The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report says.

According to the NIC report, Iraq has joined the list of conflicts -- including the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, and independence movements in Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao in the Philippines, and southern Thailand -- that have deepened solidarity among Muslims and helped spread radical Islamic ideology.

At the same time, the report says that by 2020, al Qaeda "will be superseded" by other Islamic extremist groups that will merge with local separatist movements. Most terrorism experts say this is already well underway. The NIC says this kind of ever-morphing decentralized movement is much more difficult to uncover and defeat.

Terrorists are able to easily communicate, train and recruit through the Internet, and their threat will become "an eclectic array of groups, cells and individuals that do not need a stationary headquarters," the council's report says. "Training materials, targeting guidance, weapons know-how, and fund-raising will become virtual (i.e. online)."

The report, titled "Mapping the Global Future," highlights the effects of globalization and other economic and social trends. But NIC officials said their greatest concern remains the possibility that terrorists may acquire biological weapons and, although less likely, a nuclear device.

The council is tasked with midterm and strategic analysis, and advises the CIA director. "The NIC's goal," one NIC publication states, "is to provide policymakers with the best, unvarnished, and unbiased information -- regardless of whether analytic judgments conform to U.S. policy."

Other than reports and studies, the council produces classified National Intelligence Estimates, which represent the consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies on specific issues.

Yesterday, Hutchings, former assistant dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, said the NIC report tried to avoid analyzing the effect of U.S. policy on global trends to avoid being drawn into partisan politics.

Among the report's major findings is that the likelihood of "great power conflict escalating into total war . . . is lower than at any time in the past century." However, "at no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alignments been in such a state of flux as they have in the past decade."

The report also says the emergence of China and India as new global economic powerhouses "will be the most challenging of all" Washington's regional relationships. It also says that in the competition with Asia over technological advances, the United States "may lose its edge" in some sectors.

No, no no. The world is a safer place now. The world is a safer place now. The world is a safer place now...

Five years after the U.S. removes the significant portion of its military strength from Iraq, the country will be, in effect, an Islamic state.* What Bush thinks Iran is now, in fact.

*Well, the bottom two-thirds will. The top third will be a de facto Kurdish state, which will piss the Turks off to no end, further hindering U.S. diplomacy in the ME.

Well, it is also a haven for would-be terrorists deaths. So we've got that going for us.

Terrorist recruiter: "We're going to send you to Faluja to get some real life experience."
Would-be terrorist: "What does that mean?"
Terrorist recruiter: "Well, you'll fight Americans and learn their tactics."
Would-be terrorist: "F### you. I'm going to Morocco to train on the beach."

I say we trade the Alphabet and some furs with India now so that Prime Minister Gandhi likes us in the future. I don't trust that Mao Tse Tung at all.

:D :D

"Our words are backed by NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!"

drop the sex bomb on them and all will be well

I'd rather have the terrorists in Iraq up against heavily armed US soldiers than anywhere else in the world.

The point of the article is the that Iraq is giving terrorist a "training and breeding ground" to export terrorism everywhere in the world.

Could have never seen that coming. :rolleyes:

You would? I still think it would have been better to have activated all the forces used for Iraq and have sent them all into Afghanistan. We might have actually caught Osama bin Laden that way. While actually cleaning out Afghanistan (ie, not holding troops back for Iraq), they could find out they had bad intelligence and not go around the world insisting Saddam had things that he didn't. That way we would have had a better chance to resolve the bin Laden issue finally, and not have blown all of our credibility getting bogged down in another quagmire.

Maybe we don't create a new battle-hardened mujahadeen in Iraq if we finish the business in Afghanistan first...just a thought. Now we have unfinished business in multiple places and the world news doesn't paint as peaceful a picture as the Bush Administration does.

The article gives the impression that this has started since the US military overthrew the government. If you believe Bush, they were training terrorists there all along with the financing and blessing of Saddam himself.

Your pathetic civilization makes us laugh. Were it not for that accursed wall, we would destroy you.

We see you have one tiny speck of land that is untouched by your decadant culture. We shall send our settler across your entire country to colonize it. Don't like it? TOUGH!

Ahhh...the Great Wall. Those were the days.

Oh, you have tanks in 1500AD? You want my cities?

TOO BAD, KHAN!!!

Update:

CIA Director Porter Goss and Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, confirm and reiterate details of the report this week.


There's a lot more in the article, but it's really all spelled out in the OP.

lets just pull our troops out and drop a nuke-ya-lur bomb.

That's the type of sophisticated response I expect from the leader of the free world.

Note the article says "unintended consequence" not "unforseen." I think we can take the third-world Unabombers.

"...to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq,"

Well, duh.

That's why you don't leave any "experienced survivors -- you make them "dead experienced terrorists". And those who do escape, you hunt them down & kill them.
Sheesh, this really isn't brain surgery folks.

I agree. Why then, isn't the Administration doing this?

One day at a time flere, one day a time. The festering cesspool was not created in a day & cannot be cleaned up in a day, at least not via any practical means, that's just an unhappy & unfortunate truth of the situation.

Well, all reports point to Al-Qaida completely lacking a presence in pre-invasion Iraq, and how many days did the "invasion" of Iraq take?

Umm ... you do realize that al-Qaida isn't the only terrorist group out there, right?

{FTR, I'm not trying to be a complete smartass, I just don't quite follow your point given that fact}

My point is that Iraq now (and for the forseeable future) is more of a terrorist breeding-ground than it was before.

And where did all of those new terrorists breed from? Oh yeah, Afghanistan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

So the question becomes would you rather have 1000 terrorists in Afghanistan, 1000 in Syria, 1000 in Iraq, 1000 in Iran and 1000 in SA - or 5000 in Iraq sprinkled around about 120,000 heavily armored US troops?

That's a tough one to answer...

Did you see those Huns?? They popped out of the snow! Like daisies!"

-Mushu

one of the few times i agree with you.

Obviously this is easier said than done. We were going to smoke Osama bin Laden out over 3 years ago and we still don't know where he is.

That's the hard part. They keep hiding.

So the U.S.'s goal was to make a honeypot for terrorists in Iraq?

1. You can't be serious.
2. You can't be serious if you believe that all the terrorists will concentrate in Iraq.

I mean to be just a little serious. I think they described it as an "unintended consequence" not a master plan. The admin is simply spinning this into the best light possible. They are making lemonade out of the fact that Terrorists have moved into Iraq after the removal of Hussein to fight the American Imperialists or are we Infidels to the terrorists. The Baathists call of Imperialists.

Lately, basically post-Fallujah, it seems these reports like "Terrorism exported from Iraq to other Gulf States" - like Jordan, Kuwait, I think Yemen too, but I don't remember exactly. And you know why they are doing this? Because we're killing and/or running ragged the ones that stay behind. The jihadis are not Iraqis (although a lot of the attacks there are committed by Iraqis, those are pretty much all common criminals in it for the bountys provided - coming from where? Mainly Syrian funds established by Saddam.) Where are the jihadis coming from? Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Sudan, etc. Coming mostly through Syria, getting direction and funding mostly from there. Kind of hard to eradicate the problem when you can't attack the base of operations. So are we doing anything about it now? I believe so, a lot of border security is being worked on and improved slowly. In a larger context, events in Lebanon as well as the US military's new directive that US forces are now allowed to chase terrorists into Syrian territory seem to point to a lot going on under the surface there. IMO, one by one we're trying to go after each of the failed middle eastern dictatorships that have spawned terrorism (of course you can't exactly come out and say to, for example, the Saudis that once the rest of these work you're up because they'd start working even more against us.) In the long-term, I'd be a lot more worried about places like Southern Thailand and the African countries along the Muslim-Christian divide as terrorism breeding grounds. But that's just my opinion based on what I have seen.

The word "terrorist" is being tossed around like they are some sort of set army, or a race of people. This is a ideology that we are inflaming, location is irrelevant.

We have inticed a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis, because of our actions in invading Iraq. There has always been a divide between the two, everyone knows that - so surely our government would forsee a high probability of a civil war between the two, once we invaded and "liberated" them. But we did nothing or just flat out didnt care that a war would breakout between the two.

Then you have to look at how the Sunnis and Shiites war with one another? Car bombs, random rpg attacks, etc... terrorism. So in turn we've created even more terrorists who now have multiple causes.

Add that to the outsiders who strictly want us out of the middle east, and just want Americans dead... we are creating terrorists at an exponential rate, all over the world. They may or may not come to Iraq, they may just stew in their fanaticism until one day they snap, or even worse they know a lot of people just like them and they form a cell and formulate some major attack on the US or any of its allies.

You think all of them were "terrorists" before we went into Iraq?

Or do you think our actions have inspired some of them to take arms?

I dunno about a Civil War. I think we are a ways off from that sort of escalation. As for us doing nothing or not caring that there might be a war between the two. I think that is pretty misguided. We implemented a process that would put them on the road to a Constitution with the types of Freedoms they haven't really experienced before including protections to minority populations. I don't think it is fair to say that because not all of the Sunnis have embraced that situation yet is proof that the US didn't care what happened to them.

The Civil War part is just my forecast of the situation, its not there yet - but based off todays events and the last year, things are escalating between the two and I think its pretty undeniable thats where this is headed.

As far as any processess weve tried to put in place, like the elections, I thought it was pretty well known in advance the Sunnis would boycott any US lead elections? With that knoweldge, isnt it a confirmation of a impending civil war? If they dont recognize the government, then thats pretty much all you can gather of whats going to happen. I wouldnt be so resolute in this civil war assumption if the vast majority of Sunnis did not take part in the elections.

Hasnt anyone else noticed the crazy increase in civilian casualties since the election?

In the Iraqi Occupation there ARE Iraqi freedom fighters.

Now, the US may want to call them terrorist, but a lot of them are just people trying to defend their homes and their way of life. Their country has been invaded their way of life has been taken away; Just how would you act if this happened to you?

What is so hard to understand? Some people will fight for their homes, families, and personal freedom untill they are dead, dead, dead. Or untill the invading force leaves.

Hell, why don't we just send Jack Bauer over there.. he can clear up this whole problem in 24 hours.. by himself

So would this apply to those Iraqis risking their lives to vote and hopefully control their own destiny, or from the 'resistance' led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who has "declared a bitter war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it," and denounced the Shi'a (a majority of Iraqis) as heretics and "the most evil of mankind." ?

Do not assume that, just because the US and our allies do not have entirely altruistic motives in mind, most/many among those fighting against us are simply nationalists, motivated by what they think is best for their country and its people as a whole. Because, well, it's not true in this case, if it has ever been. No offense, but the two groups have never been particularly enamored of one another, and I'm curious as to why you think the situation has gotten worse. Assuming the al-Zarqawi memo was true, there have been those trying to ignite a civil war for some thime now, (and we could even go back to when Saddam was in power, the '91 massacring etc) but thanks to restrained leadership by the likes of Sistani the Shi'as have abstained from retaliation and militarizing along religious lines. Civil Wars are almost never started because of ethnic/religious motives. They are started for economic reasons (largely Sunni Baath Party trying to regain its power and money) and unfortunately become radicalized because as much as some would like to pretend its a nationalist uprising, its really a small portion of the population trying to regain its diproportionate power and thus eventually the only recruits that can be found are from said group (usually tribal, but occasionally also religious and/or ethnic/geographic lines).

And when it comes to elections, I think it'd be wonderful if/when everyone has an equal say, but as the beginnings of this country proved, universal suffrage is not necessary to establish a functioning democracy.Link? I've seen numbers indicating a marked drop-off in attacks on coalition forces since the election (still too small a sample size to extrapolate from) so if you can show me hard numbers on things like attacks on civilians, or attacks on ING/IP, or # of those murdered by bombings/attacks going up, I'd like to see it.

This is what always gets me. A free Iraq??? Believe it or not, before the US invaded there were people in Iraq who were Happy, who enjoyed their lives, who enjoyed their freedom under "their" leadership, and who simply just loved their country and their leaders.

Do you mean the thousands of people the US allowed to vote or the millions of Iraqi's who could not or would not vote?

All I was saying was this report should not call everyone in Iraq that takes up arms against Americans Terrorist. Some of them are just simply trying to defend their property and their way of life. I have read this article and many others exactly like it that absolutely refuse to believe that their are Iraqi Freedom Fighters just trying to defend their land and their way of life any way they can.

You simply can NOT call anyone who is just trying to defend their Family, their homes, their Way Of Life Terrorists!!! Like it or not We are the invaders over their.

I think you've been watching too much Fahrenheit 9/11 and not paying attention to what actual Iraqis are saying/have said about that time period. (To stave off a technical point - yes there were undoubtedly some, but such a miniscule percentage that it is ridiculous to consider their welfare above that of the other 90/95+ %)Umm, about 8 million out of an estimated 14 million voted. For perspective, that's about the % that vote in US Presidential elections, where the threat of violence is non-existent. So you might want to flip millions or thousands in that sentence, if at least so we can skip directly to the arguments that the voting was meaningless/installed a theocracy beholden to Iran/only marginalized the Sunnis more and ensured a Civil War would break out/was only because their religious leaders told them to vote/was just like the elections in Vietnam and see how that turned out/ - I'm sure there are more I'm missing, feel free to pick one from above or add a different reason why a majority of the Iraqis showing up to vote in the face of death threats was a bad thing and/or showed we are losing....and Al-Zarqawi's network of foreign jihadis which have found American troops too hard a target and have mostly resorted to bombing Iraqi citizens, oftentimes indiscriminately, have denounced the religion of ~60% of Iraqis and issued a death threat to all 8 million who voted in the election are what, exactly? Comrades welcomed with open arms and gratitude?

Yeah, they were all peaceful farmers that loved the US before we entered Iraq. Then, they through down their shovels and joined Al Qaeda.

Come on, there's been serious terrorist activity in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel and Iran for years. These people have a vested interest in not seeing Iraq settle into a democratic form of government and the US troops have pretty much wiped out most of the Iraqi-based terrorists by now. Their options are to stay in Syria and plot international acts, continue to suicide bomb in Israel or flock to Iraq with hopes they can eventually force the US people to lose their resolve and leave.

As an aside, has anyone noticed the large drop in terrorist activity in Syria and the much lower number of Palestinian suicide bombing incidents in the past year? I guess that's a coincidence as well.

Your parallel would hold some merit if a very large chunk of the remaining insurgents weren't of foreign origin. The reality is that almost all the native Iraqis left are beginning to embrace this change as evident by the large election turnout and recent opinion polls.

And in addition now they are focused Totally on the US as to before when there interested with us was probably one of a number of targets they had. It is never a good thing to attract attacks on our own soldiers.

I got to agree with you 100%. The location is irrelevant it is a state of mind.

I found this article and a yahoo news article that questioned the accuracy of the 14 million voter number.



Officials Back Away form Early Iraq Election Turnout





Iraq election

So, again, even if it's closer to 45% instead of 57%, that's still well inline with most national elections. In the US, we had 51% turnout in 2000 and 49% in 1996. It seems to me everyone is bickering on where the turnout was on the scale of 45 to 60%. No matter where it is, it's right in line with US turnout. And I doubt anyone is going to state the elections in 1996 or 2000 were "illegitimate" because of turnout.

Thats some pretty weak rationale. Do you honestly believe that a countries first ever election would or should have a 45% turnout? Do you think if we had national elections in 1780, that we would have only a 45% turnout? We rode mid to low 60% turnout rates all through the 50's and 60's... and even with a complacent, coddled, nothing to care about society that we have in America today, we still hover in the 50's %.

Iraq is nothing like America and has been nothing like America for 1000's of years longer than weve been in existance, so Amercias turnout numbers are completely irrelevant on every imaginable level.

Ahhhh...............what he said. :D

Agree 100%!