Report on Iraq War by Intelligence Agencies
three stories plus the declassified report
Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Fuels Terror
The conflict spreads extremism and serves as a laboratory for deadly tactics, says a bleak analysis by 16 U.S. intelligence units.
Greg Miller
Los Angeles Times
September 24, 2006
WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq has made global terrorism worse by fanning Islamic
radicalism and providing a training ground for lethal methods that are
increasingly being exported to other countries, according to a sweeping
assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies.
The classified document, which represents a consensus view of all 16 U.S.
intelligence agencies, paints a considerably bleaker picture of the impact of
the Iraq war than Bush administration or U.S. intelligence officials have
acknowledged publicly, according to officials familiar with the assessment.
"They conclude that the Iraq war has made it worse," said a government official
familiar with the document who spoke on condition of anonymity because of its
classified nature.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly have described the war
in Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism and argue that Americans
are safer as a result of the administration's policies.
The report, titled "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United
States," was completed and described to U.S. government officials in April but
not made public. The document is what is known as a National Intelligence
Estimate, or NIE, which is designed to represent the U.S. intelligence
community's most comprehensive treatment of a subject.
The 30-page report documents an array of disturbing trends in the war on
terrorism and focuses on forces that are contributing to the evolution of
Islamic terrorist networks from centralized structures to an increasingly
fragmented ideological movement.
"It paints a fairly stark picture of what we all know, and that this is a
movement that is spreading and gaining momentum around the world," said the
official familiar with the document. "Things like the Iraq war have given the
terrorists recruiting tools and places to ply their trade and a training
ground."
The official said the estimate touches on a number of factors fueling the
jihadist movement, but that "the reference to Iraq was the main one."
A U.S. intelligence official who has seen the document said that many of the
report's findings were outlined in a speech in San Antonio in April by Gen.
Michael V. Hayden, the former principal deputy director of national
intelligence. Hayden has since become director of the CIA.
Hayden did not single out the Iraq war in the speech as a particularly powerful
force shaping terrorist networks. But he did acknowledge "the centrality of
Iraq" and said the conflict there and how it is portrayed in Islamic media
continue to cultivate support for the global jihadist movement.
In that speech, Hayden said that the global jihadist movement "is spreading and
adjusting to our counterterrorism efforts, and it is also exploiting the
communications revolution, the Internet."
While describing the Al Qaeda terrorist network as still the most dangerous
threat to the United States, Hayden said that Islamic activists were
increasingly identifying themselves as jihadists, and that they were "increasing
in both their number and in their geographic dispersion."
Hayden went on to say how factors fueling the spread of the movement, including
"entrenched grievances — corruption, historic injustice, even fear of Western
domination — leave many in parts of the Islamic world with feelings of anger and
a sense of powerlessness."
The Bush administration has made the case that a democratic government in the
Middle East would serve as a beacon to other nations, providing new hope to
populations of disaffected Muslims.
"The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power," Bush said in
his speech to the nation on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. "The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the
streets of Baghdad." He also said that Americans were "safer, but we are not yet
safe" from terrorism.
Bush and Cheney frequently have dismissed suggestions that the U.S. presence in
Iraq has inflamed anger toward the United States, arguing that U.S. forces were
not in Baghdad on Sept. 11, 2001.
In the run-up to November midterm elections, Republicans in Congress have sought
to emphasize their credentials on national security and fighting terrorism,
uncoupling those issues from the war in Iraq, which is unpopular with voters.
In public testimony and unclassified documents, U.S. intelligence officials have
for several years been pointing to the more troubling consequences of the
drawn-out conflict in Iraq. In particular, officials have highlighted the anger
that Muslim extremists feel about the U.S. presence in the region — which has
also been one of Osama bin Laden's rallying cries.
Intelligence officials have also pointed to the flow of Muslims from other
countries, including Europe, to Iraq to join the insurgency. Those who survive
the fighting often leave and return to their home countries with dangerous new
experience in urban fighting, bomb-making and — perhaps most important —
credibility with other potential Muslim recruits.
Last week, the House Intelligence Committee warned in a report that the danger
from terrorists faced by the U.S. was "more alarming than the threat that
existed" before Sept. 11. The document also warned that Iraq had become a
breeding ground for terrorists who might target other countries.
The April intelligence estimate was produced under the direction of David B.
Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. Its
conclusions were first reported by the New York Times on its website on
Saturday.
National Intelligence Estimates are produced by the National Intelligence
Council, a group of high-level analysts from government and academic
institutions. The council was previously based at the CIA. But following
intelligence overhauls passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, the council
was restructured to report to Director of National Intelligence John D.
Negroponte.
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White House Rebuts Bleak Report on Iraq
Bush officials disagree with a U.S. intelligence analysis that the war has spread terrorism, saying Islamic extremism goes back generations.
By Richard A. Serrano
Times Staff Writer
September 25, 2006
WASHINGTON —The White House on Sunday sharply disagreed with a new U.S.
intelligence assessment that the war in Iraq is encouraging global terrorism, as
Bush administration officials stressed that anti-American fervor in the Muslim
world began long before the Sept. 11 attacks.
White House spokesman Peter Watkins declined to talk specifically about the
National Intelligence Estimate, a classified analysis that represents a
consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
The report, delivered to policymakers in April, is the first of its kind since
the Iraq war's start in March 2003. In it, the agencies concluded that the war
had damaged the U.S. effort to defeat global terrorism. They said that the war
was spreading radicalism from Iraq throughout the Middle East and that the
longer it continued, the more likely it was to provide fresh training grounds
for future terrorist plots.
But the White House view, according to Watkins, is that much of the radicals'
rage at the United States and Israel goes back generations and is not linked to
the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
"Their hatred for freedom and liberty did not develop overnight," Watkins said.
"Those seeds were planted decades ago."
He said the administration had sought in Iraq to root out hotbeds of terrorism
before they grew. "Instead of waiting while they plot and plan attacks to kill
innocent Americans, the United States has taken the initiative to fight back,"
Watkins said.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also have highlighted the war in
Iraq as the United States' main thrust in the fight against terrorism,
contending that the world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power.
Also, Sunday's newspaper articles on the National Intelligence Estimate — by the
New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times — were "not
representative of the complete document," the White House said. That assessment
was echoed by National Intelligence Director John D. Negroponte, whose office
prepared the report.
In a statement e-mailed to reporters Sunday afternoon, Negroponte said "the
conclusions of the intelligence community are designed to be comprehensive, and
viewing them through the narrow prism of a fraction of judgments distorts the
broad framework they create."
"The Estimate highlights the importance of the outcome in Iraq on the future of
global jihadism," he said. If Iraq develops "a stable political and security
environment, the jihadists will be perceived to have failed, and fewer jihadists
will leave Iraq determined to carry on the fight elsewhere."
There is "an enormous and constantly mutating struggle before us in the long war
on terror," Negroponte said.
Senate Armed Services Committee member John McCain (R-Ariz.), a likely 2008
presidential candidate, agreed with the White House view that such radicalism
predated the toppling of Hussein and that radicals were always looking for
reasons to recruit jihadists.
"If it wasn't Iraq, it'd be Afghanistan," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "If
it wasn't Afghanistan, it would be others that they would use as a method of
continuing their recruitment."
But McCain also cautioned that the longer the war continued, "the more likely
they are to have more recruits."
He added, "It's obvious that the difficulties we've experienced in Iraq have
certainly emboldened [terrorists]. Lack of success always does that."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said he was "very
concerned" by the intelligence analysis.
"My feel is that the war in Iraq has intensified Islam fundamentalism and
radicalism," he told CNN's "Late Edition."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he agreed with the intelligence
assessment that the war was breeding more terrorists.
"President Bush's repeated missteps in Iraq and his stubborn refusal to change
course have made America less safe," Reid said in a statement Sunday. "No
election-year White House PR campaign can hide this truth.
"It is crystal clear," he added, "that America's security demands we change
course in Iraq."
And Rep. Jane Harman of Venice, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee, said on "Late Edition" that "every intelligence analyst I speak to
confirms" that Iraq had made matters worse.
The war in Iraq is a "failed policy," she said.
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September 27, 2006
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Three years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote a memo to his colleagues in the Pentagon posing a critical question in the “long war’’ against terrorism: Is Washington’s strategy successfully killing or capturing terrorists faster than new enemies are being created?
Until Tuesday, the government had not publicly issued an authoritative answer. But the newly declassified National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism does exactly that, and it concludes that the administration has failed the Rumsfeld test.
Portions of the report appear to bolster President Bush’s argument that the only way to defeat the terrorists is to keep unrelenting military pressure on them. But nowhere in the assessment is any evidence to support Mr. Bush’s confident-sounding assertion this month in Atlanta that “America is winning the war on terror.’’
While the spread of self-described jihadists is hard to measure, the report says, the terrorists “are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.”
It says that a continuation of that trend would lead “to increasing attacks worldwide’’ and that “the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities.’’
On Tuesday evening the White House issued what it called a fact sheet lining up the intelligence estimate’s findings with President Bush’s own words in recent months, comparing, for example, the report’s account of the the spread of new terror cells independent of Al Qaeda to Mr. Bush’s references to “homegrown terrorists’’ from Madrid to Britain.
But there is a difference in tone between Mr. Bush’s public statements and the classified assessment that is unmistakable.
The report says that over the next five years “the confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups.’’
It also suggests that while democratization and “exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists’ propaganda’’ might dim the appeal of the terrorist groups, those factors are now outweighed by the dangerous brew of fear of Western domination, the battle for Iraq’s future and the slow pace of real economic or political progress.
Yet the intelligence report bears none of Mr. Bush’s long-range optimism. Rather it dwells on Mr. Rumsfeld’s darker question, which he put cheekily as, “Is our current situation such that ‘the harder we work, the behinder we get?’ ”
Tuesday’s declassified report asked a more subtle version of that question. It notes that while democratization might “begin to slow the spread’’ of extremism, the “destabilizing transitions’’ caused by political change “will create new opportunities for jihadists to exploit.’’
And while Mr. Bush talks often of transforming the Middle East, the report speaks of the “vulnerabilities’’ created by the fact that “anti-U.S. and antiglobalization sentiment is on the rise and fueling other radical ideologies.’’
The result, it said, was that other groups around the world are radicalizing “more quickly, more widely and more anonymously in the Internet age.’’
In short, it describes a jihadist movement that, for now, is simply outpacing Mr. Bush’s counterattacks.
“I guess the overall conclusion that you get from it is that we don’t have enough bullets given all the enemies we are creating,’’ said Bruce Hoffman, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University.
What was most remarkable about the intelligence estimate, several experts said, was the unremarkable nature of its conclusions.
“At one level it is unsurprising stuff,’’ said Paul Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia on the intelligence council until last year. “But there is definitely much there that you haven’t heard the president say,’’ he added, “including the role that Iraq has played’’ in inspiring disaffected Muslims to join an anti-American jihadist movement.
Administration officials expressed their certainty on Tuesday that the leak of parts of the report was an example of politically inspired cherry picking, to use a term from earlier arguments over intelligence about unconventional weapons.
“Here we are, coming down the stretch in an election campaign, and it’s on the front page of your newspapers,’’ Mr. Bush said at a news conference with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. “Isn’t that interesting? Somebody has taken it upon themselves to leak classified information for political purposes.’’
And at the center of the political debate is Iraq. Frances Fragos Townsend, the director of homeland security at the White House, used a conference call with reporters on Tuesday evening to call attention to the intelligence finding that “the Iraq conflict has become a cause célèbre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world, and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.’’
“Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves and be perceived to have failed,’’ the findings went on, “we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.’’
Ms. Townsend argued that “this really underscores the President’s point about the importance of our winning in Iraq,’’ she said.
As a political matter, at least for the next few weeks, the intelligence findings will only fuel the argument over Iraq on both sides. Mr. Bush has grown increasingly insistent that nothing he has done in Iraq has worsened terrorism. America was not in Iraq during the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, he said, or during the bombings of the U.S.S. Cole or embassies in Africa, or on 9/11.
But that argument steps around the implicit question raised by the intelligence finding: whether postponing the confrontation with Saddam Hussein and focusing instead on securing Afghanistan, or dealing with issues like Iran’s nascent nuclear capability or the Middle East peace process, might have created a different playing field, one in which jihadists were deprived of daily images of carnage in Iraq to rally their sympathizers.
Note: click here for declassified report: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/nie20060926.pdf