http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/25/dems.iraq.ap /
Democrats: Leaked intel shows U.S. needs new leadership
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats seized on leaks from an intelligence assessment that said the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat, saying it provided further evidence that Americans should choose new leadership in the November elections.
...
"Unfortunately this report is just confirmation that the Bush administration's stay-the-course approach to the Iraq war has not just made the war more difficult and more deadly for our troops, but has also made the war on terror more dangerous for every American," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic effort to take control of the House.
"It's time for a new direction in this country," Emanuel, D-Illinois, said in the statement.
"Press reports say our nation's intelligence services have confirmed that President Bush's repeated missteps in Iraq and his stubborn refusal to change course have made America less safe," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. "No election-year White House PR campaign can hide this truth."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060925/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq;_ylt=AqFLfS4Dk0unOl4LcohnCUOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--Democrats tout report on terror threat
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 41 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Democrats on Sunday seized on an intelligence assessment that said the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat, saying it was further evidence that Americans should choose new leadership in the November elections.
The Democrats hoped the report would undermine the GOP's image as the party more capable of handing terrorism as the campaign enters its final six-week stretch.
Their criticisms came in a collection of statements sent to reporters Sunday amid the disclosure of a National Intelligence Estimate that concluded the war has helped create a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The report was completed in April and represented a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government, according to an intelligence official. The official, confirming accounts first published in Sunday's New York Times and Washington Post, spoke on condition of anonymity on Sunday because the report is classified.
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Sun Sep-24-06 10:05 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2528375&mesg_id=2528589http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060925/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq ;_ylt=AvzC5XzaPEXiY3Jgajy8cwSGOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
Democrats seek momentum from Iraq report
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 51 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Democrats on Sunday seized on an intelligence assessment that said the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat, saying it was further evidence that Americans should choose new leadership in the November elections.
The Democrats hoped the report would undermine the GOP's image as the party more capable of handing terrorism as the campaign enters its final six-week stretch.
Their criticisms came in a collection of statements sent to reporters Sunday amid the disclosure of a National Intelligence Estimate that concluded the war has helped create a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks..............
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Sun Sep-24-06 12:28 PM
Original message
Leaked intelligence report rocks Bush election stance
(AFP) 24 September 2006
NEW YORK - US spy agencies dropped a political bombshell six weeks before national elections, with the leak Sunday of a classified report concluding that the war in Iraq has spawned a new wave of Islamic radicalism and increased the global threat of terrorism.
The intelligence document rocked a central pillar of the Republican Party’s campaign platform ahead of November elections: that the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the ouster of Saddam Hussein made America safer, not weaker.
With opinion polls showing President George W. Bush’s party possibly losing control of both houses of Congress in the the mid-term polls, in large part due to unhappiness over the war in Iraq, the report stating categorically the opposite will make for painful reading at the White House.
Bush has argued repeatedly in pre-election speeches that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism and that demands for a US troop withdrawal from the country by the opposition Democrats underscores why the center-left party should not be trusted with the nation’s security.
(snip/...)
http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=... §ion=theworld&col=
Sun Sep-24-06 11:15 AM
Original message
Intelligence report opposite from*statements;Iraq war hurting terror fight
WP
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14975242/from/RS.2 /
Iraq war hurting terror fight, spy agencies say
Jihadists using conflict as rallying cry, National Intelligence Estimate finds
By Karen DeYoung
Updated: 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has become the primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers are increasing faster than the United States and its allies are eliminating the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.
A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. Rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, it concludes that the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.
<<snip>>
At odds with recent Bush speeches
The NIE, whose contents were first reported by the New York Times, coincides with public statements by senior intelligence officials describing a different kind of conflict than the one outlined by President Bush in a series of recent speeches marking the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"Together with our coalition partners," Bush said in an address earlier this month to the Military Officers Association of America, "we've removed terrorist sanctuaries, disrupted their finances, killed and captured key operatives, broken up terrorist cells in America and other nations, and stopped new attacks before they're carried out. We're on the offense against the terrorists on every battlefront, and we'll accept nothing less than complete victory."
But the battlefronts intelligence analysts depict are far more impenetrable and difficult, if not impossible, to combat with the standard tools of warfare.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html?hp&ex=1159070400&en=003f596f66422cfd&ei=5094&partner=homepageSpy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: September 24, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American 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............
Sun Sep-24-06 12:47 PM
Sen Kerry's statement
John Kerry on Government Findings that Iraq Policy is Creating Terrorists
“The National Intelligence Estimate provides jarring confirmation that the disastrous policy in Iraq is a giant recruiting poster for terrorists and it is weakening our hand in the war on terror. Terrorist organizations from Al Qaeda to Hezbollah are thrilled that we are bogged down in Iraq, even as the Administration misleads America with fear and sloganeering.
“The truth is clear: Rather than being the central front in the war on terror President Bush claims, Iraq is a fuel depot for terror fanning the flames of worldwide jihadism. Incompetence and ideology has left us with more terrorists in the world who want to kill Americans.
“Make no mistake, there is no way to regain lost ground in the war on terror without redeploying out of Iraq and making Iraqis stand up for Iraq. We must set a deadline to get out of Iraq and refocus on the real war on terror.”
Sun Sep-24-06 12:02 PM
Original message
Dem Leader Reid Jumps on Report Showing Iraq War Fueling Terror
Reid: Contrary to White House PR Campaign, Bush Iraq Policies Have Made America Less Safe
9/24/2006 12:48:00 PM
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=73052Contact: Jim Manley or Rebecca Kirszner, 202-224-2939, both of the Office of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid today issued the following statement on press reports that the National Intelligence Estimate, the most authoritative summary of the opinion of America's intelligence community, has concluded that the war in Iraq has made the threat of terrorism worse:
"Once again, the American people have learned that the Bush Administration has not been honest with them about the war in Iraq. Press reports say our nation's intelligence services have confirmed that President Bush's repeated missteps in Iraq and his stubborn refusal to change course have made America less safe. No election-year White House PR campaign can hide this truth. It is crystal clear that America's security demands we change course in Iraq. The war in Iraq is now in its fourth year and Congress has yet to ask the tough questions and get the honest answers our nation's security demands. Tomorrow, that will change. With the Democratic Policy Committee's hearings into the conduct of the war in Iraq, we will finally take America in a new direction."
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President Bush's Recent Claims of Progress in Combating Terrorism Are at Odds with Today's Press Reports of the National Intelligence Estimate's Conclusions
-- Bush said his policies are keeping terrorists under constant pressure, and keeping America safer. "(W)e're determined to prevent terrorist attacks before they occur. So we're taking the fight to the enemy. The best way to protect America is to stay on the offense. Since 9/11, our coalition has captured or killed al Qaeda managers and operatives, and scores of other terrorists across the world. The enemy is living under constant pressure, and we intend to keep it that way -- and this adds to our security. When terrorists spend their days working to avoid death or capture, it's harder for them to plan and execute new attacks." (President Discusses Global War on Terror, Washington, D.C., 9/5/06)........lots more of 'Bush said"......
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Sun Sep-24-06 09:40 PM
Original message
Battle Breaks Out in Media Over Bleak NIE Iraq Assessment
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2528565http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003156122By E&P Staff
Published: September 24, 2006 4:50 PM ET updated 6:15 PM ET, 9:30 PM
NEW YORK A pitched battle over an intelligence assessment, covered first by The New York Times and then The Washington Post, broke out across the media today. Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig went so far as blame the whole fuss -- over the negative view of the war in Iraq and the war on terror -- on liberal journalists. CNN aired an interview with President Bush in which he declared that one day the Iraq war will look like "just a comma."
The National Intelligence Estimate declared that the war in Iraq has increased Islamic radicalism, worsening the overall terror threat, cutting at the heart of the White House defense of its strategy. The assessment “should put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush’s phony argument about the Iraq war,” Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) said in a statement.
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The White House quickly issued a statement pointing out that Bush had noted that Osama bin Laden had declared the war in Iraq to be the most “serious issue today for the whole world.” It said the press report on the document "is not representative of the complete document."
In the CNN interview (recorded earlier this week and aired today), Wolf Blitzer asked about the continuing setbacks in Iraq. Bush, with a slight smile, replied, "Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that’s the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there’s also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people -- 12 milion people voted last December…. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy....The unity government is functioning."
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***A commentary on the Bush "comma" remark by E&P Editor Greg Mitchell can be found at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003156137
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