Blumenthal: At war, in denial (* ignores 16 US intelligence agencies)

[kskiska]

Sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies contributed to the NIE report that concludes Iraq "has become the cause célèbre for jihadists." Bush ignores them all.

By Sidney Blumenthal

Sep. 28, 2006 | President Bush's first response to the report in the New York Times was to ridicule it for having "guessed" that the classified National Intelligence Estimate titled "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States" stated that the war in Iraq was a major inspiration for jihadist terrorism. His second response, in the ensuing clamor after he declassified the NIE's key judgments confirming the accuracy of the initial Times report, was to dismiss those who accepted the NIE's conclusions as "naive." His next reaction was to declare, "I agree with their conclusion that because of our successes against the leadership of al-Qaida, the enemy is becoming more diffuse and independent" -- a cause and effect that is nowhere to be found in the NIE.

The collective product of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, the first on Iraq since the invasion in 2003, the NIE was delivered to the White House this April. "The Iraq conflict," it said, "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." Not only is the Iraq war inspiring terrorism, but the jihadist movement has metastasized into spontaneously generated cells apart from the original al-Qaida organization, which itself is vastly reduced. In this struggle U.S. policy is inadequate to the task of containing terrorism's spread. "We assess that 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 disclosure of parts of the NIE by the Times prompted Bush's angry denunciation of its public knowledge as little more than a partisan ploy. "And here we are," he railed, "coming down the stretch in an election campaign, and it's on the front page of your newspapers. Isn't that interesting? Somebody has taken it upon themselves to leak classified information for political purposes."

(snip)

Bush's phrase, "just a comma," may just be a signifier to his religious-right base. "Never put a period where God has put a comma" is a common admonition among the faithful. What authority could a National Intelligence Estimate have in comparison with God's will? But Bush's signal to dismiss the disturbances of the external world also points to an underlying premise of his policy. Bush's state of war is a state of denial.

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/09/28/intelligence_report/

[applegrove]

1. Thanks for posting! n/t