Iraq war is breeding a new generation of professional terrorists, warns CIA report The chaos of Iraq is giving rise to a new generation of "professional" terrorists who will eventually replace al-Qaida as a global threat, according to a CIA thinktank.
A report by the National Intelligence Council says the war in Iraq has provided a training and recruitment ground for Islamist militants, much as Afghanistan did for the founding generation of al-Qaida during the war against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
... Specifically, the report warns that the US faces an increasing risk of an attack involving biological agents, such as anthrax, and that an emerging and more sophisticated generation of terrorists could also use chemical weapons.
The bleak forecast undermines one of the Bush administration's central justifications for invading Iraq: that it was necessary to curb terrorism; that the country was a central front in the "war on terror"; and that the deposed Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, had links to al-Qaida's chief, Osama bin Laden.
Instead, the report describes how hundreds of foreign terrorists entered Iraq after the US invasion, and how the insurgency against American forces was viewed by radical Muslims as a war against a foreign occupier, akin to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Terrorists also took advantage of postwar chaos, porous borders and a country awash with weapons.
But unlike the rise of al-Qaida in Afghanistan, the emerging terrorists do not require a geographical base, and are expected to rely increasingly on the internet.
"While taking advantage of sanctuaries around the world to train, terrorists will not need a stationary headquarters to plan and carry out operations," the report says.
Bush has given an enormous victory to the terrorists. By continuing his appalling policies he strengthens the terrorists, and weakens us, but sadly, most Americans will probably never realize how incompetent Bush is, and what his actions are really accomplishing.
- posted by geoff @ #