[Changleen]

I am honestly stunned at new level of ridiculousness the White House's position on this seems to have come to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1159070400&en=003f596f66422cfd&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat

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.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

A report that represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government says the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse, but guess ****ing what? In 'I'm a ****ing sub-moron' land:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-intel25sep25,0,7316247.story?track=mostviewed-homepage

White House Rebuts Bleak Report on Iraq

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.

"Their hatred for freedom and liberty did not develop overnight, those seeds were planted decades ago."

Even the point of his statement is dumb. How does that in any way change to the fact that Iraq has made it 100,000 times worse, and that Iraq was entirely their descision?

 

[Old Man G Funk]

It's a classic straw man argument. The intel document said one thing, they rebut something entirely different that wasn't even mentioned. Problem is that a bunch of the gullible public will fall for it.