Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat - New York Times

The New York Times reports on what it calls "a stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies."

The assessment concludes "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."

It appears that this report was vigorously massaged by intelligence officials in an (apparently vain) attempt to make the assessment a bit less contradictory of the Republican talking points about 'fighting them there so that we don't have to fight them here.'

Here are some key paragraphs:

More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document. The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified.

Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would once again strike on United States soil. The relationship between the Iraq war and terrorism, and the question of whether the United States is safer, have been subjects of persistent debate since the war began in 2003.

National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue, and are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies.

Analysts began working on the estimate in 2004, but it was not finalized until this year. Part of the reason was that some government officials were unhappy with the structure and focus of earlier versions of the document, according to officials involved in the discussion.

So, therosyy interpretation of the impact of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is that is serving to inspire a new wave of Islamic radicalism? Match this National Intelligence Estimate with the recent assessment of the state of the U.S. Army and the likelihood that National Guard troops will have to be called for another round of active duty in order to try to ease strains on the regular Army and the picture that begins to emerge is that the invasion and occupation of Iraq are turning into the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in the history of this country.

All of this takes place against a backdrop of a U.S. Congress that has refused to exercise its constitutional responsibilities to provide oversight of the activities of the Executive branch.

Our system is a system of checks and balances. Congress has not checked the administration; as a result, our policies are out of balance.