http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52673-2004Oct21.html

1. Resources moved from Afgh. to Iraq

In the second half of March 2002, as the Bush administration mapped
its next steps against al Qaeda, Deputy CIA Director John E.
McLaughlin brought an unexpected message to the White House Situation
Room. According to two people with firsthand knowledge, he told senior
members of the president's national security team that the CIA was
scaling back operations in Afghanistan.

That announcement marked a year-long drawdown of specialized military
and intelligence resources from the geographic center of combat with
Osama bin Laden. As jihadist enemies reorganized, slipping back and
forth from Pakistan and Iran, the CIA closed forward bases in the
cities of Herat, Mazar-e Sharif and Kandahar. The agency put off an
$80 million plan to train and equip a friendly intelligence service
for the new U.S.-installed Afghan government. Replacements did not
keep pace with departures as case officers finished six-week tours.
And Task Force 5 -- a covert commando team that led the hunt for bin
Laden and his lieutenants in the border region -- lost more than
two-thirds of its fighting strength.

The commandos, their high-tech surveillance equipment and other assets
would instead surge toward Iraq through 2002 and early 2003, as
President Bush prepared for the March invasion that would extend the
field of battle in the nation's response to the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks....

2. Bush and Cheney have lied about our success in targeting Al Qaeda

Classified government tallies, moreover, suggest that Bush and Vice
President Cheney have inflated the [Al Qaeda] manhunt's success in
their reelection bid....

3. Iraq took resources from targeting Al Qaeda

Twenty months after the invasion of Iraq, the question of whether
Americans are safer from terrorism because Saddam Hussein is no longer
in power hinges on subjective judgment about might-have-beens. What is
not in dispute, among scores of career national security officials and
political appointees interviewed periodically since 2002, is that
Bush's choice had opportunity costs -- first in postwar Afghanistan,
then elsewhere. Iraq, they said, became a voracious consumer of time,
money, personnel and diplomatic capital -- as well as the scarce tools
of covert force on which Bush prefers to rely -- that until then were
engaged against al Qaeda and its sources of direct support....

4. It's irrelevant that the Arab world now loathes us

Bush and his aides most often deflect questions about recent global
polls that have found sharply rising anti-U.S. sentiment in Arab and
Muslim countries and in Europe, but one of them addressed it in a
recent interview. Speaking for the president by White House
arrangement, but declining to be identified, a high-ranking national
security official said of the hostility detected in surveys: "I don't
think it matters. It's about keeping the country safe, and I don't
think that matters."....

5. More about Bush & Cheney lying about Al Qaeda arrests

More significant than the bottom line, government analysts said, is
the trend. Of the al Qaeda leaders accounted for, eight were killed or
captured by the end of 2002. Five followed in 2003 -- notably Khalid
Sheik Mohammed, the principal planner of the Sept. 11 attack. This
year only one more name -- Hassan Ghul, a senior courier captured
infiltrating Iraq -- could be crossed off....

As the manhunt results declined, the Bush administration has portrayed
growing success. Early last year, the president's top advisers
generally said in public that more than one-third of those most wanted
had been found. Late this year it became a staple of presidential
campaign rhetoric that, as Bush put it in the Sept. 30 debate with
Kerry, "75 percent of known al Qaeda leaders have been brought to
justice."

Although some of the administration's assertions are too broadly
stated to measure, some are not. Townsend, Bush's homeland security
and counterterrorism adviser, said "three-quarters" of "the known al
Qaeda leaders on 9/11" were dead or in custody. Asked to elaborate,
she said she would have to consult a list. White House spokeswoman
Erin Healy referred follow-up questions to the FBI. Spokesmen for the
FBI, the National Security Council and the CIA did not respond to
multiple telephone calls and e-mails....

6. More proof of how we took resources away from hunting Al Qaeda to
take on Iraq

At the peak of the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants, in early
2002, about 150 commandos operated along Afghanistan's borders with
Pakistan and Iran in a top-secret team known as Task Force 5.... With
Bush's shift of focus to Iraq, the special mission units called most
of their troops home to prepare for a new set of high-value targets in
Baghdad.... Task Force 5 dropped in strength at times to as few as 30
men. Its counterpart in Iraq, by early 2003, burgeoned to more than
200 as an insurgency grew and Hussein proved difficult to find. Late
last year, the Defense Department merged the two commando teams and
headquartered the reflagged Task Force 121 under Rear Adm. William H.
McRaven in Baghdad....

In 2002, the CIA transferred its station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan,
to lead the new Iraq Issue Group. At least 30 case officers, a
knowledgeable official said, joined the parallel Iraq Operations Task
Force by mid-2002. By the time war came in Iraq nearly 150 case
officers filled the task force and issue group on the "A Corridor" of
Langley's top management. The Baghdad station became the largest since
the Vietnam War, with more than 300.

Early this year, the CIA's then-station chief in Kabul reported a
resurgence of Taliban and al Qaeda forces in three border provinces.
He proposed a spring intelligence offensive in South Waziristan and in
and around Kunar province farther north. The chief, whose first name
is Peter, estimated he would need 25 case officers in the field and an
additional five for the station. A national security official who
tracked the proposal said CIA headquarters replied that it did not
have the resources to make the surge....

7. Bush is wrong when he says motivation of terrorists is "hating our
freedom"

The president and his most influential advisers, many officials said,
do not see those factors -- or U.S. policy overseas -- as primary
contributors to the terrorism threat. Bush's explanation, in private
and public, is that terrorists hate America for its freedom.

Sageman, who supports some of Bush's approach, said that analysis is
"nonsense, complete nonsense. They obviously haven't looked at any
surveys." The central findings of polling by the Pew Charitable Trust
and others, he said, is that large majorities in much of the world
"view us as a hypocritical huge beast throwing our weight around in
the Middle East."



-----

Yang
a.a. #28
AthD (h.c.) conferred by the regents of the LCL
a.a. pastor #-273.15, the most frigid church of Celcius nee Kelvin
EAC Econometric Forecast and Sorcery Division
Proudly plonked by Lani Girl and Crazyalec

The Bush 'balanced' budget: 1.2 trillion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: -1.6 million jobs and counting
The Bush Iraq lie: -1102 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting

Having Bush ***** up my country: Worthless

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52673-2004Oct21.html

1. Resources moved from Afgh. to Iraq

In the second half of March 2002, as the Bush administration mapped
its next steps against al Qaeda, Deputy CIA Director John E.
McLaughlin brought an unexpected message to the White House Situation
Room. According to two people with firsthand knowledge, he told senior
members of the president's national security team that the CIA was
scaling back operations in Afghanistan.

That announcement marked a year-long drawdown of specialized military
and intelligence resources from the geographic center of combat with
Osama bin Laden. As jihadist enemies reorganized, slipping back and
forth from Pakistan and Iran, the CIA closed forward bases in the
cities of Herat, Mazar-e Sharif and Kandahar. The agency put off an
$80 million plan to train and equip a friendly intelligence service
for the new U.S.-installed Afghan government. Replacements did not
keep pace with departures as case officers finished six-week tours.
And Task Force 5 -- a covert commando team that led the hunt for bin
Laden and his lieutenants in the border region -- lost more than
two-thirds of its fighting strength.

The commandos, their high-tech surveillance equipment and other assets
would instead surge toward Iraq through 2002 and early 2003, as
President Bush prepared for the March invasion that would extend the
field of battle in the nation's response to the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks....

2. Bush and Cheney have lied about our success in targeting Al Qaeda

Classified government tallies, moreover, suggest that Bush and Vice
President Cheney have inflated the [Al Qaeda] manhunt's success in
their reelection bid....

3. Iraq took resources from targeting Al Qaeda

Twenty months after the invasion of Iraq, the question of whether
Americans are safer from terrorism because Saddam Hussein is no longer
in power hinges on subjective judgment about might-have-beens. What is
not in dispute, among scores of career national security officials and
political appointees interviewed periodically since 2002, is that
Bush's choice had opportunity costs -- first in postwar Afghanistan,
then elsewhere. Iraq, they said, became a voracious consumer of time,
money, personnel and diplomatic capital -- as well as the scarce tools
of covert force on which Bush prefers to rely -- that until then were
engaged against al Qaeda and its sources of direct support....

4. It's irrelevant that the Arab world now loathes us

Bush and his aides most often deflect questions about recent global
polls that have found sharply rising anti-U.S. sentiment in Arab and
Muslim countries and in Europe, but one of them addressed it in a
recent interview. Speaking for the president by White House
arrangement, but declining to be identified, a high-ranking national
security official said of the hostility detected in surveys: "I don't
think it matters. It's about keeping the country safe, and I don't
think that matters."....

5. More about Bush & Cheney lying about Al Qaeda arrests

More significant than the bottom line, government analysts said, is
the trend. Of the al Qaeda leaders accounted for, eight were killed or
captured by the end of 2002. Five followed in 2003 -- notably Khalid
Sheik Mohammed, the principal planner of the Sept. 11 attack. This
year only one more name -- Hassan Ghul, a senior courier captured
infiltrating Iraq -- could be crossed off....

As the manhunt results declined, the Bush administration has portrayed
growing success. Early last year, the president's top advisers
generally said in public that more than one-third of those most wanted
had been found. Late this year it became a staple of presidential
campaign rhetoric that, as Bush put it in the Sept. 30 debate with
Kerry, "75 percent of known al Qaeda leaders have been brought to
justice."

Although some of the administration's assertions are too broadly
stated to measure, some are not. Townsend, Bush's homeland security
and counterterrorism adviser, said "three-quarters" of "the known al
Qaeda leaders on 9/11" were dead or in custody. Asked to elaborate,
she said she would have to consult a list. White House spokeswoman
Erin Healy referred follow-up questions to the FBI. Spokesmen for the
FBI, the National Security Council and the CIA did not respond to
multiple telephone calls and e-mails....

6. More proof of how we took resources away from hunting Al Qaeda to
take on Iraq

At the peak of the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants, in early
2002, about 150 commandos operated along Afghanistan's borders with
Pakistan and Iran in a top-secret team known as Task Force 5.... With
Bush's shift of focus to Iraq, the special mission units called most
of their troops home to prepare for a new set of high-value targets in
Baghdad.... Task Force 5 dropped in strength at times to as few as 30
men. Its counterpart in Iraq, by early 2003, burgeoned to more than
200 as an insurgency grew and Hussein proved difficult to find. Late
last year, the Defense Department merged the two commando teams and
headquartered the reflagged Task Force 121 under Rear Adm. William H.
McRaven in Baghdad....

In 2002, the CIA transferred its station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan,
to lead the new Iraq Issue Group. At least 30 case officers, a
knowledgeable official said, joined the parallel Iraq Operations Task
Force by mid-2002. By the time war came in Iraq nearly 150 case
officers filled the task force and issue group on the "A Corridor" of
Langley's top management. The Baghdad station became the largest since
the Vietnam War, with more than 300.

Early this year, the CIA's then-station chief in Kabul reported a
resurgence of Taliban and al Qaeda forces in three border provinces.
He proposed a spring intelligence offensive in South Waziristan and in
and around Kunar province farther north. The chief, whose first name
is Peter, estimated he would need 25 case officers in the field and an
additional five for the station. A national security official who
tracked the proposal said CIA headquarters replied that it did not
have the resources to make the surge....

7. Bush is wrong when he says motivation of terrorists is "hating our
freedom"

The president and his most influential advisers, many officials said,
do not see those factors -- or U.S. policy overseas -- as primary
contributors to the terrorism threat. Bush's explanation, in private
and public, is that terrorists hate America for its freedom.

Sageman, who supports some of Bush's approach, said that analysis is
"nonsense, complete nonsense. They obviously haven't looked at any
surveys." The central findings of polling by the Pew Charitable Trust
and others, he said, is that large majorities in much of the world
"view us as a hypocritical huge beast throwing our weight around in
the Middle East."



-----

Yang
a.a. #28
AthD (h.c.) conferred by the regents of the LCL
a.a. pastor #-273.15, the most frigid church of Celcius nee Kelvin
EAC Econometric Forecast and Sorcery Division
Proudly plonked by Lani Girl and Crazyalec

The Bush 'balanced' budget: 1.2 trillion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: -1.6 million jobs and counting
The Bush Iraq lie: -1102 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting

Having Bush ***** up my country: Worthless