Times Herald-Record (N.Y.)
September 27, 2006
We came, we saw, we made enemies

Follow this carefully, dear reader, for this is a tale with so many
twists and turns and unexpected ironies as to make heads spin even in
the White House. A tale worthy of Joseph Heller. It involves the Bush
administration and intelligence, which have proven to be like oil and
water.

It begins with President Bush, in the midst of the United States
leading a decisive war against terrorists and their hosts in
Afghanistan, ordering a massive attack on Iraq, in part because the
president claims Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden,
head of al-Qaida, were making nice and Iraq could become a hotbed of
terrorist activity. That would be a threat to the United States.

It comes to pass that Saddam and Osama were never friendly (one being
religious, one being not) and Iraq had no connection to the Sept. 11
attacks on the United States. It also comes to pass that our
intelligence agencies had always been of this view. The war in Iraq
topples Saddam and then goes bad. Very bad. So bad that Bush's job
rating plummets to record lows as, first, American GIs are targets of
Iraqi insurgents and imported terrorists and then Iraqis start killing
themselves, again with the help of even more imported terrorists. The
kiling goes on unabated.

Meanwhile, the low ratings connected to the White House handling of
the war in Iraq (and an upcoming congressional election) prompt the
Bush administration to switch the focus of its public comments to the
war on terrorism, as though the two, once so specifically linked by
Bush, were separate issues. And yet, at the same time, the president,
having it conveniently both ways, maintains that Americans must
continue to fight in Iraq because it is at the heart of the fight on
terrorism. To lose there, one presumes, is to lose that war.

Comes the ultimate irony. The nation's 16 intelligence agencies,
providing their first comprehensive analysis of the war in Iraq since
Bush launched it, conclude that Iraq is indeed a vital target in the
war on terrorism — because the attack on Iraq by the United States and
some allies has made it so. The war rallied Islamic extremists from
around the world to Baghdad and provided a rallying cry and recruiting
tool beyond Osama's most fervent prayers. In fact, the National
Intelligence Council report, prepared in April, says the continuing
bloody war in Iraq provides Islamic extremists with a continuing
source of ammunition for diatribes against America and the West. It
helps them lure new fighters to their deadly cause in new,
unaffiliated networks of fundamentalist extremists linked only by
their common enemy: us.

Short version: Iraq wasn't a terrorist threat when we attacked it; it
is now because we did attack and botched the job so badly that
terrorists are dying to go there and learn how to kill Americans
anywhere. So the world is safe from Saddam (who was never a threat)
but more vulnerable to terrorism, which (back to the beginning) was on
the ropes in the early days in Afghanistan.

* * *

This NIC report, revealed this week in stories in The New York Times
and Washington Post, is devastating to the Bush administration
argument for continuing the fight in Iraq. John Negroponte, Bush's
national intelligence director and the boss of all 16 intelligence
agencies, cautions not to form conclusions based solely on these news
reports. There's more to the assessment, he says, and many more
judgments than the one linking the war to more terrorism. He says to
do that would be a distortion.

Fine. Then release the 30-page National Intelligence Estimate for all
Americans to read. Have congressional committees black out the really
classified data, if necessary. But let us know what our intelligence
agencies say firsthand, not what Bush decides to tell us they said.
We've been here before, and there are now 2,600-plus reasons to doubt
what the president says.