MSNBC reports that intelligence officials are predicting a huge attack by insurgent/terrorists next week involving suicide bombings, coordinated attacks, rockets and mortars — all timed to concide with the expected drafting of an Iraqi constitution:
According to the officials, terrorists would launch as many as 20 simultaneous suicide bombings, mostly in Baghdad. The plans also include heavy rocket and mortar attacks against U.S. and Iraqi government offices inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, against the U.S. military at Baghdad International Airport, and at Abu Ghraib prison.
U.S. officials say the offensive was planned for early this week but was put on hold when Iraqis failed to come up with a draft constitution.
And the most irony-laced part of the NBC report is the fact it says intelligence officials now contend that the Iraq war has run in effect counter to U.S. interest — but producing the result Washington didn’t want: turning Iraq into a terrorist training ground:
U.S. intelligence indicates Islamic militants from several African nations — Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan and Somalia — travel through Syria into Iraq, where they get hands-on training in roadside and suicide bombings, assassinations and kidnappings as well as counter-surveillance and counter-intelligence against military targets, constantly changing their tactics to counter American defenses.
“They can change within seven to 10 days,� says the U.S. Marine commandant, Gen. Michael Hagee, “That’s pretty darn good. We’re going against a thinking enemy.�
And Pentagon officials now fear those freshly trained terrorists are taking the deadly lessons they learn in Iraq to other countries. U.S. intelligence indicates many of the militants are returning home or slipping into Europe, where they may join existing terrorist groups or create and train new cells of their own.
That’s exactly the opposite of what the Bush administration had in mind when it invaded Iraq.
“Instead of going in to eliminate Iraq as a source of terrorism, Iraq now has a stronger terrorist presence than it did when Saddam Hussein was in power,� says NBC News terrorism analyst Roger Cressey.
You could call this the law of unintended consquences. It is also yet another reason why it’s getting increasingly difficult to trust pronouncements from this administration on the likely impact of foreign problems if not resolved in ways the administration advocates.
If you look at this report that isn’t from a partisan blogger, opinionated columnist or a talk show host on Air America, what do you see? You see sources clearly quoted by NBC’s Pentagon reporter Pentagon Jim Miklaszewski saying (a)expect a big attack, it will likely happen, (b)the U.S. war has strengthened terrorism in Iraq, and c)the terrorists that flocked there have now allegedly become better trained to use the techniques learned there all the world.
Of course, you then have to ask who the sources are and they aren’t intentified — but Miklaszewski is a veteran beat reporter who is highly respected.
In the shorter view, this means: day to day news stories out of Iraq are likely to be about deadly events there, even after the constitution is drafted and perhaps these stories will even before more frequent due to the apparent foothold of terrorist forces, coupled with an expected bigger push by anti-government circles to show that a new constitution doesn’t mean peace.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.