U.S. Report: Al Qaeda Getting Stronger And Almost Back At Pre-911 Level
July 12th, 2007
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
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Get ready to see a lot of old videos showing Bush administration officials talk about Al Qaeda being on the run, having its effectiveness reduced and about how the war in Iraq is pinning them down over there.
Because a new report says that the terrorist group has reconstituted itself and may be nearly back to its pre-911 strength:
Six years after the Bush administration declared war on al-Qaeda, the terrorist network is gaining strength and has established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and planning attacks, according to a new Bush administration intelligence report to be discussed today at a White House meeting.
The report, a five-page threat assessment compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center, is titled “Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West,” intelligence officials said. It concludes that the group has significantly rebuilt itself despite concerted U.S. attempts to smash the network.
In other words, if you look at the sheer results and the goal of going after and taking apart Al Qaeda, the war on terrorism has has not succeeded. More from the Washington Post’s report:
Although the officials declined to discuss the assessment’s content because it is classified, the CIA’s deputy director for intelligence, John A. Kringen, told a House committee yesterday that al-Qaeda appears “to be fairly well settled into the safe haven in the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan.”
“We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications,” Kringen said.
U.S. counterterrorism officials said that the implications for U.S. domestic security are not immediately clear, despite a warning Tuesday by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that reports of heightened al-Qaeda activity and public threats gave him a “gut feeling” that the country faces an increased chance of a terrorist attack this summer.
The AP’s lead is even more blunt:
U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded al-Qaeda has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, The Associated Press has learned.
The conclusion suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terrorist attack on the United States has been able to regroup along the Afghan-Pakistani border despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at crippling it.
Still, numerous government officials say they know of no specific, credible threat of a new attack on U.S. soil.
A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the new government threat assessment called it a stark appraisal to be discussed at the White House today as part of a broader meeting on an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate.
It’s one more piece of bad news in a Katrina-like storm of bad publicity and controversies enmeshing the Bush administration.
Writes the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan:
We still have deadly, vicious, religious enemies. The military is tied down in a no-win Muslim civil war. Our cities are still dangerously vulnerable to another attack. And, thanks to this president, I’m not even sure the country can unite again as it united the first time, however briefly. This may turn out to be the Dunkirk of this war. We await a sober, serious, unifying leader. So does the free world.
This report raises the question: after Americans poured probably billions of dollars into a global anti-terrorism fight, allowed the relaxation of some civil liberties, watched the administration use warrantless wiretaps without Congress’ approval, and saw (and see) the executive branch move in a massive power grab that now has it ignoring the Congress in the name of the perilous post-911 times, shouldn’t the results be better than THIS?
Moreover, official arguments about the Iraq war being vital so we could fight them “over there” so they don’t come “over here” now seem undercut by Chertoff’s “gut feeling” about an impending summer attack — and by this report.
Is it perhaps more accurate for this administration now to say about the Iraq war that “We have to fight them over there so not as many of them come over here as are either already over here — or coming over here?”
And the big question: for years George Bush, other administration members, Republican partisans and talk show hosts have talked about successes in the war on terror and Al Qaeda “on the run.”
So where are they now running to?
Washington, Las Vegas or New York??
BOTTOM LINE: Given all of the assurances administration officials have given about the war on terror, if this report holds up (and isn’t discredited or simply fades away) it will be just one more instance an administration that has its job performance fall far short of its rhetoric.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 1:11 am and is filed under Pakistan, Al Qaeda, Bush Administration, GWOT, Terrorism, 9/11, Iraq, War On Terror, George W. Bush, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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