Associated Press published a leaked report, as published in the Toronto Star, that the war in Iraq has become a “cause celebre” for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. The threat from Islamic extremists has spread, in numbers, and geographic reach. If the current trend continues, terrorist threats will only continue, and become more diverse.
Now, in Australia, former Defence Chief, General Peter Cosgrove admits that the Iraq war has boosted global terrorism (reported at news.com.au). He is quoted there as saying: “If people say there has been an energizing of the jihadist movement through the protracted war in Iraq – well that’s pretty obvious”.
The Washington Post reports that the UK’s top army commander has ignited a controversy saying that British trips should withdraw from Iraq “sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems”. “We weren’t invited” into Iraq he said, but rather “kicked the door in”, and “whatever consent we may have had in the first place” from the Iraqi people “has largely turned to intolerance”. He as since qualified his remarks by saying that he still wants the British troops to leave, but not until “the mission is substantially done”.
And at the same time, the Washington Post reports an AP Associated Press analysis, showing how President Bush’s reasons for the Iraq war keep on changing, starting from ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to now saying that “we can’t tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West. By helping Iraqis build a democracy… we will deal a major blow to terrorists and extremists”.
Former Secretary of State, James Baker, a Bush family friend leading a bipartisan commission on Iraq, acknowledged that the intelligence used to justify the war was wrong and “now that country could be said to be in civil war… If Iraq was not the front line on the war on terror when we went it, it certainly is the front line of the war on terror now” (reported in Greenwich Time).
Hmmm… an intelligence report and military officials from multiple countries are saying that the war in Iraq has increased terrorism, and yet President Bush is saying that we need to be in Iraq because we can’t tolerate a new terrorist state.
