One Utah

This morning, the government released the so-called “key judgments” from the unclassified version of a new National Intelligence Estimate entitled The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland (PDF).

NIEs are produced several times a year to address particular national security issues of concern to our nation’s leaders, and are circulated to high-level executive branch officials and selected members of Congress. These documents express the coordinated judgments of the US Intelligence Community made up of 16 intelligence agencies, and represent the most authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence.

Like the last unclassified terrorism NIE that was released in September 2006, this one confirms that our invasion and occupation of Iraq has fueled Sunni radicalism around the globe and has caused the terrorist threat to grow. In addition, another key judgment predicts that Hezbollah is prepared to hit the USA if we attack Iran, thereby infuriating Shiites around the globe.

We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to enhance its capabilities to attack the Homeland through greater cooperation with regional terrorist groups. Of note, we assess that al-Qa’ida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland. In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps al-Qa’ida to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks.

…We assess Lebanese Hizballah, which has conducted anti-US attacks outside the United States in the past, may be more likely to consider attacking the Homeland over the next three years if it perceives the United States as posing a direct threat to the group or Iran.

I wonder if the news media will report this NIE as evidence of the utter stupidity of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Al Qaeda has a safe haven in Pakistan, they are strengthening their networks and have many more allies– thanks to Bush’s strategic blunders and bad diplomacy.

UPDATE: Intelligence experts describe the unclassified NIE as “pure pablum” because so much key information is omitted. “It’s more about what it doesn’t say than what it does say,” says former head of counter-terrorism Richard Clarke. “Given that there was no al Qaeda in Iraq until we invaded there,” says Clarke, “it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that going to Iraq has created a further threat to the United States.”

UPDATE: On Talking Points Memo, Spencer Ackerman points out that although AQI has only conducted one attack outside Iraq (in Amman, Jordan) the NIE attempts to portray the group as a direct threat to the USA. This is apparently in support President Bush’s attempts to link the unpopular occupation of Iraq with homeland security.

UPDATE: Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend delivers the spin du jour. There is no separation between the futile Iraq occupation and the equally futile GWOT: “These aren’t separate conflicts. These are clearly a single conflict by a single determined enemy…” TPM has posted a video clip.

UPDATE: From Slate’s Fred Kaplan:

Many times, President Bush has said that we’re fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them here. It is an absurd argument in many ways. But the NIE reveals that the opposite is the case: that because we’re fighting them in Iraq, we are more likely to face them here.

This entry was posted Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under 4th Estate (Media), 9/11, Disaster, Iraq, National Politics, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.