America doesn't have enough ammunition

Intelligence report finds source of jihad

The office of the head of the American intelligence community, John Negroponte, released on Tuesday the tenth part of a 30-page secret report assessing the state of US security. The document was prepared back in April by 16 US intelligence agencies. The need for its partial declassification arose only after the New York Times recently cited excerpts from the report, from which it followed that the war in Iraq had become a source of fuel for international terrorism.

“We were not in Iraq on September 11, 2001,” President George W. Bush said irritably, adding that quotes taken out of context “only create confusion in the minds of Americans.” The newspaper publication did not include the flattering words for the White House that “US efforts to combat terrorism have caused serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaeda and disrupted its activities.” But there was no discouraging continuation of this maxim: “However, we believe that al-Qaeda will continue to pose the greatest threat to US interests abroad. We also believe that the global jihad movement, including al-Qaeda, affiliated and independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells, is expanding and developing methods to counter the fight against terrorism.”

In addition to al-Qaeda, the report mentions by name only Jemaah Islamiyah and Ansar al-Sunna, Islamist organizations operating in Southeast Asia and Iraq, respectively. At the same time, experts pointed to the serious threat posed by small but numerous terrorist groups, since “the combination of unity of purpose and independence of the perpetrators will complicate the identification and fight against them.” The authors of the report cannot “clearly measure the extent of the spread of the threat,” but “a large number of information from various sources shows that there are more and more activists who consider themselves “jihadists”, both in quantitative terms and in terms of the geography of their distribution.”

A "new generation of terrorist leaders and fighters" is emerging in violence-plagued Iraq and "if jihadists feel they are succeeding, it will inspire more fighters to continue the fight everywhere." The Iraq conflict "has become a major issue for the 'jihadists' as it has generated strong resentment of US intervention in the Islamic world and is cultivating supporters of global jihad." The report expresses particular concern that “if this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become so diverse that it will lead to an increase in the number of terrorist attacks around the world.” They will be carried out “with the leading participation of militants with experience fighting in Iraq” and, as the tragic experience of recent years has shown, “mainly in cities.”

The first response from Democrats was to demand that the entire report be made public. Democratic leader in the US Senate, Harry Reid, said that the failure of Republican Bush's policies in Iraq "creates the ground for global terrorism and increases the danger for America." Reed also recalled that intelligence reports that Saddam's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction on the eve of the US invasion turned out to be false. Bruce Hoffman, a security expert at Georgetown University, said: "The big takeaway from this report is that we don't have enough ammunition for all the enemies we're creating."

With the approaching November elections to the US Congress, in a conversation with Vremya Novostey, the head of the Scientific Center “Russian-Arab Dialogue” of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Anatoly Yegorin, linked a new surge in intra-American controversy. According to him, “Bush’s goal is to raise excitement around his often imaginary successes in the anti-terrorist fight, but the declassification campaign is not intended for professionals, but for people on the street.” The expert recalled the terrorist attacks of recent years in Great Britain, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Spain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, not to mention Iraq. “These tragedies, and even the summer conflict between the Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel, all of them have their roots in the war against Iraq and the occupation of this country in 2003,” VN’s interlocutor is sure.

Alexey SLOBODIN