ROTC For Terrorists
The CIA says the war in Iraq is prime terrorist recruiting territory, write Dana Priest and Josh White in the WaPo. Rummy disagrees. Of course.
The insurgency in Iraq continues to baffle the U.S. military and intelligence communities, and the U.S. occupation has become a potent recruiting tool for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, top U.S. national security officials told Congress yesterday."Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists," CIA Director Porter J. Goss told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
"These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism," he said. "They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries."
On a day when the top half-dozen U.S. national security and intelligence officials went to Capitol Hill to talk about the continued determination of terrorists to strike the United States, their statements underscored the unintended consequences of the war in Iraq.
"The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists," Goss said in his first public testimony since taking over the CIA.
And a cause for financial concern over here. Bush just asked for $82 billion in emergency aid for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...in addition to the nearly $200 billion we've already sunken into Iraq.
The emergency request exceeds the president's combined 2006 funding request for the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Housing and Urban Development, and it is nearly five times the savings Bush is seeking next year in cuts to discretionary spending.
"This is a lot of money," said Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
The request was the latest demonstration of how the soaring costs of war — and the ongoing reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan — have exceeded the administration's early characterizations. White House officials derided former Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey's early estimate of a $100 billion to $200 billion price tag.
"We're now officially about to hit a $200 billion war, with a likelihood of hitting $300 billion ... and a distinct possibility we'll reach 400 [billion]," said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution.
Where, exactly, is this money going to come from? When, exactly, are people going to start getting a little wigged that Mr. No Nation Building is doing loads and loads of nation building, and it's all going on the public's already way over-limit Neiman-Marcus card?
Bush never ran as a fiscal conservative. If 9/11 hadn't happened, and Iraq II hadn't happened, his administration would still be a financial shitbath.
I don't get the stuff about how Iraq is now a training ground or recruitment center or whatever. It may even be true, but that evil energy was probably out there anyway.
The trans-national effort that brought about 9/11 convinced me that we no longer needed to be quite so precious about pissing people off.
Cridland at February 18, 2005 11:08 AM
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