Analysts: Iraq war has fueled Islamic extremists

Bush orders declassified section of report released

? The war in Iraq has become a “cause celebre” for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that probably will get worse before it gets better, federal intelligence analysts conclude in a report at odds with President Bush’s portrayal of a world growing safer.

In the bleak report, declassified and released Tuesday on Bush’s orders, the nation’s most veteran analysts conclude that despite serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaida, the threat from Islamic extremists has spread both in numbers and in geographic reach.

Bush and his top advisers have said the formerly classified assessment of global terrorism supported their arguments that the world is safer because of the war. But more than three pages of stark judgments warning about the spread of terrorism contrasted with the administration’s glass-half-full declarations.

“If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide,” the document says. “The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups.”

The intelligence assessment, completed in April, has stirred a heated election-season argument about the course of U.S. national security in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Virtually all assessments of the current situation were bad news. The report’s few positive notes were couched in conditional terms, depending on successful completion of difficult tasks ahead for the U.S. and its allies. In one example, analysts concluded that more responsive political systems in Muslim nations could erode support for jihadist extremists.

Bush ordered a declassified section of the secret report released after several days of criticism sparked by portions that were leaked to the news media over the weekend.

At a news conference, Bush said critics who believe the Iraq war has worsened terrorism are naive and mistaken, noting that al-Qaida and other groups have found inspiration to attack for more than a decade. “My judgment is, if we weren’t in Iraq, they’d find some other excuse, because they have ambitions,” he said.

The unclassified document said:

¢ The increased role of Iraqis in managing the operations of al-Qaida in Iraq might lead the terror group’s veteran foreign fighters to refocus their efforts outside that country.

¢ While Iran and Syria are the most active state sponsors of terror, many other countries will be unable to prevent their resources from being exploited by terrorists.

¢ The underlying factors that are fueling the spread of the extremist Muslim movement outweigh its vulnerabilities. These factors are entrenched grievances and a slow pace of reform in home countries, rising anti-U.S. sentiment and the Iraq war.

¢ Groups “of all stripes” will increasingly use the Internet to communicate, train, recruit and obtain support.