T1B

Iraq is now a terrorist training ground, CIA says

Wed Jun 22, 2:10 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
CIA believes the
Iraq insurgency poses an international threat and may produce better-trained Islamic terrorists than the 1980s
Afghanistan war that gave rise to
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Wednesday.

A classified report from the U.S. spy agency says Iraqi and foreign fighters are developing a broad range of deadly skills, from car bombings and assassinations to tightly coordinated conventional attacks on police and military targets, the official said.

Once the insurgency ends, Islamic militants are likely to disperse as highly organized battle-hardened combatants capable of operating throughout the Arab-speaking world and in other regions including Europe.

Fighters leaving Iraq would primarily pose a challenge for their countries of origin including Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

But the May report, which has been widely circulated in the intelligence community, also cites a potential threat to the United States.

"You have people coming to the action with anti-U.S. sentiment ... And since they're Iraqi or foreign Arabs or to some degree Kurds, they have more communities they can blend into outside Iraq," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the report's classified status.

Iraq has become a magnet for Islamic militants similar to Soviet-occupied Afghanistan two decades ago and Bosnia in the 1990s, U.S. officials say.

Bin Laden won prominence as a U.S. ally in the war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. He later used Afghanistan as the training center for his al Qaeda network, which is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on Washington and New York.

President Bush justified the invasion of Iraq in part by charging that
Saddam Hussein was supporting al Qaeda. A top U.S. inquiry later found no collaboration between prewar Iraq and the bin Laden network.

But since the invasion, Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has emerged as a key insurgent figure and pledged his allegiance to bin Laden.

While the Afghan war against the Soviets was largely fought on a rural battlefield, the CIA report said Iraq is providing extremists with more comprehensive skills including training in operations devised for populated urban areas.

"You have everything from bombings and assassinations to more or less conventional attacks," the counterterrorism official said.

"The urban warfare experience, for people facing fairly tight police and military activity at close quarters, should enable them to operate in a wider range of settings."

CIA Director Porter Goss first described the insurgency in Iraq as an emerging international threat in February during testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Vice President
Dick Cheney has recently argued that the insurgency is in its last throes, despite reports that the guerrillas have grown more sophisticated and more deadly.

Goss said in an interview with Time magazine that the insurgency was not quite in its last throes, "but I think they are very close to it. And I think that every day that goes by in Iraq where they have their own government and it's moving forward reinforces just how radical (the insurgents) are and how unwanted they are."

The CIA believes the Iraq insurgency poses an international threat and may produce better-trained Islamic terrorists than the 1980s Afghanistan war that gave rise to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, officials said on June 22, 2005. A classified report from the U.S. spy agency says Iraqi and foreign fighters are developing a broad range of skills, from car bombings and assassinations to coordinated conventional attacks on police and military targets, officials said.

mvscal wrote:

Mister Bushice wrote:Nice. Not only have we not defeated them, we have given them a real life training ground to improve their skills.

Few of them live long enough to benefit from their experience.

No real surprise that you missed the obvious fact that it is a real life training ground to improve our skills, as well. Not to mention the fact that our troops sustain astronomically fewer casualties than they do.

You are a complete idiot incapable of any independent thought or reasoning after all.

mvscal wrote:It was the "it's a law enforcement issue" that brought us 9/11.

"No thanks you can keep OBL. I doubt I could convict him of anything. Besides I'm about to shoot my load on this here fat pig."

--Bubba Crintawn

You just fucking kill him.

mvscal wrote:Juries? What the fuck are you talking about? You still don't get it. You don't put this piece of shit on trial. You just fucking kill him.

mvpot say's:
you are a complete idiot incapable of any independent thought or reasoning after all.

mvscal wrote:It was the "it's a law enforcement issue" that brought us 9/11.

"No thanks you can keep OBL. I doubt I could convict him of anything. Besides I'm about to shoot my load on this here fat pig."

--Bubba Crintawn

Variable wrote:You have heard what happens when these camps are located right? Nuked from orbit. What's the problem?

Better that they're training in Iraq, where we already have a sizeable ground and air force on location, than training in the Sudan or somewhere else virtually unreachable and undetectable. Not like we don't have a satellite or 7 already tasked for Iraq or anything.

Furthermore, Gen. John Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago."

DrDetroit wrote:So if I am reading Bushice correctly...this war was a mistake because it's serving as a training ground for terrorists??

And what of Abizaid's remark, Bushice?

Did you expect something different?

You don't think that a democratic Iraq is a direct threat to middle east terror groups??

This poorly planned war is a mistake, yes. If it had been executed with more planning and better equipment, we wouldn't be hearing remarks from top military officials contradicting the vice President.

Shows you that all the propaganda about the insurgency waning was a lie.

I expect a little more honesty and forthrightness and less bullshit.

It would be if it was one.

Mister Bushice wrote:It's not panic. The terrorists have been claiming all along that we won't stop them, and it's being proven true.

We need to get out of there ASAP. It's a waste of American lives. As long as we are the occupying force there we are the recruiting tool for terrorists and a training ground for their leaders. Just because they send bodies there to die does not equate to diminished numbers elsewhere, or an interruption in planning for future terrorism.

At least if we're out of there AND iraq stabilizes we won't be providing them with real life practice on how to run a terrorist campaign in an urban environment.

We need to get out of there ASAP.

Variable wrote: And do what, wait for another 9/11?

The Iraq/9-11 connection is always the last gasp of someone flailing.

Where are these Iraqis in the US?

How many Iraqis flew planes on 9/11?



Here, say it with me......Saudis.

The correct answer was Saudis.

I don't hear much clamoring for an invasion of Saudi Arabia? Why is that?

Variable wrote:

We need to get out of there ASAP.

They're supposedly pouring into the country and establishing training camps and we're supposed to LEAVE? And do what, wait for another 9/11?

mvscal wrote:

Mister Bushice wrote: We need to turn over surface operations to the Iraqi military asap.

Oddly enough, that's exactly what we're doing.

:roll:

DrDetroit wrote:You see, idiot, prior to 9/11 the US was willing to treat terrorism as a law enforcement issue and that is how we handled it. We didn't use the military to go after terror states.

DrDetroit wrote:Then 9/11 happened in which we recognized, for the first time, that terrorist states were willing to export their terrorism outside the Middle East and right to the heart of America.

Variable wrote:

mvscal wrote:

Mister Bushice wrote: We need to turn over surface operations to the Iraqi military asap.

Oddly enough, that's exactly what we're doing.

:roll:

I had no idea! Rack Bush! - Bushice

:D

You are an ignorant fuckwad.

sin

Ronald Reagan

Dinsdale wrote:

DrDetroit wrote:Then 9/11 happened in which we recognized, for the first time, that terrorist states were willing to export their terrorism outside the Middle East and right to the heart of America.

Care to take another poke at that one, dumbass? Making this shit up as you go along?

Or did the WTC only become the "heart of America" post 9/11?

DrDetroit wrote:9/11 was significantly different though THAN parking a truck in an underground parking garage.

Dinsdale wrote:

Variable wrote: And do what, wait for another 9/11?

The Iraq/9-11 connection is always the last gasp of someone flailing.