I blogged yesterday that Bush was already facing stiff opposition to some of the claims he made regarding al Qaeda in Iraq during a trip to Charleston, SC earlier this week. Yesterday, the chief US intelligence analyst for international terrorism painted a vastly different picture from Bush's 'stay the course' message used for drumming up support for the invasion in Iraq.
A day after President Bush sought to present evidence showing that Iraq is now the main battlefront against Al Qaeda, the chief US intelligence analyst for international terrorism told Congress that the network's growing ranks in Pakistan and Afghanistan pose a more immediate threat to the United States.
In rare testimony before two House committees, Edward Gistaro, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, said that Al Qaeda terrorists operating in South Asia are better equipped to attack the United States than the network's followers in Iraq are.
Asked which arm of Al Qaeda concerned him the most, Gistaro told a joint session of the House armed services and intelligence panels that it was South Asia.
"The primary concern is in Al Qaeda in South Asia organizing its own plots against the United States," he said. Al Qaeda planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from its bases in Afghanistan.
More terrorism experts have gone public in response to the President's latest speech, prompting discussion about how upfront the Bush administration is being with the American public.
Abraham Wagner, a senior researcher at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism at Columbia University, called Bush's speech about the Al Qaeda threat in Iraq a "spin job."
"In the Cold War it was called 'threat lumping,' " Wagner said. "It is creating a threat to justify what you are doing. Al Qaeda in Iraq never existed prior to the US activity in Iraq and I think it is still a small operation."
"It is unfortunate," he added, that "the administration, in their last gasp to justify what they are doing, are inventing threats and misrepresenting what they are getting from the intelligence community."
You can read the full article here.
It appears to me:
'Al Qaeda' = boogieman
Numbskull Republican Bush = Numbskull Democrats galore
Honest political forums to find/deduce most wise/just/etc. people in the land = 0 (hint: this could be the root of the many miserable decisions/choices these skunks collectively make) ;o)
(which begs the question: why do some of you people appear to 'suck up' to 'it'/participate/etc. without ever acknowledging this miserable political/election fraud?..firstly, clearly and FREQUENTLY..
Instead, it appears 'we' tend to get a lot of noisy monkey-suit-wearers who appear as mere "economic Republiclown$" who smoke dope!.. ;o)
Has anyone thought that maybe al Qaeda in Iraq is hell bent on killing as many soldiers as possible, so our military is not only weakened from an obvious personnel standpoint, less soldiers, but that our abilit to recruit the best and brightest into the military in the future is also weakened because no one wants to become suicide bomb fodder in some other land sent there by our own government. Who would sign up for that? The future of our DEFENSE forces are being assaulted by al Qaeda in Iraq and it's working to the enemy's advantage. Bush, of course, will retire in 18 months and play golf for the rest of his days. What a giant a-hole!
Posted by: Nick at July 27, 2007 04:01 PM