White House admits Iraq fuels extremism

UNITED STATES: The White House acknowledged that Iraq was among several factors that "fuel the spread of jihadism," but said that winning the war would dishearten potential terrorists.

Spokesman Tony Snow sought to challenge news reports on Sunday about the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and terrorism, which represents the comprehensive consensus findings of the 16 US intelligence agencies.

"It assesses that a variety of factors, in addition to Iraq, fuel the spread of jihadism, including longstanding social grievances, slowness of the pace of reform, and the use of the Internet," he told reporters.

"And it also notes that should jihadists be perceived to have failed in Iraq, fewer will be inspired to carry on the fight," the spokesman said as US President George W. Bush traveled here for a political fundraiser.

On Sunday, the New York Times quoted an official familiar with the report, entitled Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States, as saying that "the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse."

Bush has been saying that the war made Americans safer as he campaigns ahead of November 7 legislative elections, in which the unpopular war in Iraq may cost his Republican party control of one or both houses of the US Congress.

The Washington Post said the report described the Iraq conflict as the primary recruiting vehicle for violent Islamic extremists. While the US has seriously damaged Al-Qaeda and disrupted its ability to carry out major operations since the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, it noted, radical Islamic networks have spread and decentralized.

"One thing that the reports do not say is that war in Iraq has made terrorism worse," said Snow, who also insisted that the new reports "contain nothing that the president hasn't said."

He pointed to the news accounts saying that the NIE concluded that the leadership of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network had been "hit hard" since it carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Snow also said the news reports described the NIE as finding that Al-Qaeda had become more dispersed, with more independent activity, more use of the Internet and a shared "totalitarian ideology" with other terrorist groups.

Meanwhile a retired us army general who served in the confeict said The conduct of the Iraq war fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe and created more enemies for the United States.

The views of retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste buttressed an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies, which intelligence officials said concluded the war had inspired Islamist extremists and made the militant movement more dangerous.

The Iraq conflict, which began in March 2003, made "America arguably less safe now than it was on Sept. 11, 2001," Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, told a hearing on the war called by U.S. Senate Democrats.

"If we had seriously laid out and considered the full range of requirements for the war in Iraq, we would likely have taken a different course of action that would have maintained a clear focus on our main effort in Afghanistan, not fueled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe, and not created more enemies than there were insurgents," Batiste said.

U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte refuted that charge at a Washington dinner late Monday, denying the Iraq war had increased the terrorism threat to the United States.

"I think we could safely say that we are safer and that the threat to the homeland itself has, if anything, been reduced since 9/11," the U.S. director of national intelligence said in response to intelligence leaks on Iraq and terrorism that have engulfed the Bush administration in recent days. "We are more vigilant. We are better prepared," he said.

Batiste, who was among retired generals who called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier this year, poured scorn on the war plan along with two other retired military men at a hearing called by Senate Democrats.

Washington, Tuesday, AFP, Reuters