Wednesday, June 23, 2004
The Fight Against al-Qaida
The FBI and CIA (through an unnamed author) are reported today as giving their particular slants on the fight against al-Qaida and where we should go from here.
According to the New York Times, the CIA agent's new book, "Imperial Hubris" castigates his superiors and both administrations for mishandling the "terrorism problem". He writes: "U.S. leaders refuse to accept the obvious: We are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency — not criminality or terrorism — and our policy and procedures have failed to make more than a modest dent in enemy forces." The NYT reports that the author says "the threat is rooted not in opposition to American values, but to policies and actions, particularly in the Islamic world." He claims that the attack on Iraq was an unprovoked war against a foe that presented no threat, remarking that Ussama bin Ladin could not have asked for anything better than our attack on, and occupation of, Iraq. He sees us as having waged two failed half-wars, leaving behind little but seething anger. He believes al Qaida is readying another massive attack on the United states worse than the last, possibly including MWD. After this, he says, "heads will roll within the intelligence community". Overall, the remarkable fact that this man remains in the CIA, that his book was vetted by the CIA, and was evidently published with little censorship suggests that there may be considerable support for his views within Langley.
In this book, as in the recent book by the former right-hand man to Condoleezza Rice, Richard Clarke, we see righteous anger boiling over. I wish there was not so much of this, for it makes the outsider believe that where there is so much fire, there might not be much smoke. Yet he is obviously making some good points. I would agree that al-Qaida's opposition to us is more to policies than values, although it is also important to know what our opponents say they are about and give that some credit too. But I believe that our actions, and their continuation in Afghanistan, and our pressure on Islamabad, have made al-Qaida efforts much more difficult than this agent appears to think. They have lost their excellent training grounds, being reduced to perhaps something in Lebanon and some small new training bases in Afghanistan. They are now getting experience in Iraq, although not for large actions against the continental United States. In the end, if Iraq ends up dominated by Shiites and Kurds, al-Qaida may not find that a very useful haven either. One can agree that, given their propaganda objectives, they should mount a major attack on the United States. I have been thinking this for a couple of years now, but it has not happened. My conclusion is that al-Qaida has few operatives in the U.S. Our security people must be doing something right. My suspicion also is that when the fabled attack comes, it is likely not to be with WMD.
On a more hopeful note, Robert Mueller, FBI director suggests that we are in the process of forming an anti-terrorism alliance including, and parallel to, NATO. This seems to be an urgent need; one wonders why it has not acted on seriously much earlier (probably the same issue as with FBI/CIA, losing control over and suspicion of sources). He wants a new intelligence directorate within the FBI that would help prioritize what leads should be pursued — again an urgent and long overdue move. He estimates that the total number of Islamic extremists (i.e. potential al-Qaida) is in the low thousands worldwide. However, al-Qaida is recruiting "outside the Middle East" to find sympathizers better able to melt into American society.
The FBI and CIA (through an unnamed author) are reported today as giving their particular slants on the fight against al-Qaida and where we should go from here.
According to the New York Times, the CIA agent's new book, "Imperial Hubris" castigates his superiors and both administrations for mishandling the "terrorism problem". He writes: "U.S. leaders refuse to accept the obvious: We are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency — not criminality or terrorism — and our policy and procedures have failed to make more than a modest dent in enemy forces." The NYT reports that the author says "the threat is rooted not in opposition to American values, but to policies and actions, particularly in the Islamic world." He claims that the attack on Iraq was an unprovoked war against a foe that presented no threat, remarking that Ussama bin Ladin could not have asked for anything better than our attack on, and occupation of, Iraq. He sees us as having waged two failed half-wars, leaving behind little but seething anger. He believes al Qaida is readying another massive attack on the United states worse than the last, possibly including MWD. After this, he says, "heads will roll within the intelligence community". Overall, the remarkable fact that this man remains in the CIA, that his book was vetted by the CIA, and was evidently published with little censorship suggests that there may be considerable support for his views within Langley.
In this book, as in the recent book by the former right-hand man to Condoleezza Rice, Richard Clarke, we see righteous anger boiling over. I wish there was not so much of this, for it makes the outsider believe that where there is so much fire, there might not be much smoke. Yet he is obviously making some good points. I would agree that al-Qaida's opposition to us is more to policies than values, although it is also important to know what our opponents say they are about and give that some credit too. But I believe that our actions, and their continuation in Afghanistan, and our pressure on Islamabad, have made al-Qaida efforts much more difficult than this agent appears to think. They have lost their excellent training grounds, being reduced to perhaps something in Lebanon and some small new training bases in Afghanistan. They are now getting experience in Iraq, although not for large actions against the continental United States. In the end, if Iraq ends up dominated by Shiites and Kurds, al-Qaida may not find that a very useful haven either. One can agree that, given their propaganda objectives, they should mount a major attack on the United States. I have been thinking this for a couple of years now, but it has not happened. My conclusion is that al-Qaida has few operatives in the U.S. Our security people must be doing something right. My suspicion also is that when the fabled attack comes, it is likely not to be with WMD.
On a more hopeful note, Robert Mueller, FBI director suggests that we are in the process of forming an anti-terrorism alliance including, and parallel to, NATO. This seems to be an urgent need; one wonders why it has not acted on seriously much earlier (probably the same issue as with FBI/CIA, losing control over and suspicion of sources). He wants a new intelligence directorate within the FBI that would help prioritize what leads should be pursued — again an urgent and long overdue move. He estimates that the total number of Islamic extremists (i.e. potential al-Qaida) is in the low thousands worldwide. However, al-Qaida is recruiting "outside the Middle East" to find sympathizers better able to melt into American society.
Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
