David Stout at the New York Times:
It has stoked the long-running argument over whether the war in Iraq has made the United States safer by eliminating a tyrant, or has put America in more peril by stirring up terrorism and anti-American sentiment in Iraq that was not there before the war, or at least was not nearly as intense.
The White House quickly issued a statement, asserting that the report lays out clearly the persistent threat posed by terrorists and documents the Bush administration’s progress in pursuing them in cooperation with America’s allies.
Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader, said that the new intelligence estimate confirms that the administration’s policies have weakened terrorist capabilities. “Retreat is not a new way forward when the safety and security of future generations of Americans are at stake,” he said in a statement.
But Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said the report shows that the Bush administration’s national security strategy “has failed in its most basic responsibility,” to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and his confederates and to eliminate the threat posed by their terrorist network.
Walter Pincus at the Washington Post:
While U.S. intelligence believes al-Qaeda will continue to try to put operatives inside the United States, and anti-U.S. rhetoric continues to spread among radical Islamic Internet sites, the estimate reiterates a 2006 judgment that "the internal [U.S.] Muslim terrorist threat is not likely to be as severe as it is in Europe."
Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said today's assessment shows that the invasion of Iraq "diverted needed resources from eliminating the threat from al Qaeda." He pointed back to President Bush's remarks four years ago when the chief executive said, "Al Qaeda is on the run."
Star review of the morning's news comes from the reliable Digby, subbing at Salon. Digby picked up the Washington Post:
...I was shocked to see that a new National Intelligence Estimate says we are suddenly in grave danger of another terrorist attack. And the scariest thing is that it's the dreaded "al-Qaida in Iraq," working in cahoots with the big kahuna, bin Laden, who are threatening to come over here and kill us all in our beds...
But wait! There's another article in the Post which inspires skepticism about the NIE. It seems there's some disagreement among the intelligency agencies. Digby decodes both reports and comes to a conclusion:
Like so much of Washington reporting, you have to sift through the runes to decipher what these two articles are actually telling us. I'm guessing that we are once again dealing with a battle of the intelligence agencies. One group, we don't know which, is saying that al-Qaida in Iraq is working with bin Laden to strike in the United States and the administration is hyping it to justify the occupation. Another group is telling us that al-Qaida in Iraq is really a separate group that has its own agenda and we needn't worry that they are interested in the U.S. This will logically be used to justify ending the occupation. It's up to the reader to decide what is true.
Digby gives The Decider the final word:
As the president himself famously said, "fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
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