Now It's Official: Iraq War Spreads Terrorism

Rumsfeld by davesag

In early 2003, I was walking down 6th street in downtown Seattle and stopped to read a poster that claimed invading Iraq would play right into Osama bin Laden's hands.

Well, now it's official. The New York Times this morning ran a story about a classified National Intelligence Estimate that concludes our occupation of Iraq is spreading radical Islam and creating new groups of terrorists. From the article:

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States," it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, "Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement," cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report "says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse," said one American intelligence official.

Why, why, why does Donald Rumsfeld still have a job?