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| Terror Networks |
| New tome: War vs. Saddam hit al-Qaeda hard |
| 2004-10-04 |
| By Jules Crittenden Beneath all the public reasons for invading Iraq lies a secret war agenda that has paid off in the war on al-Qaeda, according to a leading intelligence analyst. ``The Bush administration has been represented as strategically stupid but adept at political manipulation. The opposite is true,'' said George Friedman, president of Stratfor, a firm that delivers global strategic forecasting and open-source intelligence analysis to corporate clients. Friedman's book, ``America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and its Enemies,'' which goes on sale Tuesday, argues that midway through the war on terrorism, America has made major gains while al-Qaeda has failed in most of its goals and is on the defensive. Iraq, he argues, is a keystone of American strategy against al-Qaeda. In the decision to invade Iraq, he argues, disarming a dangerous dictator and bringing democracy to the Middle East were secondary war goals. The factor that tipped the balance in internal Bush administration debates in mid-2002 was Saudi Arabia's recalcitrance in the war on al-Qaeda, he says. America's invasion of Iraq put pressure on the Saudis that forced them to act against al-Qaeda sympathizers within Saudi Arabia in ways the Saudis had been unwilling to do, Friedman said. In the past year, Friedman argues, it has worked. The Saudis, shaken by America's action, has engaged in a ``civil war'' against al-Qaeda, killing operatives, busting up cells and cracking down on the group's financial network. ``The problem is that the administration can't explain that this is blackmail on the Saudis. So it turns to WMD,'' Friedman said about the reasons given for the Iraq war. He argued that America was compelled to continue strong action after the Afghan campaign. ``Doing nothing would have been disastrous,'' Friedman said. Gains against al-Qaeda so far, he said, include: action to isolate nukes, include undercover special operations agents monitoring Pakistan's nuclear weapons facility; significant damage to al-Qaeda's fund-raising aparatus. better cooperation from intelligence agencies in Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. But the high-stakes game of brute-force foreign policy has been poorly executed, creating a new series of problems, Friedman argues. He criticizes the administration for failing to build up U.S. military strength and commit enough forces to Iraq. The administration also failed to recognize that Saddam had planned a guerrilla war after his predictable fall and that Iran had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi Shiites. A Shiite-dominated Iraq was meant to divide the Muslim world and further weaken al-Qaeda, Friedman said. But efforts to rein in the Shiites and cut deals with the Sunni minority in Iraq angered Iran, which is now making trouble by posturing itself as a soon-to-be nuclear power - although, he says, the mullahs know the U.S. and Israel will never let them complete have a deliverable nuke. |
| Posted by:Anonymous5089 |
| #14 Mrs. Davis - Msr. Clark was a color commentator on CNN and NOT the Operational Theater Commander of forces in the Iraq or Afghan campaign. Its the commander on 'the ground' who determines the needs of the operation. The Nichols-Goldwater Act says who's in charge and a retired general without access to the J-3 and J-2 materials is not in the know. The N-G Act was put in place specifically to end the amount of micro-management of military operations from people sitting thousands of miles away from the fight in the Beltway. Again I ask, what Operational Theater Commander in Iraq has requested additional troops and has been denied? |
| Posted by: Don 2004-10-05 9:27:47 AM |
| #13 Just because it is easy to pull the wool over a sock puppet? Darn! |
| Posted by: john 2004-10-04 9:34:58 PM |
| #12 I have always supported going into Iraq just because. Just because is a good enough reason for me. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-10-04 7:59:29 PM |
| #11 Wait! Make that 120 percent against another 9.11 |
| Posted by: Singh Ho 2004-10-04 7:57:43 PM |
| #10 Me either. Put me down 100 percent against another 9.11 |
| Posted by: Singh Ho 2004-10-04 7:57:09 PM |
| #9 I have always thought that going into Iraq was a right thing to do. There were lots of good reasons to do so. Iraq is a (there were others) linch-pin to mid-East. Something had to be done about the festering sore that existed there for all too long. I hope Zhang Fei's analysis is correct about the chances being slim for no more 9/11s here. Libia came around. The Saudi's seem to be slowly coming around. However, they have been playing both sides of the fence for a long time. I am not convinced they are not still playing this game. I never ever ever want to see another 9/11 on this soil. |
| Posted by: John (Q. Citizen) 2004-10-04 7:44:42 PM |
| #8 I've always argued that one of the unstated key reasons for going into Iraq was to scare the daylights out of Muslim governments that have adopted anti-American terrorism as a tool of state policy. Not by sponsoring it wholeheartedly and overtly, but by helping out a little here and a little there. No one country took on the whole burden, but every country did its bit. By having a piece of al Qaeda here and a piece there, they tried to avoid potential American retaliation. Iraq bolstered American credibility by showing Muslim states that the US might attack them even without the existence of irrefutable evidence. Many are now rushing to divest themselves of anything that can remotely be linked to a future terror attack on US soil. Without this tolerance of al Qaeda operatives among Muslim countries, the chances for another 9/11-style attack on the US are pretty slim. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-10-04 7:02:57 PM |
| #7 "These guys should stop trying so hard to look down their nose - it's hindering their vision." Very true; God bless 'em, though, for at least trying to see-- that's more than a lot of people are willing to do. Shortly before we invaded Iraq I started keeping a list of what I thought we were probably trying to achieve-- of all the possible ways invading Iraq might work to our advantage in the larger war, as well as all the possible side benefits. I had no trouble at all listing dozens of things, including what Anonymoose mentioned above. I've no idea why people cling to the notion that we went into Iraq "only" because of WMD, or for oil, or to stop the genocide. Maybe they simply aren't willing to trust Bush, and this inclination to distrust is being deliberately exploited, and amplified, by the Democrats for political gain. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2004-10-04 5:52:25 PM |
| #6 Name the Operational Theater Commander who has asked for more troops and has been turned down? Wesley Clark? |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-10-04 5:48:40 PM |
| #5 typical Statfor. Having been proved wrong about the benefits of going into Iraq - they now grudgingly acknowledge that efforts in Iraq have crippled Al Qaeda but ....ya see....only cause the stupid Bush just got lucky as he bumbled along. These guys should stop trying so hard to look down their nose - it's hindering their vision. |
| Posted by: 2b 2004-10-04 5:16:55 PM |
| #4 I would dispute the lack of other reasons besides pressuring Saudi Arabia to invade Iraq; however, what really bugs me is that the American public in general may never hear about this. Slashdot ran a link to an extensive NY Times story about administration disputes about Iraqi WMD with the title "White House Lied About Iraqi Centrifuges." (Never mind that in the meantime, as a result of the Iraqi invasion, we've found a clandestine network that was building centrifuges and shipping them around...) Putting pressure on the Saudis and others by invading Iraq only works when we don't have a candidate who's telling everyone he'll take the pressure off of them if he's elected. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-10-04 5:09:32 PM |
| #3 He forgot to mention a few other master strokes. First of all, Iraq is smack dab in the middle of things. Not only Syria and Iran, but also Central Asia and Northern Africa. And, you'll note, that the establishment of a REGIONAL COMMAND there clearly denotes that this fact was not lost on us. This points the US bayonet at a LOT of hard cases, *and* protects the world's energy supply, *and* fractures the paradigm of the contentious Middle East. With Iraq as a safe harbor, eastern Asia is also opened up US influence. In other words, the US can now project force like never before. With Europe cooled, Iraq is the very best place to be. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-10-04 4:07:02 PM |
| #2 "He criticizes the administration for failing to build up U.S. military strength and commit enough forces to Iraq." Ok boys, its time to put up or shut up. Name the Operational Theater Commander who has asked for more troops and has been turned down? |
| Posted by: Don 2004-10-04 4:01:26 PM |
| #1 Interesting, but to what extent has the Magic Kingdom actually cracked down? Just enough to keep the lid on a boiling pot, it seems to me. The Saudis need to do much more. |
| Posted by: Spot 2004-10-04 2:58:37 PM |