George Bush's Al Qaeda Lies Exposed

from National Security Network, via AlterNet:


George Bush's Al Qaeda Lies Exposed

National Security Network. Posted July 25, 2007.



President Bush is misleading troops about who they are (and are not) fighting in Iraq.

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President Bush makes fallacious connections between Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Al Qaeda who attacked the US on 9/11. "Some say that Iraq is not a part of the broader war on terror. They claim that the organization called al Qaeda in Iraq is an Iraqi phenomenon -- that it's independent of Osama bin Laden and it's not interested in attacking America. That would be news to Osama bin Laden. I presented intelligence that clearly establishes this connection. The facts are that al Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they're fighting us in Iraq and across the world, and they're plotting to kill Americans here at home again."

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The nation's 16 intelligence agencies agree that Al Qaeda has regenerated its ability to strike at the United States through its bases on the Afghan-Pakistan Border. "We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership."





Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Al-Qaeda "was only 10% of the problem in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, its prime minister, lacked the political will to establish an effective government." He went on to say that even even if the military surge has been a partial success in areas such as Anbar province, where Sunni tribes have turned on Al-Qaeda, it has not been accompanied by the vital political and economic "surge" and reconciliation process promised by the Iraqi government.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is not the same as Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Some of the extremists in Iraq have chosen to call themselves "Al Qaeda in Iraq," and they are in fact inspired by Osama Bin Laden's extremist ideology. While there is some level of cooperation and exchange of information, these groups did not exist in Iraq prior to the invasion in 2003.




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President Bush argues that "Al Qaeda is public enemy number one in Iraq. Al Qaeda is public enemy number one for the Iraqi people. Al Qaeda is public -- public enemy number one for the American people."

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Al Qaeda in Iraq accounts for 15% of the violence in Iraq. "Anthony Cordesman, a security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International studies says, the U.S. military estimates that al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group thought to number several thousand, accounts for only about 15% of the attacks in Iraq."



Foreign Jihadist fighters make up less than 10% of the insurgency. Most intelligence estimates still state that the vast majority of Sunni insurgents are Iraqi. They are not driven by a pan-Islamic ideology of destroying the West and creating a caliphate. Instead, they are fighting either against American forces or against other ethnic groups in Iraq. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/57889/

that the Administration constantly relies on the stupidity of the American public via the media.