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All RSS Feeds Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground War Created Haven, CIA Advisers Report By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A01 Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generat ion of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yes terday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think ta nk. Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, t he opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B Low, the n ational intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jiha dists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."
Sign Up Now Low's comments came during a rare briefing by the council on its new repo rt on long-term global trends. It took a year to produce and includes th e analysis of 1,000 US and foreign experts. Within the 119-page report is an evaluation of Iraq's new role as a breeding ground for Islamic te rrorists. President Bush has frequently described the Iraq war as an integral part of US efforts to combat terrorism. But the council's report suggests t he conflict has also helped terrorists by creating a haven for them in t he chaos of war. "At the moment," NIC Chairman Robert L Hutchings said, Iraq "is a magnet for international terrorist activity." Before the US invasion, the CIA said Saddam Hussein had only circumstan tial ties with several al Qaeda members. Osama bin Laden rejected the id ea of forming an alliance with Hussein and viewed him as an enemy of the jihadist movement because the Iraqi leader rejected radical Islamic ide als and ran a secular government. Bush described the war in Iraq as a means to promote democracy in the Mid dle East. "A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East," he said one month before the invasion. "Instead of threatening its neig hbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and p rosperity in a region that needs both." But as instability in Iraq grew after the toppling of Hussein, and resent ment toward the United States intensified in the Muslim world, hundreds of foreign terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders. Th ey found tons of unprotected weapons caches that, military officials say , they are now using against US troops. Foreign terrorists are believe d to make up a large portion of today's suicide bombers, and US intell igence officials say these foreigners are forming tactical, ever-changin g alliances with former Baathist fighters and other insurgents. "The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afg hanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispers ion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report sa ys. According to the NIC report, Iraq has joined the list of conflicts -- inc luding the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, and independence movements in Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao in the Philippines, and southern Thailand -- that have deepened solidarity among Muslims and helped spread radical I slamic ideology. At the same time, the report says that by 2020, al Qaeda "will be superse ded" by other Islamic extremist groups that will merge with local separa tist movements. Most terrorism experts say this is already well underway . The NIC says this kind of ever-morphing decentralized movement is much more difficult to uncover and defeat. Terrorists are able to easily communicate, train and recruit through the Internet, and their threat will become "an eclectic array of groups, cel ls and individuals that do not need a stationary headquarters," the coun cil's report says. "Training materials, targeting guidance, weapons know -how, and fund-raising will become virtual (ie online)." The report, titled "Mapping the Global Future," highlights the effects of globalization and other economic and social trends. But NIC officials s aid their greatest concern remains the possibility that terrorists may a cquire biological weapons and, although less likely, a nuclear device. The council is tasked with midterm and strategic analysis, and advises th e CIA director. "The NIC's goal," one NIC publication states, "is to pro vide policymakers with the best, unvarnished, and unbiased information - - regardless of whether analytic judgments conform to US policy." Other than reports and studies, the council produces classified National Intelligence Estimates, which represent the consensus among US intelli gence agencies on specific issues. Yesterday, Hutchings, former assistant dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, said the NI C report tried to avoid analyzing the effect of US policy on global tr ends to avoid being drawn into partisan politics. Among the report's major findings is that the likelihood of "great power conflict escalating into total war . However, "at no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alig nments been in such a state of flux as they have in the past decade." The report also says the emergence of China and India as new global econo mic powerhouses "will be the most challenging of all" Washington's regio nal relationships. It also says that in the competition with Asia over t echnological advances, the United States "may lose its edge" in some sec tors. Staff writer Bradley Graham and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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