csua.org/u/dw3 -> news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051101/pl_nm/security_terrorism_dc
Reuters Bush critics say US is losing war on terror By David Morgan 1 hour, 28 minutes ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US terrorism experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon have reached a stark conclusion about the war on terrorism: the Un ited States is losing.
Iraq that escalates the potential for Islamic violence against Europe and the United States. America's badly damaged image in the Muslim world could take more than a generation to set right. And Bush's mounting political woes at home have undermined the chance for any bold US initiatives to address the grim social realities that feed Islamic radicalism, they say. "It's been fairly disastrous," said Benjamin, who worked as a director fo r counterterrorism at the National Security Council from 1994 to 1999. "We have had some very important successes getting individual terrorists. We have done a lot to fuel the fires, and we have done a lot to encourage people to hate u s," he added in an interview. Benjamin and Simon, a former State Department official who was also at th e NSC, are co-authors of a new book titled: "The Next Attack: The Failur e of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right" (Times Books ). Following on from their 2002 book, "The Age of Sacred Terror" (Random Hou se), Benjamin and Simon list what they call US missteps since the Sept ember 11, 2001, attacks on America. The Bush administration presents the war on terrorism as a difficult but largely successful struggle that has seen the gutting of al Qaeda's pre- September 11 leadership and prevented new attacks in the United States o ver the past four years. Bush said last month the United States and its allies had disrupted plans for 10 al Qaeda attacks since September 11, including one against West Coast targets with hijacked planes. The White House describes Iraq as a central front in the war on terrorism and says the building of democracy there will confound militant aims an d help to propel the entire Middle East region toward democracy. Benjamin and Simon's criticism of the Bush administration in Iraq follows a path similar to those of other critics, including former US nationa l security adviser Brent Scowcroft and former White House counterterrori sm chief Richard Clarke. "We may be attacked by terrorists who receive their training in Iraq, or attacked by terrorists who were inspired, organized and trained by peopl e who were in Iraq," said Simon, a Rand Corp. "(Bush) has given them an excellent American target in Iraq but in the pr ocess has energized the jihad and given militants the kind of urban warf are experience that will raise the future threat to the United States ex ponentially." For Benjamin and Simon, the war on terrorism has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and failed to counter a deadly global movement re sponsible for attacks in London, Madrid, Bali, Indonesia, and Sharm el-S heikh, Egypt.
Osama bin Laden , they say, could have dreamed the United States would stumble so badly i n the court of Muslim public opinion. "Everyone says there's a war of ideas out there, and I agree. The sad fac t is that we're on the wrong side," said Benjamin, now a senior fellow a t the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. US fortunes could improve, the authors say, if Washington took a number of politically challenging steps, like bolstering public diplomacy with trade pacts aimed at expanding middle-class influence in countries such as Pakistan.
In a Muslim world of 12 billion pe ople, as many as three-in-four hold negative views of the United States. Because anti-US rhetoric often appeals strongly to impressionable youth , Benjamin and Simon believe many of today's young Muslims will harbor g rievances against the United States for the rest of their lives. The authors believe there is little prospect for fundamental improvement in US policy under Bush "There are resource constraints, there are con straints in the realm of trade, there are political constraints," said S imon. "These are not the kinds of circumstances that favor bold new policies th at require spending political capital that it turns out the White House just doesn't have," he added.
President Bush makes a statement on the 'War on Terror' at the White House while his top military advisors look on, September 28, 2005. Despi te an early victory over the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, two fo rmer Clinton administration officials say Bush's policies have created a new haven for terrorism in Iraq that escalates the potential for Islami c violence against Europe and the United States.
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