A Five Month Old National Intelligence Estimate

The United States government has assessed the threat level within the world. Months ago. The increased terrorist threat level reflected the ongoing situation in an Iraq that has since become more unstable. From the New York Times article that first made the public aware of this NIE report, it was learned that the sixteen agencies dedicated to spying and being aware of threats to America came to a general consesus that the Iraq stalemate has brought more danger, not less, to the country.

When the New York Times first ran the story, it was not a dissection of the full report as much as an assembly of those who knew of the report and their comments. After the story ran on the 23rd, several made calls on the White House to release the full assessment by the 25th.

The Executive branch has decided to release bits and pieces of the report. A curious decision since it was originally classified in its entirety. To the extent that those portions that President Bush deemed not-as-secret, there are some remarks on what the occupation has returned on the billions invested so far (from Reuters):

"We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives," said the declassified segment of the report, titled "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States."

"The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement," it added.

This will mark the return to the fly-paper theory of waging preventative war, yet what it really alludes to is the fact that waging a war against a people and a society at large which does not wish to be occupied only furthers a hatred which will likely boomerang back at the invader.

Sadly, the lesson may not be learned in time.