Why start listening to experts now?
Why al-Qaeda Thrives
President Bush says Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, but security experts say Iraq is the reason Bin Laden's movement is growing
By TONY KARON
…President Bush framed his Monday keynote address on Iraq around the idea that the country is now "the central front in the war on terror." He implied that the invasion of Iraq was a choice forced on the U.S. by the Sept. 11 attacks and that the enemy facing the U.S. there shares al-Qaeda's goal of establishing "Taliban-type" rule. In all, he used the words "terror" or "terrorist/terrorism" 19 times. But the president's characterization will hardly have resonated with his Iraqi audience, who see al-Qaeda as a problem brought into their country by the U.S. invasion rather than by Saddam Hussein. Even the U.S. intelligence community has long maintained that Saddam's regime had no connection with the 9/11 attacks, while U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq say that foreign terrorists constitute only a small fraction of the insurgency facing Coalition troops there.
If, indeed, there is a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, it may not be the kind the Bush campaign is likely to dwell on.The same day the President spoke, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies released its annual survey that found, among other things, that far from dealing a blow to al-Qaeda and making the U.S. and its allies safer, the Iraq invasion has in fact substantially strengthened bin Laden's network and increased the danger of attacks in the West. And the London-based IISS is not some Bush-bashing antiwar think tank; it hosted the president's keynote address during his embattled visit to the British late last year.
