WASHINGTON - A growing number of counter-terrorism experts are
challenging President Bush's assertion that Iraq is a major battle
in the war against terrorism and are questioning whether the U.S.
invasion of Iraq has hurt rather than helped the global battle
against al-Qaida and its affiliates.
Experts who have served in top positions in both Republican and
Democratic administrations are increasingly suggesting that the Iraq
war has diverted momentum, troops and intelligence resources from
the worldwide campaign to destroy the remnants of al-Qaida.
They note that the presence of U.S. troops in an Arab homeland is
serving as a major recruiting tool for signing up and motivating new
jihadis, or Islamic holy warriors.
"Fighting Iraq had little to do with fighting the war on
terrorism, until we made it (so)," said Richard Clarke, who was a
senior White House counter-terrorism official under Bush and
President Bill Clinton.
There are few objective measures by which to judge the progress
of the war on terror, something that makes it difficult to gauge
whether the United States is winning or losing the battle.
Bush administration officials note that much of al-Qaida's known
top leadership has been caught or killed, but even Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a much-publicized memo that was leaked last
month, said ways of measuring progress are almost nonexistent.
"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the
global war on terror," Rumsfeld wrote.
Yet gauging the status of the war against al-Qaida has taken on
fresh urgency with a series of deadly car bombings this month in
Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and new threat warnings at home.
The war on terror also appears destined to play a major role in
next year's presidential campaign, with Bush and his Democratic
opponents running dueling television ads on national security
issues.
Some possible indicators of success or failure are murky,
analysts say.
Islamic terrorist groups, perhaps with inspiration but not
direction from al-Qaida, are striking out at civilian targets in the
Muslim world. Their operations, while deadly, appear to some experts
to be hurried and without central control, a sign that the war is
taking a toll on al-Qaida.
It remains unknown, however, whether Osama bin Laden's group can
mount another 9-11-style "terrorist spectacular" in the United
States. Nor is it known whether bin Laden, his deputy Ayman
al-Zawahiri and other al-Qaida leaders still exercise direct control
over the network, or how close they are to being captured.
There are worrisome signs that the terrorist threat is
regenerating.
A United Nations report due out in early December is expected to
say that al-Qaida, while probably weakened by U.S.-led assaults,
possesses surface-to-air missiles for use against aircraft and is
working toward a biological or chemical weapons attack.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban militia ousted in late 2001 is
resurgent, fueled by an upsurge in opium production.
And while terror training camps have been eliminated in
Afghanistan, new ones are being established in the Caucasus and the
Philippines, former White House officials Daniel Benjamin and Steven
Simon write in a new afterword to their book, "The Age of Sacred
Terror."
"From the perspective of counterterrorism professionals, the war
in Iraq was not a continuation, but a diversion," they write.
No evidence of links between deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
and al-Qaida has been made public since the U.S. invasion, despite
pre-war claims by top Bush aides that such ties posed a growing
threat to the United States.
According to current and former officials, the Bush
administration diverted precious assets, including U.S. military
special operations forces, intelligence operatives and spy
satellites from tracking al-Qaida to the war in Iraq.
By one official's estimate, half of the special operations and
intelligence resources focused on al-Qaida were redirected to
support the March 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. That figure
could not be confirmed.
Former White House counter-terrorism coordinator Rand Beers, who
resigned in March just before the Iraq war began, said that U.S.
troops, CIA paramilitary officers and intelligence collection
devices were withdrawn from Afghanistan and refurbished for use in
the war against Iraq.
Beers - who now works for the presidential campaign of Sen. John
Kerry, D-Mass. - added that war with Iraq added to U.S. difficulties
in committing the security force or aid needed to stabilize
Afghanistan.
"We missed some opportunities," Beers said.
Others note that the number of U.S. spy satellites and electronic
listening posts is limited as is the number of analysts trained to
decipher and translate intercepted messages. While they have no
specific information to corroborate their statements, they believe
U.S. intelligence is almost certainly listening in on fewer
suspected terrorists outside of Iraq as they assign much of their
intelligence capabilities to detecting and pre-empting attacks on
U.S. forces in Iraq.
Steve Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence,
insisted that the global war on terrorism has not been hurt by a
diversion of resources to Iraq.
"The intelligence community writ larger, and the (Pentagon)
specifically, continue to do the monitoring, the assessment and are
taking the appropriate actions ... in the world writ large," said
Cambone, a close associate of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"At the level of the global war on terrorism, there isn't a lack
of focus," he said.
Cambone acknowledged that there is a shortage of experts in
collecting and analyzing human intelligence within the military
services. But he said the Pentagon has instructed each service to
institute a crash training program to boost so-called HUMINT teams
working in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Another top intelligence official said the CIA, with a finite
number of Arabic speakers, paramilitary operators and other assets,
has inevitably had to divert resources to the Iraq effort.
But "we've struggled mightily not to diminish our
counter-terrorism efforts" through reorganization and longer work
hours, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The
CIA and other intelligence agencies have been flooded with new funds
since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism specialist at the Congressional
Research Service, questioned whether the diversion of U.S. troops
from Afghanistan makes a difference in the hunt for bin Laden, who
is thought to be along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
"Ultimately, if bin Laden and Zawahiri are going to be tracked
down, probably Pakistani forces are going to have the best chance at
that," he said.
Bush administration officials point out that there have been
major successes against al-Qaida since September 2001.
The network's operational leadership is dead, captured or on the
run, they say. More than 3,400 terrorist suspects have been detained
by over 100 countries, and more than $200 million in
terrorist-related finances have been seized. Saudi Arabia has begun
a major crackdown on the group and its affiliates.
In response, Katzman said, the terrorist network has fragmented
into "local al-Qaidas or pro-al-Qaida centers" whose focus appears
to be attacks in the Middle East.
Terrorists are seeking out new pastures, too.
Counter-terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp of the University of St.
Andrews in Scotland recently visited the Tri-Border Area, a lawless
region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet that has been used
by Islamic terrorist groups to hide and raise funds. Fifteen minutes
after arriving in Paraguay, he said, he was offered explosives and
arms - for cash.
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(Knight Ridder Washington correspondent Jonathan S. Landay
contributed to this report.)
