The NY Times, gives us their spin on a April 2006 NIE that they say tells us that Iraq is worsening the terror threat.

” stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report ‚Äúsays that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,‚Äù said one American intelligence official.”

Well, Mr. Anonymous is welcome to his opinion, but I beg to differ. Isamic Jihad existed long before the Iraq war, and if to press the point, before the Gulf War. On a second point, I see that our distractors are still infecting our IC community, that’s a pity, especially in light of the fact that it was this kind of agenda assessment that got us to 9/11 in the first place.

Is Iraq a “breeding ground”? Perhaps. But it was necessary for this to take place. Again, and people are forgetting this. From the beginning both the President and knowleable members of the IC told us that this would be a LONG war lasting many, many years. We’re not fighting an “army” we’re fighting an ideology that has been around for many years.

People in their “Starbucks/30 minutes to resolution” mentality think that the GWOT is going to be solved in three years or even ten are deluded. It’s going to take a lot longer than that to defeat Islamic Fanaticism.

Back to the story, let me lead by example.

Let’s say the world is a house, and as a house will be over the years you noticed a few cockroaches running out of a wall. To address the issue over time you adopt a policy of spraying individual cockroaches, only to find over time, it just “masks” the problem. However one day you decide to just knock down the wall to see where they’re are all coming from and when you do suddenly thousands of them come scurrying out. Have you made the problem worse? Perhaps, but you are a lot closer to the cure.

The problem isn’t what we have done, because we had to do something. Remember WTC-1, Kohbar Towers, the USS Cole, and 9/11 didn’t happen because we were necessarily attacking Al Qaeda, it was because they are terrorist and they are an evil people who need to be destroyed.

Iraq was necessary in that it will be the catalysts by which we have gained the upper ground on terrorism. Point of fact for all the handwringing and worry, terrorism is on it’s down-swing. There has been no attack on US soil since 9/11. There have been many foiled attacks since then because of the efforts of the Bush administration. Top this off with the complete and utter relegating of Al Qaeda to an “also ran” in terrorism, with Osama either dead or heading there, and they being reduced to using a former “head banger” California dude for a spokesman.

Reqardless of the spin, we are winning.

UPDATE: I’ve done some checking on this report and being that the NIE is still classified we have yet another example of leaking to the MSM. But the motivation is obvious as the Washington Post lets slip out.

“The NIE, whose contents were first reported by the New York Times, coincides with public statements by senior intelligence officials describing a different kind of conflict than the one outlined by President Bush in a series of recent speeches marking the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”

That is the reason some of these “officials”, mostly State Department pukes got to yacking it up with the media for this story. It’s designed to “stem the tide” of the Bush rise in the polls.

The only problem is of course is that this isn’t at all what the NIE says.

Several officials I’ve spoken with, who actually worked on, and have seen the final assessment actually reached a different conclusion than what is being reported. This of course means that we simply have yet another designed hit piece reminiscent of those during election 2004.

UPDATE: David Corn wants the NIE released. David, coming from those who know fully what it says, I don’t think you really want that out. Like I said, it’s not at all what is being reported.

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