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September 24, 2006

Iraq War Increased Global Terror Threat

Not a startling charge against the Bush administration-- except it comes from US government spy agencies in the National Intelligence Estimate:

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 “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

And of course, it's not just that the war has increased hatred for the United States. We've also devoted resources to the war that could have gone to combatting terrorism in other ways, a point our good ally Afganistan President Hamid Karzai just made:

The $300 billion the United States has spent prosecuting the war in Iraq could have been better used stabilizing Afghanistan against the resurgence of the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

“Three hundred billion dollars? You give that to Afghanistan and we will be heaven in less than a year,” Karzai said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

So we've dropped hundreds of billions of dollars on a war in Iraq that has made things worse, while neglecting Bid Laden's original home base in Afghanistan.

Bush. Worse. President. Ever.

Posted by Nathan at September 24, 2006 03:57 PM