THE DECIDER IN DENIAL WAS WRONG 95 TIMES

Bush's address to the 437th Airlift Wing contained oft-repeated assertions that the president and other officials have made in recent months to rally lagging support for the war. He mentioned Al Qaeda 95 times — and of those, 29 were in references to the group Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Los Angeles Times

July 25, 2007

Al Qaeda X 95=Bush's War

The Decider can say Al Qaeda 95 million times, but it doesn't alter the fact that this Long War president’s pre-emptive-shock-and-awe invasive war---and the occupation now---has multiplied the number of jihadists and terrorists.

The ones that should have been pre-emptively shocked and awed were NOT in Iraq.

The civil war in Iraq, according to CNN reporter Michael Ware, is made up of about 1% Al Qaeda.

Mr. Ware said that 1/2 % of that 1% are foreign fighters.

He pointed out that Al Qaeda is the most ruthless.

But they will get more and more ruthless as long as a foreign power occupies a Muslim country.

Saddam is dead.

His sons are dead.

The WMD were never found.

Santa Claus is coming to town.

He isn’t packing anything for George W. Bush.

Some U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism officials said Bush's broader assertions were in line with analysts' views. They noted that Bush used careful wording and deliberate attribution in cases in which he was citing intelligence that had not been substantiated.
But other experts and former U.S. intelligence officials questioned those assertions.
They noted that the Iraq conflict had undoubtedly attracted Islamic extremists who were trained in Afghanistan and might have fought in other theaters. But some cited an official U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released last year that described Iraq as a "cause celebre" for Islamic radicals worldwide, fanning anger and resentment across the Muslim world and beyond.
"I think what the president is saying is in some sense fundamentally misleading," said Robert Grenier, former head of the counter-terrorism center at the CIA as well as the agency's mission manager for the war in Iraq. "If he means to suggest the invasion of Iraq has not created more jihadists bent on killing Americans, and that if Iraq hadn't been there as a magnet they would have been attracted somewhere else, that's completely disingenuous."
The war "has convinced many Muslims that the United States is the enemy of Islam and is attacking Muslims, and they have become jihadists as a result of their experience in Iraq," Grenier said.
Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University, a veteran counter-terrorism analyst and government consultant, said the vast majority of fighters who are part of Al Qaeda in Iraq are Iraqis who have shown little interest in seeking targets beyond that country's borders.

A British panel of private and government experts known as the Iraq Commission released a report this month that concluded there were between 50 and 75 "disparate groups, formed to rid the country of coalition forces."

Los Angeles Times

July 25, 2007