WASHINGTON - A National Intelligence Estimate released Tuesday that describes a rebuilt al-Qaeda planning another mass attack has triggered a fresh burst in the debate over President Bush's conduct of the war on terrorism.
Democrats in Congress said the report, prepared by the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies, shows the administration erred badly by attacking Iraq in 2003 before the leaders of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had been captured or killed. That invasion, said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., led to the founding of "al-Qaeda in Iraq," a violent affiliate that has threatened attacks on the USA.
"'Al-Qaeda in Iraq' is a Bush-fulfilling prophecy (that) has helped al-Qaeda energize extremists around the world," Biden said. That's why, he said, the United States must refocus on al-Qaeda and get U.S. troops out of Iraq.
President Bush acknowledged that al-Qaeda has grown "stronger" but said it isn't as strong as it was before it launched the 9/11 attacks.
"Al-Qaeda would have been a heck of a lot stronger today had we not stayed on the offensive," Bush said in the Oval Office after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "And it's in the interest of the United States to not only defeat them overseas so we don't have to face them here, but also to spread an ideology that will defeat their ideology every time - and that's the ideology based upon liberty."
The report said the U.S. "homeland" will face a "persistent and evolving threat" over the next three years, principally from terrorists directed or inspired by al-Qaeda. The terrorists, led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, will continue to seek chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and aim to produce "mass casualties" and "visually dramatic destruction," the report said.
Al-Qaeda, the report said, may seek to leverage the assets of al-Qaeda in Iraq, identified as al-Qaeda's most "capable" affiliate.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq has gained strength since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It has supplied many of the fighters in the anti-U.S. insurgency, but its tactics have angered some Iraqi tribes that have allied themselves with U.S. forces in Anbar and Diyala provinces and some neighborhoods of Baghdad.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of California, said the intelligence report showed that the administration's "unnecessary, ill-conceived, and ill-planned war in Iraq has made America less secure by turning our nation's full attention away from fighting terrorism."
Frances Townsend, Bush's homeland security adviser, said it is "not accurate" to suggest that al-Qaeda in Iraq and the parent group are separate entities.
Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he plans to hold hearings with the House Intelligence Committee on al-Qaeda's threat to the U.S. homeland.
National Intelligence Estimates represent the consensus of analysts across the nation's 16 intelligence agencies. They are written for policymakers and are classified, though some are made public.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell's office released a 13-paragraph declassified summary of the larger report, which was provided Tuesday to the Bush administration and Congress.
An Intelligence Estimate last year had reported that al-Qaeda's ability to carry out attacks had been "seriously damaged" by the killing or capture of many key members.
The report declassified Tuesday said al-Qaeda recently has "regenerated" in Pakistan along its border with Afghanistan. Protected by sympathetic tribesmen, al-Qaeda has recruited replacements for dead or captured lieutenants and trained English-speaking recruits in explosives with a goal of positioning them in the USA, the report said.
At a news briefing, David Shedd, deputy director of National Intelligence, said the Pakistani government's inability to control the region "created additional operating space" for the terrorists.
The report found no active al-Qaeda cells in the USA. Intelligence officers who briefed reporters said Europe faces a greater risk of attack because of large populations of restive and unassimilated Muslims, as well as its proximity to North Africa and Asia.
Michael Scheuer, former CIA al-Qaeda specialist, said the estimate suggests that "if we're going to get bin Laden and Zawahri, we're going to have to do it ourselves."
"(Pakistani President Pervez) Musharraf has done more than we could expect for us," said Scheuer, now a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington. "There's no (Pakistani) national interest" in going further.
Although U.S. officials have discovered "only a handful" of terrorists in the USA tied to the main al-Qaeda network, the report said, al-Qaeda will continue its attempts "to put operatives here."
Because of that, the United States "currently is in a heightened threat environment," the report said.
The estimate also said:
? The terror group has begun to train foreign Islamic fighters in compounds that are smaller versions of the training camps it ran in Afghanistan before 9/11.
? The Shiite military group Hezbollah is more likely to attack within the USA if it or its patron state Iran is threatened.
?The use of Internet sites to spread the Islamic terrorist message has also increased the threat against the United States.
Those sites, together with the "growing number of radical, self-generating cells in Western countries," show the "radical and violent" segment of the Muslim population in Europe and the USA is increasing, the report said.
Townsend said officials have to proceed on the assumption that al-Qeada is constantly trying to place operatives in the USA.
"We assume because we have to," she said.
Townsend said capturing Osama bin Laden remains a high priority for the Bush administration nearly six years after 9/11. She said he does not stay in a single place, moving around the remote mountain areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"He doesn't make it easy," Townsend said. "If it were easy, he'd be dead."
By Richard Willing, USA TODAY
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