The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times on Sunday re ported that a classified National Intelligence Estimate finds 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 attack."
What's going on?
Well, three national newspapers not known to be friendly to Republicans in general, or the Bush administration in particular, just got handed a potentially embarrassing classified document, 42 days before the midterm elections. It's safe to assume that politics is involved.
Second, only portions of the estimate have been leaked - that is to say, it has been cherry-picked, presumably not to the administration's advantage.
Third, the leakers expect the American people to believe that the jihadists who plotted 9/11 were only mildly annoyed with the United States before that attack. Now they're really angry - so it would have been better to do nothing at all after the towers fell.
Sort of like the Clinton administration after the first World Trade Center attack (see above), we assume. That sure made America a safer place.
Let's be clear here. Each in their own way, all three papers have been working as hard as possible to undermine the prosecution of the War on Terror almost since it began.
There's a word for that, and it ain't pretty.
But what of the substance of the latest leaks?
Terrorists, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Post yesterday, are "going to find a reason" to wage jihad, no matter what happens.
Just as they did before the Iraq war.
But that isn't stopping Democrats from trying to make hay of the report. Typically reckless, Sen. Ted Kennedy called it "the final nail in the coffin for President Bush's phony argument about the Iraq war." (Maybe Teddy, his fellow Dems and al Qaeda can all get together for some hearty high-fives this week.)
Again, this kind of wartime sabotage-by-leak is dangerous.
So leakers need to be punished.
As for the assessment itself, the White House must mount a vigorous rebuttal - maybe release a redacted version to show the report's true conclusions.
(Officials might consider using congressional intelligence committee members to vet the document before releasing it publicly.)
That wouldn't address the core question, of course.
"When are we going to stop blaming ourselves for terrorism?" Rice asked.
Probably not until the Democrats see no political advantage in doing so.
nypost.com |
