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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (490654)	11/11/2003 10:36:54 AM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 769670

Part Two: Some critics say the American presence in Iraq has become a magnet for terrorists, but other officials say the precise role of foreign militants in Iraq is murky. Ansar al-Islam, a small group accused of having links to Al Qaeda, has about 150 fighters now inside Iraq, intelligence officials say. But Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the American ground commander in Iraq, said recently, "We do not have any confirmed Al Qaeda operatives actually in custody at this point." Administration critics say that by combining the array of hostile actors in Iraq, Mr. Cheney is blurring the focus of what should be a fight against the greatest threat to the United States: Al Qaeda. "To paint all these groups with such broad brush strokes does a great disservice," said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Armed Services Committee and a former officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. "We'll lose our focal point on what's the greatest threat." Over the past several months, Mr. Cheney has aggressively sought to tie foreign terrorists, specifically Al Qaeda, to Iraq. In September, a few days after Mr. Cheney said the government did not know whether Mr. Hussein had some connection to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mr. Bush all but contradicted him. Asked by reporters about Mr. Cheney's statement, the president replied, "No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th." Mr. Cheney began mentioning the big Iraq bombings with major Qaeda-related attacks in some of his speeches about two months ago. His address to the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy in Houston on Oct. 17 was typical: "Since Sept. 11th, the terrorists have continued their attacks in Riyadh, Casablanca, Mombasa, Bali, Jakarta, Najaf and Baghdad. Against that kind of determined, organized, ruthless enemy, America requires a new strategy — not merely to prosecute a series of crimes, but to conduct a global campaign against the terror network." Catherine J. Martin, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, conceded it was unclear which group was culpable for the Iraq bombings, but said they were still "acts of terrorism." But experts said Mr. Cheney is seeking to strengthen perceived ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Judith S. Yaphe, a former C.I.A. analyst who is a senior research fellow at the National Defense University, said, "He wants to create a link in people's minds that if they are there now, they were there before the war." New York Times--11/11/03