Posted on 05/26/2004 12:43:21 AM PDT by churchillbuff
LONDON : The US-led war on Iraq, far from countering terrorism, has helped revitalise the Al-Qaeda terror network, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think-tank warned.
The London-based body said in its annual Strategic Survey 2003/2004 that the deadly train bombings in Madrid in March, the worst terror strike in Europe for more than a decade, showed that Osama Bin Laden's terror network "had fully reconstituted".
It also predicted the Islamic group would step up its anti-Western attacks, possibly even resorting to weapons of mass destruction and targeting Americans, Europeans and Israelis while continuing to support insurgents opposing the US-led occupation of Iraq.
The IISS pointed to devastating blasts in Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in 2003 and 2004 as further evidence that anti-US sentiment had soared since the Iraq war.
"In counter-terrorism terms, the intervention has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counter-terrorism coalition that appeared so formidable following the Afghanistan intervention in late 2001," the report said.
However, since the war it said that arms proliferation and state-sponsored terrorism has dwindled, with Libya giving up its unconventional weapons programs and Syria becoming "less provocative."
Stalinist North Korea's secret nuclear programme was somehow contained thanks to a negotiating process while Iran agreed to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear activities, the IISS said.
But another legacy of the war was what the IISS termed a highly questionable recourse to pre-emptive strikes as a means of counter-proliferation, as well as "the uses and abuses of intelligence as a basis for military action."
The IISS said the United States, which has dominated world affairs since the end of the Cold War, had failed to understand that Al-Qaeda's September 11, 2001 attacks were "a violent reaction to America's pre-eminence" and it urged the superpower to temper "the appearance of American unilateralism".
It warned that Washington would have a hard time restoring order in embattled Iraq and stressed that the conflict had brought a political split between the United States and its continental European allies, leaving Britain stuck in the middle.
The survey additionally forecast a possible attention shift away from terrorism, Middle Eastern problems and weapons proliferation should North Korea opt for a more aggressive stance, a humanitarian disaster hit Africa or undesirable regime-changes "produce abrupt and serious security challenges".
The United States will not manage to tackle all of the above single-handedly, warned the think-tank, raising a question mark over Europe's ability to break away from "strategic arthritis."
I would have thought you'd be thrilled to death with that scenario.
And if we have, you won't have done anything to prevent it; all you do is try to divide us.
Yup, and I suspect many of the original al Qaeda "warriors" have decided to go home and stick to goat herding.
Nope, I just agree with Gen. Schwarzkopf and other military brass who said invading Iraq was an unnecessary diversion from the war against Al Quade.
Who said that don't pose a threat? What I'm saying is that you're helping them by spreading their propaganda.
Maybe it's because Al Quade is alive and kicking (and energized by all the mess in Iraq)
And as I mentioned above, you seem thrilled by it, even though you have your facts wrong! I can almost see you smiling.
You're disgraceful.
Amen to that.
If the seventh-century savages are mutiplying at a fast rate, then we need to kill them at an even faster rate. Simple mathematics.
'nuff said.
Then Ashcroft's press conference today is an exercise in phony alarmism?
This isn't a think tank. It's a group releasing more A.N.S.W.E.R. press releases that have been retyped and presented as a consensus by neutrals. These are throwbacks to the large european groups that championed communism and derided the U.S. as long as thirty-five years ago.
Oh, there are some out there still. No one has declared victory yet. But the replacements for ones we've killed and/or scared off are even more pathetic as fighters than the originals.
Guess you think the same thing about Stormin Norman Schwarzkopf, Tom Clancy and others who I agree with on this issue.
I conclude that you are being provocative for sport, and that you really don't mean what you say: anyone who can log on to a computer can't be that dumb. Good joke...once. But it's kinda old.
You're the only phony here.
Frankly, I'm stunned by the fact that it doesn't seem to bother you at all that they intend to kill each and every one of us and we better get them first.
Look, why don't you go and join ANSWER. They will love you.
Oh, it bothers me to no end - - which is why I opposed diverting our energies from the war on Al Quade, to an unnecessary invasion of Iraq, a fifth-rate power that had nothing to do with 9-11, as even Bush and Powell now admit.
DO, I am convinced that all these people are the ones who tried to destroy this country in the 60's and now, having gotten a whiff of their love potion, defeatism, are back to finish her off.
You would've argued that Hitler was energized by D-Day. We're winning. Give it up.
Post ANY words where George W. Bush said Iraq had anything to do with 9-11.
I'll wait.
And what were they "energized" about when they killed 3,000 in New York.
You surely can't be that foolish.
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