Nut Jobs in the Intelligence Community
Testimony of Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence16 February 2005
Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-US jihadists.
These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups, and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries.
http://www.foia.cia.gov/2020/2020.pdf• Anti-globalization and opposition to
US policies could cement a greater
body of terrorist sympathizers,
financiers, and collaborators.
societies.
• Iraq and other possible conflicts in
the future could provide recruitment,
training grounds, technical skills and
language proficiency for a new class
of terrorists who are “professionalized”
and for whom political
violence becomes an end in itself.
'New militant threat' from IraqThe insurgency in Iraq is creating a new type of Islamic militant who could go on to destabilise other countries, a leaked CIA report says.
The classified document says Iraqi and foreign fighters are developing a broad range of skills, from car bombings and assassinations to co-ordinated attacks.
It says these skills may make them more dangerous than fighters from Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s.
And the threat may grow when the Iraq insurgency ends and fighters disperse.
The broad conclusions of the report have been confirmed by an unnamed CIA official and are said to have been widely circulated in the intelligence community.
Iraq May Be Prime Place for Training of Militants, C.I.A. Report ConcludesA new classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda's early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.
They said the assessment had argued that Iraq, since the American invasion of 2003, had in many ways assumed the role played by Afghanistan during the rise of Al Qaeda during the 1980's and 1990's, as a magnet and a proving ground for Islamic extremists from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries.
Iraq a site to train terrorists, CIA saysThe CIA believes the Iraq insurgency poses an international threat and may produce better-trained Islamic terrorists than the 1980s Afghanistan war that gave rise to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, officials said yesterday.
Once the insurgency ends, Islamic militants are likely to disperse as highly organized battle-hardened combatants capable of operating throughout the Arab-speaking world and in other regions including Europe.
The May report, which has been widely circulated in the intelligence community, also cites a potential threat to the United States.
Although the Afghan war against the Soviets was largely fought on a rural battlefield, the CIA report said, Iraq is providing extremists with more comprehensive skills including training in operations devised for populated urban areas.
Quite a number of the folks crossing Iraq's borders to engage the US were not on any terrorist watchlist nor were they previously associated with terrorism. The folks say they were radicalised by the invasion of Iraq. But, what do they know about their own motivations anyway?