There is no chance that no one is selling himself out working for Fox. A lot of them are selling themselves out. The rest are simply dumb.
Yawn... as I've said elsewhere, Bush has made things worse, not better. basso, you are, with all due respect, deluded. September 24, 2006 Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat By MARK MAZZETTI WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found 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 attacks. The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document. The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe. An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology. The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official. More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document. The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified. Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would once again strike on United States soil. The relationship between the Iraq war and terrorism, and the question of whether the United States is safer, have been subjects of persistent debate since the war began in 2003. National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue, and are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies. Analysts began working on the estimate in 2004, but it was not finalized until this year. Part of the reason was that some government officials were unhappy with the structure and focus of earlier versions of the document, according to officials involved in the discussion. Previous drafts described actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, and some policy makers argued that the intelligence estimate should be more focused on specific steps to mitigate the terror threat. It is unclear whether the final draft of the intelligence estimate criticizes individual policies of the United States, but intelligence officials involved in preparing the document said its conclusions were not softened or massaged for political purposes. Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, said the White House “played no role in drafting or reviewing the judgments expressed in the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism.” The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives. Documents released by the White House timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks emphasized the successes that the United States had made in dismantling the top tier of Al Qaeda. “Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America and its allies are safer, but we are not yet safe,” concludes one, a report titled “9/11 Five Years Later: Success and Challenges.” “We have done much to degrade Al Qaeda and its affiliates and to undercut the perceived legitimacy of terrorism.” That document makes only passing mention of the impact the Iraq war has had on the global jihad movement. “The ongoing fight for freedom in Iraq has been twisted by terrorist propaganda as a rallying cry,” it states. The report mentions the possibility that Islamic militants who fought in Iraq could return to their home countries, “exacerbating domestic conflicts or fomenting radical ideologies.” On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a more ominous report about the terrorist threat. That assessment, based entirely on unclassified documents, details a growing jihad movement and says, “Al Qaeda leaders wait patiently for the right opportunity to attack.” The new National Intelligence Estimate was overseen by David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, who commissioned it in 2004 after he took up his post at the National Intelligence Council. Mr. Low declined to be interviewed for this article. The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of “self-generating” cells inspired by Al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants. It also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan. In early 2005, the National Intelligence Council released a study concluding that Iraq had become the primary training ground for the next generation of terrorists, and that veterans of the Iraq war might ultimately overtake Al Qaeda’s current leadership in the constellation of the global jihad leadership. But the new intelligence estimate is the first report since the war began to present a comprehensive picture about the trends in global terrorism. In recent months, some senior American intelligence officials have offered glimpses into the estimate’s conclusions in public speeches. “New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-Western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge,” said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, during a speech in San Antonio in April, the month that the new estimate was completed. “If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide,” said the general, who was then Mr. Negroponte’s top deputy and is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency. For more than two years, there has been tension between the Bush administration and American spy agencies over the violence in Iraq and the prospects for a stable democracy in the country. Some intelligence officials have said the White House has consistently presented a more optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than justified by intelligence reports from the field. Spy agencies usually produce several national intelligence estimates each year on a variety of subjects. The most controversial of these in recent years was an October 2002 document assessing Iraq’s illicit weapons programs. Several government investigations have discredited that report, and the intelligence community is overhauling how it analyzes data, largely as a result of those investigations. The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts. The panel investigating the London terrorist bombings of July 2005 reported in May that the leaders of Britain’s domestic and international intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, “emphasized to the committee the growing scale of the Islamist terrorist threat.” More recently, the Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of “D+” to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism. The council concluded that “there is every sign that radicalization in the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking.” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/w...ml?ex=1159156800&en=22a7a0971b08007f&ei=5087 Keep D&D Civil.
Why would Fox news want to give any exposure to Clinton other to ambush him? Why would Bill go in to Fox News knowing exactly what they would do except to take the bait? Only please, Brer Fox, please don't throw me into the briar patch! Bill will crush those simps like a bug. Moral High Ground? What's a blow job versus Billions in private Humanitarian aid? Who gives the US more esteem in the world community? (But the b*stard can't run and he's permanently shackeld to Cankles, rats)
God Clinton is smart. How come he is the only democrat with that sort of intellect and ability to shoot down a political ambush? He needs to teach a seminar to every candidate in '08. Half of me loves when he goes off, half of me is despondent that no other dems have the cahones or smart to 'lean into' attacks like this.
I don't think everyone could have prevented 9/11 from happening. But, It is amazing to see right wingers now trying to put all the blame on Clinton for failing to kill OBL. I mean Bush had 8 months before 9/11 and 5 years since, and yet OBL is still nowhere to be seen and it is under Bush's watch. And they are still blaming on Clinton? Do those people have no shame?
Dubious and CBFC hit the nail on the head. The Republicans have opened up Pandora's Box by taking on Clinton.
Chris Wallace Has Never Asked A Bush Administration Official About The USS Cole http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/23/wallace-cole/ The USS Cole was bombed on October 12, 2000. As Clinton noted in his interview with Fox, “The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that Bin Laden was responsible” until early 2001 which foreclosed the possibility of a full response during his administration. The Bush administration, on the other hand, had 8 months prior to 9/11/01 to respond to the USS bombing and did nothing. In an interview to air Sunday, Fox News Host Chris Wallace asked Bill Clinton why he didn’t respond to the USS Cole. Clinton said it was a “legitimate question” but challenged Wallace: “I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked why didn’t you do anything about the Cole.” First, Wallace responded, “we asked.” When pressed further by Clinton, Wallace demurred: “I — with Iraq and Afghanistan there’s plenty of stuff to ask.” Neither Chris Wallace, nor his predecessor, Tony Snow ever asked anyone in the Bush administration why they failed to respond to the bombing of the USS Cole, according to a Lexis-Nexis database search. Wallace and Snow have had plenty of opportunities: – Vice President Dick Cheney has been on Fox News Sunday 6 times. – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been on Fox News Sunday 9 times. – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been on Fox News Sunday 23 times. – National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley has been on Fox News Sunday 4 times. For the record, this was Bill Clinton’s first solo appearance on Fox News Sunday.
It was never about 9/11 or OBL, but rather a political attack. As simple as that. As another poster pointed out, Clinton is always smart enough to ridicule those attackers with their own games. Too bad that Dems have tried to "distance" themselves from this politic master since that bj. The Gore loss didn't wake them up, and the Kerry loss didn't either. When things get so bad now, they somehow realized that the best defense against any attack is counter strike.
I don't think the issue here is whether it was more Clinton's fault or more Bush's. The issue is that only one of the two is ever asked about not responding to the USS Cole attack, and it is the one who had far less time to respond.
from July 30, 1996 one of many examples "President wants Senate to hurry with new anti-terrorism laws" http://edition.cnn.com/US/9607/30/clinton.terrorism/
Thanks to crooksandliars.com, you don't have to watch Fox News Sunday to see the Wild Bill smackdown. You really ought to go watch this clip. Clinton is simply the most gifted politician of our times. I have my issues with Clinton, but I sometimes forget not just what a tremendously effective communicator he is but how much he just plain gets it. He understands politics at a level no one else does. He intuitively knows the subtext to questions and so not only answers the expressed question but in a very analytical way picks apart the subtext and answers the implied question, too. If you're a little younger and missed most of the Clinton years, it's something to watch. -- TPM Reader DK http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/24/fox-clinton-interview-part-1-osama-bin-laden/
Damn. Remind me to never try to bust CLinton without doing my homework, because he will steal your lunch and send you home crying.
I don't like Bush. I haven't given him, or his cronies, a pass in any way whatsoever. There's plenty of blame to pass around. When I said "they knew", obviously...they did. It just becomes a timing thing of when they (CIA, FBI, Clinton) knew, when Bin Laden really did go into hiding, and when they were firm enough on it to act. My recollection of my sequence of events could be faulty. I concede that. I also do consider myself biased after 9/11. How can one not be? It's easy to look back now and say he could have, and should have, done more...as others have repeatedly said. It doesn't mean I hold him to full account for 9/11 or what's happening today. Obviously, the threat was taken more seriously after 9/11 than before. That in itself was a mistake. You didn't see anyone trying to improve homeland security before that. I do also believe that Bush didn't take the terror threat seriously enough pre-9/11 because I think, for one, that government just couldn't fathom something like that happening for starters...even when they heard about threats to do it. The bj comment was made in jest. I'm not anti-Clinton by any means. Obviously, that 30 seconds in the oval office didn't impair Clinton on finding Bin Laden. Monica was a distraction, though. So, who really knows what all that did to his job performance? But, to point to that as a reason for complacency of action against Bin Laden...which I obviously did say but not to be taken seriously...is incorrect. I also probably overestimated what capabilities the CIA, FBI, and Clinton had at hunting down Bin Laden back in the 90s. Can I unnail myself from the cross now? LOL
I dont think anyone has ever accused Clinton of being remotely unintelligent. Guilty of some bad judgement with an intern, yes. Lying about it, yup. But his intelligence has never been in question.
And the threat was taken more seriouly before January 2001 than after. That is the point of the discussion.
That was amazing, and I am going to keep it on DVR for a while. Clinton disrobed that guy...... And, even though Clinton could have done more and he did fail at some things, he is right, in that he tried. Bush is trying to but he just has ZERO clue how to manage foreign policy...I wish Bill Clinton could run again....he did a much better job than GW. DD
I wish he could run again as well. The difference in intelligence between Clinton and Bush couldn't be any more striking than comparing Bush's multiple statements recently, and that interview this morning. When Clinton was making Wallace look like an absolute fool, way over his head, he was doing the same thing to Bush. Folks, what you saw was a real Democrat. Keep D&D Civil.
I can only image if they ever put Clinto and Bush in a live debate, Clinton will make Bush pee in his pants.
