Robert Hutchings

The newly released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq says that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the 9/11 attacks. The NIE is compiled from information provided by the 16 American intelligence agencies, and written by the US government’s National Intelligence Council. The NIE is released internally in April 2006, but portions are made public on September 24, 2006. It is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began. [New York Times, 9/24/2006] Robert Hutchings, the council’s former chairman, says, “The war in Iraq has exasperated the global war on terror.” [Toronto Daily News, 9/24/2006] The White House has issued its own reports touting its successes against Islamist terrorism and predicting that such activities will dwindle in the coming months. [New York Times, 9/24/2006] The NIE report says, “[T]he Iraq war has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists…and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives. …[T]he Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of al-Qaeda ideological virus, as shown by a rising number of terrorist attacks in the past three years from London to Kabul, and from Madrid to the Red Sea. Our study shows that the Iraq war has generated a stunning increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and civilian lives lost. Even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one third.” Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of the British secret service (MI5), agrees. She will say in early 2007, “Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers. The threat is serious, is growing and will, I believe, be with us for a generation.” [Independent, 3/1/2007] Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) says the report should “put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush’s phony argument about the Iraq war.” [ABC News, 9/25/2006]