World>Terrorism & Security
posted July 21, 2004, updated 11:00 a.m.

Who is winning war on terror?

Bush says US is winning, but experts, even public, aren't so sure.

by Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

During a campaign stop in Iowa, CNN reported Tuesday that President George Bush told cheering crowds he had made the world a safer place through his policies. He also defended his decision to go to war in Iraq.

"Saddam [Hussein]was a sworn enemy of the United States of America," he said. "He'd used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. Everybody knew he was a danger. I looked at the intelligence and it said Saddam was a threat to the United States," he said.

But not everyone agrees with Mr. Bush that the US is winning the war on terror, or that the invasion of Iraq has made the US a safer place. Many security and intelligence experts, and journalists who write about terrorism, see thet situation differently. And recent polls show a majority of Americans now doubt that the US is ahead in its struggle with Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.


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In a recent editorial on the issue, USA Today wrote that "the argument that we are safer from terrorism now because we went to war in Iraq is dubious at best."

The fact that Saddam [Hussein] is gone may be a plus, particularly for long-suffering Iraqis. It also removes a regional threat. But the value to the war on terrorism is questionable. Saddam kept out terrorists and put down the kind of insurgency that now threatens the country. The democratic enterprise is shaky, provoking fears it could descend into civil war or fundamentalism, either of which would make Iraq a haven for terrorists. Hardly the sure fire success that can win a shining place in the history books.

Columnist Dave Zweifel of Madison, Wisconsin's Capitol Times Monday quoted a recent Mother Jones magazine article that features interviews with several prominent security experts, including former FBI deputy assistant director for counter-terrorism Harry "Skip" Brandon, who question the notion that the US is winning the war on terror. Mr. Brandon says that the war in Iraq has become a particularly effective "public relations bonanza" for Al Qaeda, and that he has seen it at work in places around the world where young Muslims in particular are receptive to an anti-US message.

"If the Al Qaeda leadership had been wiped out in Afghanistan during the winter of 2001, President Bush might have gone down in history as one of the more adroit wartime presidents. Instead, Al Qaeda's leaders and many of its foot soldiers went on to fight another day. We deposed the secular socialist Saddam [Hussein], whom (Osama) bin Laden has long despised, ignited Sunni and Shiite fundamentalist fervor in Iraq, and have now provoked a 'defensive' jihad that has galvanized jihad-minded Muslims around the world. It's hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terrorism."

Guardian international affairs columnist Simon Tisdall argued over the weekend that the US's own dismissive attitude towards nuclear non-proliferation treaties, and the "double-standard" of pressing Arab states to stop nuclear development, while looking the other way at Israel's nuclear program, have actually made the spread of weapons of mass destruction more, rather than less, likely.

To the extent that the Iraq war was unilaterally launched on flawed WMD premises, the overall battle to halt the spread of such weapons has become proportionately harder. Thanks to Iraq and, principally, to US policy, the ultimate nightmare - that terrorist groups could obtain weapons of mass destruction – may have crept several shades closer.

On Tuesday former British foreign secretary and antiwar advocate Robin Cook told the British House of Commons that he believes that Osama bin Laden wanted the war in Iraq to happen because it ppromoted his message that violence is the only way to deal with the West.

I fear that by invading Iraq we have responded in precisely the way Osama bin Laden wanted and as a consequence we and the west will have to live with the violent consequences of this strategic blunder for a decade to come.

A more daunting prospect was put forward by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer when he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last week that the war on terror could last 50 years or more.

"I think the war against terrorism could go on for as long as the Cold War, I don't think there's any doubt about that ... What I do know is that we have to have the courage to confront these terrorists. If we don't confront these terrorists, then their ugly and immoral campaign will just continue."

Recent polls also show the American public is increasingly skeptical about the war in Iraq and its aftermath. The most recent CBS-New York Times poll, shows that a majority of Americans now believe that we were wrong to go to war in Iraq, and that it was not worth the cost in American lives and funds.

There are many, however, who do agree with Bush that the US and its allies are winning the war terror, and that the US is safer due to the invasion of Iraq. Republican US Congresssman Terry Everett wrote Sunday in the Andalusia (Alabama) Star that "liberal media" only gives one side of the story and fails to give "the full perspective of what the world was like three years ago or the positive changes we've brought about since."

In Afghanistan, the terror camps are closed, Osama Bin Laden is on the run, and a democratic government is taking hold. In Pakistan, the government is now an ally in the war on terror rounding up terrorists on their border and providing support for US operations to capture Al Qaeda leaders like Kahlid Sheik Mohammad. Furthermore, today, we have closed one of the most dangerous sources of nuclear weapons for rogue regimes and terrorists with the dismantlement of the A.Q. Kahn nuclear network based in Pakistan. Equally significant, Libyan president Ghadafi has given up his nuclear ambitions and his weapons materials.

Author William Shawcross, writing in the Guardian, argues that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair took the right course of action in Iraq, considering Hussein's past use of weapons of mass destruction, and his desire to do more with them.

The combination of international terror and WMD poses an existential threat to the world. In Iraq's case, even if the possibility of a non-conventional attack was low, the price to be paid if it did take place was so high that the threat had to be taken very seriously. Saddam [Hussein] may not have been an immediate threat, but he was an inevitable one.

Finally, the FBI issued a warning over the weekend that Al Qaeda may be recruiting non-Arabs to carry out attacks inside the United States.

Using non-Arabs might make it easier for Al Qaeda to circumvent security measures in Europe and the United States, the bulletin said. Of special concern are people with ties to Islamic extremist groups in North Africa and parts of Asia outside the Middle East.