Iraq invasion a "tremendous gift" to bin Laden: CIA analyst

[DrFunkenstein]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US invasion of Iraq was a "tremendous gift" to Osama bin Laden and a major setback in the struggle against al-Qaeda, according to a CIA terrorism expert who has written a scathing account of the conduct of the US "war on terror." A senior CIA analyst, "Anonymous" has been widely identified as the head of the bin Laden unit at the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999.

"It's a disaster," he said. "I'm not an expert at all on Saddam or WMD (weapons of mass destruction) or Iraq but as it factors into the war against al-Qaeda or al-Qaedaism it was a tremendous gift to bin Laden. It validated so many of the arguments he's made over the past decade," "Anonymous" said, particularly the claim by the Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader that the West seeks to occupy the Islamic holy places.

"The idea that we would smash any government that posed a threat to Israel -- that's validated by our actions," he continued. "And his claim that we lust after control of Arab oil; Iraq has the second greatest reserves in the Arab world.

"So it's been an astounding victory for Osama bin Laden in terms of perceptions and perceptions are reality so often," "Anonymous" said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1512&e=11&u=/afp/us_attacks_binladen_cia



By November 13, al-Qaeda forces, almost certainly with Osama bin Laden himself, had regrouped and were concentrating their forces in the Tora Bora cave complex. Around the same time, CIA and Special Forces operatives were already at work in the area, enlisting and paying local warlords to join the fight and planning an attack on the al-Qaeda base.

Facing defeat and reluctant to fight fellow Muslims, the al-Qaeda forces agreed to a truce to give them time to surrender their weapons. In retrospect, however, many believe that the truce was a ruse to allow important al-Qaeda figures, including Osama bin Laden, to escape.

Once again, tribal forces backed by U.S special operations troops and air support pressed ahead against fortified al-Qaeda positions in caves and bunkers scattered throughout the mountainous region.

By December 17, the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun. A search of the area by U.S forces continued into January, but no sign of bin Laden or the al-Qaeda leadership emerged. It is almost unanimously believed that they had already slipped away into the tribal areas of Pakistan to the south and east.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._invasion_of_Afghanistan#Initial_attack



From Seymour Hersh's "Did Bush Let Taliban & Al-Qaeda Escape?":

American intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers said that Pakistanis were indeed flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the Bush Administration. The Americans also said that what was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control, and, as an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus. "Dirt got through the screen," a senior intelligence official told me.

The Bush Administration may have done more than simply acquiesce in the rescue effort: at the height of the standoff, according to both a C.I.A. official and a military analyst who has worked with the Delta Force, the American commando unit that was destroying Taliban units on the ground, the Administration ordered the United States Central Command to set up a special air corridor to help insure the safety of the Pakistani rescue flights from Kunduz to the northwest corner of Pakistan, about two hundred miles away. The order left some members of the Delta Force deeply frustrated.

http://www.rense.com/general19/al.htm

[Spazito]

1. That is what Wes Clark has been saying as well...

Iraq not only allowed bin Laden to continue on but gave him the gift of a multitude of new recruits. A gift indeed!