Michael
Scheuer, former head of the US Central
Intelligence Agency's Osama bin Laden unit,
analyzes the conclusions of the United States'
recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) - a
consensus report of all US intelligence agencies.
He talks to National Interest Online editor
Ximena Ortiz.
Nation
Interest Online: According to the NIE, one
of the potential consequences of a rapid
withdrawal from Iraq would be that al-Qaeda "would
attempt to use parts of the country, particularly
al-Anbar province, to plan increased attacks in
and outside of Iraq". How do you balance that
threat against the recruitment
advantages that the US troop
presence in Iraq gives al-Qaeda?
Michael Scheuer: I think
there's been a fundamental misunderstanding of
what al-Qaeda saw in Iraq from the beginning. They
saw an opportunity certainly to kill Americans.
They welcomed Washington's blind effort that
resulted in clerics all over the world calling for
defensive jihad against the Americans in exactly
the words that [Osama] bin Laden and [Ayman
al-]Zawahiri have used.
But most of all,
al-Qaeda derives from our invasion of Iraq an
opportunity to push its center of activities 1,000
kilometers westward. They saw Iraq as contiguous
territory from which to launch attacks and
infiltration to the Arabian Peninsula, into Turkey
and into the Levant, and eventually into Lebanon
and Israel. And so I think that idea had stood
from the beginning, but people didn't look at it
from al-Qaeda's perspective.
Bin Laden of
course grew up in the Afghan war and has
consistently said over the years: "I can't attack
the Israelis because I don't have contiguous
territory." He also pointed to that reason in
explaining why they couldn't get to Bosnia,
because they couldn't base in Catholic Croatia or
Orthodox Serbia. And so Iraq fulfills one of his
ambitions, which is to have a safe haven for his
people to get into the Levant ... Turkey and the
Arabian Peninsula.
America's
'disastrous position' NIO: In
terms of your first point, in terms of seeing an
opportunity to kill Americans, if the Americans
are no longer there, that opportunity would no
longer exist. But on your second point, has
al-Qaeda been able, in your view, to establish
that contiguous territory?
MS: Certainly the Israelis
are claiming that they've established themselves
in Palestine and Lebanon. Al-Qaeda organizations
have announced their presence in Syria, in Jordan,
in Egypt, all since the beginning of the Iraq war.
So it's hard to define, or decide, whether or not
these claims are legitimate. But they certainly
make sense. There's been an ambition, as I said,
of al-Qaeda to be able to reach into these areas,
and I think that's probably happening.
America is in a disastrous position
really, because we're damned if we stay and we're
damned if we leave. And I think you'll recall just
on the eve of the invasion, Zawahiri said, "Praise
to God for the Americans invading Iraq," because
once they get there, they won't be able to stay,
but they won't be able to leave and they'll just
bleed.
NIO: In view of the
fact that they've presumably been able to
establish this contiguous presence, to what degree
do they then still need Iraq? And if the US troops
were to leave, would al-Qaeda be able to expand
its presence significantly in Iraq, or do you
believe that the Mehdi Army and other militia
groups could contain that expansion?
MS: I don't think they're
very interested in expanding their presence in
Iraq. They really need a very small presence in
mostly, as you say, Anbar. It is the one place
that was mentioned by bin Laden in his speech
before the invasion where he said, that's where
we're going to concentrate, that's where the
heroes of Islam will be, in Anbar. I don't think
it matters to them really whether we stay or not,
the presence is established. One thing I read in
the NIE that was I thought a little Pollyannish
was the idea that Iraq's neighbors wouldn't be
driving the violence in Iraq, and I think that's a
mistake.
NIO: Yes, it said
that not only would they not be driving the
violence significantly, but that also they would
not really be able to be drivers for stability in
any substantial way.
MS:
Well, they would not be drivers for stability
because stability by the reality of the population
would be a Shi'ite state. Which is exactly what
the Egyptians, and the Jordanians, and the Saudis
and the Kuwaitis don't want to be part of.
What the NIE said to me was, we're still,
as an intelligence community at least in our
publicly released documents, afraid to discuss and
account for the power of religion. What we've
created in Iraq is an arena for the playing out of
the Sunni-Shi'ite confrontation that has been
festering for a millennium.
And the NIE,
at least what I've read of it, does not take
account for the Sunni governments that are going
to ride to the rescue of their brothers in Iraq.
You know, in many ways it's going to be like
Afghanistan over again, but Shi'ites are much more
hated than the Russians. So Americans
unfortunately tend to try to compartmentalize the
world and we assume that when people say, when
governments say, "We all want a stable, peaceful,
prosperous Iraq," that each of those governments
is defining it the same way America does. It's the
problem we have in Afghanistan. The Saudis'
definition of a peaceful, prosperous Afghanistan
and a peaceful, prosperous Iraq are probably
almost diametrically different to ours.
Protecting the administration,
bipartisan elite NIO: The other
contention the NIE makes is that while Iran is now
providing lethal support to its proxies in Iraq,
"key Sunni regimes" are simply considering lending
that type of support and that they're constraining
their willingness to cooperate. It uses that sort
of language to point to this dichotomy between
so-called key Sunni regimes and Iranians and the
Syrians. Do you believe that there is that
dichotomy ...?
MS: Oh, there
is no dichotomy. What the NIE does in its released
public form is to protect not only this
administration but also the bipartisan elite in
the United States: their insistence that the
Saudis and the Kuwaitis, and all the rest of the
Sunni governments, are our allies. The Sunni
governments have been involved in supporting their
brethren from the first day. If you remember, it
wasn't long after the invasion that we discovered
that the Saudis had sent a medical hospital into
Baghdad and it turned out to be a cover for their
intelligence services.
They've been there
from the first day. Only really a Pollyanna would
believe that the Sunni governments weren't
supporting their
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