Sunday, September 24, 2006
ex-CIA RhetIraq: Radical Islam Expert Slams Bush's Approach to GWOT
Who: Emile Nakhleh, ex-CIA Director of Political Islam Strategic Analysis Programme
Source: Inter Press Service
Quotes: From article titled, "Top CIA Expert Slams Bush Anti-Terror Actions"
The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) recently retired top expert on radical Islamists has strongly denounced the conduct of U.S. President George W. Bush's "global war on terrorism" and the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq, which he said is "contributing to the violence".
In an interview published this week by the online edition of Harper's Magazine, Emile Nakhleh, who retired at the end of June as director of the agency's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Programme, said that the Bush administration's tactics had "lost a generation of goodwill in the Muslim world" and its Middle East democratisation programme "has all but disappeared, except for official rhetoric".
The interview, Nakhleh's first since his retirement, echoes the views of a number of former intelligence officials and career diplomats who have criticised the administration for ignoring their analyses of the dynamics of Middle East politics, particularly their warnings of the challenges Washington would face if it invaded Iraq.
... Nakhleh also stressed that the intelligence community had warned before the invasion that "just because the Iraqis hated Saddam, that didn't mean they would like our occupation."
"Iraq was more complex than just Saddam. We should have learned from the experience of the British in the 1920s, when modern Iraq was created -- namely, that bringing in outside leaders would not work," he said. "People expressed views about the need to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq, about the potential for sectarian violence and the rise of militias, about the fact that the Shiites would want to rise politically."
"These were not minority views in the intelligence community, but the administration ended up listening to other voices. The focus was on invading Iraq and getting rid of Saddam, and after that everything would be fine and dandy," he told Harper's.
As for what Washington should do now in Iraq, Nakhleh echoed some of the administration's strongest critics, such as former National Security Agency director Gen. William Odom and Democratic Rep. John Murtha, although he did not explicitly endorse their idea of an immediate withdrawal or redeployment.
"I have come to believe that our presence is part of the problem and that we should begin to seriously devise an exit strategy," he said. "There's a civil war in Iraq, and our presence is contributing to the violence. We've become a lightning rod -- we're not restricting the violence, we're contributing to it. Iraq has galvanised jihadists; our presence is what is attracting them. We need to get out of there."
As to Iraq's future, "the only question is whether (it) will become a haven for sectarianism, or follow either the Iranian model or the standard Arab authoritarian model," he went on. "(T)he once-touted model of a secular, democratic Iraq is all but forgotten. This casts a dark shadow on American efforts to spread democracy in the region."
Citing the treatment of detainees in Iraq and the global anti-terrorist effort and the administration's continuing efforts to get legislation that would permit holding suspects indefinitely, Nakhleh argued that Bush's pro-democracy rhetoric -- most recently offered at the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday -- was hypocritical.
"The Islamic world says, 'You talk about human rights, but you're holding people without charging them.' The Islamic world has always viewed the war on terror as a war on Islam, and we have not been able to disabuse them of that notion. Because of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other abuses, we have lost on the concepts of justice, fairness, and the rule of law... That's very serious, and that's where I see the danger in the years ahead."
Source: Inter Press Service
Quotes: From article titled, "Top CIA Expert Slams Bush Anti-Terror Actions"
The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) recently retired top expert on radical Islamists has strongly denounced the conduct of U.S. President George W. Bush's "global war on terrorism" and the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq, which he said is "contributing to the violence".
In an interview published this week by the online edition of Harper's Magazine, Emile Nakhleh, who retired at the end of June as director of the agency's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Programme, said that the Bush administration's tactics had "lost a generation of goodwill in the Muslim world" and its Middle East democratisation programme "has all but disappeared, except for official rhetoric".
The interview, Nakhleh's first since his retirement, echoes the views of a number of former intelligence officials and career diplomats who have criticised the administration for ignoring their analyses of the dynamics of Middle East politics, particularly their warnings of the challenges Washington would face if it invaded Iraq.
... Nakhleh also stressed that the intelligence community had warned before the invasion that "just because the Iraqis hated Saddam, that didn't mean they would like our occupation."
"Iraq was more complex than just Saddam. We should have learned from the experience of the British in the 1920s, when modern Iraq was created -- namely, that bringing in outside leaders would not work," he said. "People expressed views about the need to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq, about the potential for sectarian violence and the rise of militias, about the fact that the Shiites would want to rise politically."
"These were not minority views in the intelligence community, but the administration ended up listening to other voices. The focus was on invading Iraq and getting rid of Saddam, and after that everything would be fine and dandy," he told Harper's.
As for what Washington should do now in Iraq, Nakhleh echoed some of the administration's strongest critics, such as former National Security Agency director Gen. William Odom and Democratic Rep. John Murtha, although he did not explicitly endorse their idea of an immediate withdrawal or redeployment.
"I have come to believe that our presence is part of the problem and that we should begin to seriously devise an exit strategy," he said. "There's a civil war in Iraq, and our presence is contributing to the violence. We've become a lightning rod -- we're not restricting the violence, we're contributing to it. Iraq has galvanised jihadists; our presence is what is attracting them. We need to get out of there."
As to Iraq's future, "the only question is whether (it) will become a haven for sectarianism, or follow either the Iranian model or the standard Arab authoritarian model," he went on. "(T)he once-touted model of a secular, democratic Iraq is all but forgotten. This casts a dark shadow on American efforts to spread democracy in the region."
Citing the treatment of detainees in Iraq and the global anti-terrorist effort and the administration's continuing efforts to get legislation that would permit holding suspects indefinitely, Nakhleh argued that Bush's pro-democracy rhetoric -- most recently offered at the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday -- was hypocritical.
"The Islamic world says, 'You talk about human rights, but you're holding people without charging them.' The Islamic world has always viewed the war on terror as a war on Islam, and we have not been able to disabuse them of that notion. Because of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other abuses, we have lost on the concepts of justice, fairness, and the rule of law... That's very serious, and that's where I see the danger in the years ahead."
