An anonymous CIA analyst broke the contents of a scathing new manuscript on CNN yesterday that will hit bookstores next week calling the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq "the best gift we could have given to Osama bin Laden."
The anonymous intelligence specialist, described as "an active CIA official," discussed the book, entitled Imperial Hubris, with CNN's David Ensor on the news channel late yesterday. Only the silhouetted outlines of his darkened face were discernible on screen, but he spoke with a chilling clarity and obvious appreciation of the capabilities and motivations of bin Laden and the al Qaeda networks.
He not only asserted the Bush administration is seriously misguided in terms of appreciating al Qaeda's goals and abilities, but he claimed that its approach to foreign policy has significantly strengthened the hand of America's still extremely dangerous terrorist adversary.
"We have not taken the measure of our opponent," he said. "We have grossly underestimated this threat."
He predicted the al Qaeda networks are both capable of and intend to attack the continental U.S. again with an impact greater than Sept. 11, 2001. "They will use weapons of mass destruction," he said.
Insofar as it has been the objective of bin Laden's offensives against the U.S. not to overthrow our form of government and destroy our nation, but simply to "get us out of the Muslim world," the analyst asserts, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has only strengthened his hand, underscoring the need to achieve al Qaeda's goals in the minds of countless fresh recruits to the cause.
Bush, he said, "is misguided to think that bin Laden hates us and our democracy."
"He's far more calculating than that. Khomeini was like that, hating democracy, voting and equality for women. But not bin Laden. He doesn't hate us for what we are, but for what we do," he said.
Among the U.S.'s crimes against the Muslim world that he wants to stop, the analyst said, are the U.S.' presence on the Arabian peninsula and support for Russia, China and other tyrannies that suppress the Muslims under their control.
"Bin Laden represents the Islamic resentment for the U.S.'s policies, not our system of government. It's a great mistake to think of him as a ranting mullah. He's very calculating and specific, and focused on the actions of the U.S., not our beliefs or systems," he went on.
"There is no more perfect validation of this than that we went to war in Iraq," he added. He said he considered that if the status quo is continued in Iraq, then "the war will go far into my children's lifetime."
"This is not a war with terrorists, it is a war with U.S. policies," he emphasized.
The publication of this scathing indictment of Bush administration miscalculations is apparently being sanctioned by the agent's superiors at the CIA, who know the individual in question to be mentally tough and brutally frank. From the CIA's point of view, giving an airing to differing points of views is good for the overall process.
In this case, the "deal" with the agency was that the author of this report will remain anonymous.
But the analysis comes on the heels of the 9/11 Commission's final report that, itself, blew away and thoroughly discredited the Bush administration's claim that the invasion of Iraq had something to do with the war on terror and the effort to find bin Laden and dismantle the al Qaeda network.
The notion that the invasion of Iraq had more to do with Halliburton than terrorism is seeping deeper and deeper into the consciousness of the average American citizen. The deeper it goes, the more ingrained it becomes and it will not be washed away with vacuous gestures and disclaimers from the president or his cabinet.
While more and more Americans are wising up to the fact that the 9/11 attacks were exploited by the Bush administration to justify a largely self-serving military adventure into Iraq, it has yet to be appreciated just how all of this has put the lives of possibly tens of thousands of American civilians directly into harm's way.
The author of Imperial Hubris begins to bring this frightening reality much closer to home.