The Reformation of Al Qaeda

While Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is just an old group experimenting with a new brand, the actual Al Qaeda seems to be resurgent.

A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001.

A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the document _ titled "Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West" _ called it a stark appraisal. The analysis will be part of a broader meeting at the White House on Thursday about an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate [...]

The findings suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil has been able to regroup despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at dismantling it.

At his news conference Thursday, President Bush acknowledged the report's existence and al-Qaida's continuing threat to the United States. He said, however, that the report refers only to al-Qaida's strength in 2001, not prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The group was at its strongest throughout most of that year, with well-established training camps in Afghanistan, recruitment networks and command structures.

This all seems to be coinciding with Pakistan's peace treaty with the Taliban, giving them safe passage in the mountains on the border with Afghanistan, which we ENCOURAGED. Now there's no functional difference between Al Qaeda of 2001, with its safe harbor within Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda of 2007, with its safe harbor at the border. Heck, we even stopped a planned attack against Al Qaeda chiefs in 2005 because it would have upset Pakistan and put Musharraf at risk. So by making a distinction between terrorists and the countries who harbor them, not the opposite as was claimed after September 11, we've actually created the same conditions for allowing Al Qaeda to flourish, actually more so, because were in the midst of an occupation in a big chunk of the Muslim world, and most Muslims, including the Iraqis, want us out.

So Bush and "Gut Feeling" Chertoff may want to deny this, but Al Qaeda is just as strong, and the counterterrorism options they've taken since 9/11 have proved a failure, the pivoting to Iraq just being the most egregious. And while 160,000 troops and billions of dollars are sent over there, at home our security is perilous:

Undercover Congressional investigators set up a bogus company and obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March that would have allowed them to buy the radioactive materials needed for a so-called dirty bomb.

The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, demonstrated once again that the security measures put in place since the 2001 terrorist attacks to prevent radioactive materials from getting into the wrong hands are insufficient, according to a G.A.O. report, which is scheduled to be released at a Senate hearing Thursday.

Because this government would rather contract out governmental functions and make them unaccountable. This is all a function of the conservative worldview of "government is the problem" and should therefore not be funded. That this extends to homeland security should be shocking.

I don't know if we're going to be attacked again, but I do understand that the level of chatter is eerily similar to the summer of 2001. And I do know that, if there is another attack, and the National Guard troops and equipment needed to cope with it are in Iraq, and if Osama bin Laden is responsible after he was cornered almost 6 years ago and shouldn't be alive today, that the person to blame for such an attack being successful lives in the White House.