A New Generation of Islamic Radicalism

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

"It does make us safer."
John Kline on the U.S. presence in Iraq, June 28, 2004

"[America's internal security] posture has been weakened by the diversion of attention from al-Qaeda to our government’s plan to invade Iraq, a step that will, in all likelihood, bring an exponential increase in the terrorist threat to the U.S., both at home and abroad."
Coleen Rowley, in her February 26, 2003 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller.

The New York Times just came out with a story titled "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat". Here's the opening paragraph:

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The report, compiled from 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, also declares that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

Now, to be fair to John Kline, it's been more than two years since he declared that the U.S. presence in Iraq "does make us safer", and things have changed a lot since then. So if anyone knows of John Kline publicly agreeing with our intelligence agencies in their assessment that the U.S. occupation of Iraq has made the overall terrorism problem worse, just email the campaign and let us know.