WASHINGTON, 24 June 2004 — Harsh criticism is being aimed against the White House and their influence at the CIA. Two upcoming reports are expected to deliver harsh condemnation at this administration.
The 9/11 commission, the final report is due out July 26, contends in 17 preliminary assessments that the attacks could have been predicted, and thus might have been avoided.
The Senate committee, whose 400-page report also is sharply critical of the CIA, is also considering releasing an unclassified version of their document next month.
But even more disturbing to administration officials is a book scheduled to be released Aug. 1, which is said to be extremely critical of the Bush administration’s use of intelligence to justify the Iraq war.
The book by an anonymous CIA official titled “Imperial Hubris,” describes Iraq and Afghanistan as two “failed half-wars” that have played into the enemy’s hands and complicated the war on terrorism, The New York Times said yesterday.
The Guardian interviewed the author, “Anonymous,” last week. The paper writes, “Imperial Hubris is the latest in a relentless stream of books attacking the administration in election year. Most of the earlier ones, however, were written by embittered former officials. This one is unprecedented in being the work of a serving official with nearly 20 years experience in counter-terrorism who is still part of the intelligence establishment.”
The 309-page book was written by a Central Intelligence Agency officer who from 1996 to 1999 headed a special office to track Osama Bin Laden and who, in the book, is identified only as Anonymous, said the daily which obtained a copy of the book.
In a highly unusual move allowing the publication of a book on a politically explosive topic, the CIA vetted the book to ensure it included no classified information, and a CIA official asked the daily not to reveal the identity of its author — a former CIA official identified him — because he could become a target of Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, the daily said.
In criticism directed both at US President George W. Bush and his predecessor Bill Clinton, the author of the book says US leaders “refuse to accept the obvious”.
“We are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency — not criminality or terrorism — and our policy and procedures have failed to make more than a modest dent in enemy forces,” he said. He said the threat from radicals is rooted in opposition not to American values, but to policies and actions, particularly in the Muslim world.
The book denounces the US occupation of Iraq as “an avaricious, premeditated unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat,” and said it would fuel the anti-American sentiments on which Bin Laden and his followers draw.
“There is nothing that Bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq,” the author writes.
In warning that the United States is losing the war on terrorism, Anonymous writes: “In the period since Sept. 11, the United States has dealt lethal blows to Al-Qaeda’s leadership and — if official claims are true — have captured 3,000 Al-Qaeda foot soldiers.
“At the same time, we have waged two failed half-wars and, in doing so, left Afghanistan and Iraq seething with anti-US sentiment, fertile grounds for the expansion of Al-Qaeda and kindred groups.”
Anonymous said he has “a pressing certainty that Al-Qaeda will attack the continental United States again, that its next strike will be more damaging than that of Sept.11 2001, and could include use of weapons of mass destruction.”
