The collision of Afghanistan and Iraq

Via Laura Rozen, The Washington Post's Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer have a chilling report on the prices paid in the battle against al Qaeda and its loose affiliates by waging war in Iraq. Bush's approach to terrorism is to keep a list of baddies and cross them off, one by one, as they're killed or captured, and go after the states he thinks are supporting terrorists. That's how he continues to justify the war in Iraq and increasing bellicosity towards Iran.

Wrong approach.

Bush's focus on the instruments of force, the officials said, has been slow to adapt to a swiftly changing enemy. Al Qaeda, they said, no longer exerts centralized control over a network of operational cells. It has rather become the inspirational hub of a global movement, fomenting terrorism that it neither funds nor directs. Internal government assessments describe this change with a disquieting metaphor: They say jihadist terrorism is "metastasizing."

[...]

'What Does It Mean to Be Safer?' Bush conducts the war on terrorism above all as a global hunt for a cast of evil men he knows by name and photograph. He tracks progress in daily half-hour meetings that Richard A. Falkenrath, who sometimes attended them before departing recently as deputy homeland security adviser, described as "extremely granular, about individual guys." Frances Fragos Townsend, who took the post of White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser in May, said in an interview that Bush's strategy -- now, as in the war's first days -- is to "decapitate the beast."

It's bizarre, really, the thinking within the White House. One senior advisor is quoted, anonymously, saying, in response to polls that show widespread and growing hatred of the U.S., that what they think about us doesn't matter. Keeping America safe is all that matters.

Huh?

It's a story of missed opportunities and of ideology getting in the way of effective tactics. Such as when Iran offered up nearly 300 al Qaeda suspects they were holding. In return, they wanted four prisoners at Guantanamo Bay interrogated regarding the assassination of some Iranian diplomats. The CIA was all for it. Cheney and Rumsfeld overruled them, not wanting to give "legitimacy" to what they considered a terrorist sponsor. Not long after, Iran was officially named to the "Axis of Evil."

Meanwhile, resources were being funneled from Afghanistan to Iraq. Task Force Five went from hunting bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. And Iraq, as we now know, became Vietnam.

In 2002, the CIA transferred its station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, to lead the new Iraq Issue Group. At least 30 case officers, a knowledgeable official said, joined the parallel Iraq Operations Task Force by mid-2002. By the time war came in Iraq nearly 150 case officers filled the task force and issue group on the "A Corridor" of Langley's top management. The Baghdad station became the largest since the Vietnam War, with more than 300.

Early this year, the CIA's then-station chief in Kabul reported a resurgence of Taliban and al Qaeda forces in three border provinces. He proposed a spring intelligence offensive in South Waziristan and in and around Kunar province farther north. The chief, whose first name is Peter, estimated he would need 25 case officers in the field and an additional five for the station. A national security official who tracked the proposal said CIA headquarters replied that it did not have the resources to make the surge. Peter finished his year as station chief in June.

It really is a must read. We must replace a president who, despite all evidence to the contrary, believes that the terrorists hitting places like Madrid, Turkey, Indonesia, and, oh yes, lower Manhattan, do so because "they hate America for its freedom."

He is a lost boy, imagining himself as John Wayne, surrounded by yes-men.