Reported Strengthening of al-Qaeda after Six-Year War on Terrorism

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Newsweek/MSNBC and the Washington Post report on a new U.S.intelligence estimate titled "Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West" that concludes, “the terrorist network is gaining strength and has established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and planning attacks.” According to CIA deputy director John A. Kringen, "We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications.” The other day, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune that “he had a ‘gut feeling’ that the country was entering a new period of increased risk this summer.” Nobody can deny that sooner or later there will be terrorist strikes or at least attempts inside
U.S. borders by actual members of the central al-Qaeda organization or inspired groups, cells, or individuals. But it is disconcerting to learn that the intelligence community is sure of more training, more money, and more communications on the part of al-Qaeda without seeing also, finally, where and how to go after the real 9/11 culprits. Neither the military efforts in Afghanistan nor the Iraq war and occupation prevented al-Qaeda from regrouping. It doesn’t really matter whether the core organization is again involved in providing terrorist know-how and money to foot-soldiers or whether al-Qaeda Central is inspiring autonomous cliques of extremists around the world and recruits them into the terrorist cause. Maybe both. But it is the growth of recruits without actual links to al-Qaeda that is more troubling because these amateur terrorists are harder to spot and harder to stop than professional terrorists.

Whatever details the classified intelligence report contains, it is obvious that the nearly six-year war on terrorism has been a failure in that it did not reduce but increase the number of terrorists and the number of major terror attacks around the world. While it is true that the American homeland has not been struck since 9/11, there was no attack in the six years preceding those strikes either.

 The new intelligence report raises once again the question whether we are safer here in the homeland today than we were on September 11, 2001. Stephen Flynn writes in his recent book The Edge of Disaster, “Despite all the rhetoric since September 11, 2001 and some new federal spending on homeland security, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to acts of catastrophic terrorism on American soil.” It does not help that the bulk of the money earmarked for the “war on terrorism” is spent for military actions abroad, mostly for the Iraq war and occupation— presently to the tune of at least $10 billion a month. As Flynn sees it, “Rather than address the myriad soft targets within the U.S.border, the White House has defined the war on terrorism as something to be managed by actions beyond our shores.” The latest intelligence report and Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff’s warning this week support Flynn’s argument that “terrorists can still come here…”