After New NIE, Bush Officials Now ‘Privately’ Admitting Afghanistan Is The Central Front In War On Terror
After New NIE, Bush Officials Now ‘Privately’ Admitting Afghanistan Is The Central Front In War On Terror
For years, the Bush administration has incessantly claimed that Iraq is the “central front” in the war on terror. “Iraq is the central front of al Qaeda’s global campaign,” the White House claims. But a draft of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released this week concludes that Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral.”
After the new NIE draft, however, Bush administration officials are revising their stance. CBS’s Katie Couric reported yesterday that administration officials are now “privately” saying that Afghanistan is the primary national security threat to the U.S.:
A draft of the latest National Intelligence Estimate says conditions are worst now since the 2001 U.S. invasion. Bush administration officials said privately today that Afghanistan is now the single most pressing security threat in the war on terror.
The Center for American Progress and other institutions have warned for years about the growing threat in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, however, the same day as the New York Times reported the details of the NIE, Gov. Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity that Iraq is “the central front there” in the war on terror:
You don’t have to believe me, the hockey mom from Alaska, proclaiming that the war on terror, central front there, has been Iraq. Please, believe Gen. Petraeus, an American hero. Unfortunately, you gotta believe even bin Laden.
Watch it:
Similarly, McCain has long insisted that Iraq is the “central front,” saying so as late as last week’s presidential debate. “General David Petraeus believes Iraq is the central front in the war on terror,” an aide said approvingly in July. His campaign website also trumpets the same claim.
The Bush administration seems to be accepting what the intelligence community and progressives have been saying for years. Will McCain and Palin continue to have their sights set on Iraq in light of the new NIE?
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Yep - “the hockey mom from Alaska.”
Sounds qualified for the presidency to me.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:08 pmThe screenwriters haven’t changed the script yet for “The Mavericks”. They don’t invent their own lines…
October 10th, 2008 at 4:15 pmKeyword operative here ‘privately’.
Remember, Messianic leaders can NEVER be wrong…
October 10th, 2008 at 4:16 pmclusterphuckTim; FLAGGED!
Take your God damned unwanted ads the phuck OUT OF HERE!
October 10th, 2008 at 4:16 pmYes, just chalk up one more victory for the Republicans. The triumph of stupidity. It is time to destroy the party. It is time to run every Republican, every fellow traveler or Republican leaner out of the country. Thank you Republiscum, you did exactly what Osama wanted you to do. You destroyed our civil liberties, broke our military and ruined our economies. Republicans are all scum. Death to the Republican party.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:17 pmUncle Ho, I’ve begun flagging Timmeh. Remember, flag Tippecanoe and Timmeh too!
October 10th, 2008 at 4:18 pmRepublicans are idiots and liars who hate America.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:18 pmMcCain is too damn dumb or stubborn to realize the train is going North while his Campaign is headed South.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:26 pmBush officials can pretty much say anything they want to — privately or publicly — and it won’t matter much, because nobody is paying any attention to them.
Among those paying no attention are McCain, Palin, and the staff of the McCain campaign. They will continue to trumpet that Iraq is the “central front on the war on terror”. Why? Because that phrase is red meat for their base, and it justifies our being there. Truth isn’t exactly a hallmark of that campaign.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:26 pmDon’t be too hard on Sarah getting the wrong country as the central front in this misnamed war: she can’t see Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan too clearly from her house without climbing up on the roof.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:28 pmBush administrations officials said privately today that Afghanistan is now the single most pressing security threat in the war on terror.
After sacrificing over 4500 of our soldier’s lives, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives, squandering what will amount to over $1 trillion of the tax payer’s money, and now, finally, the chimp administration admits what has been obvious since before we invaded Iraq. Well no shit, chimpy. Welcome to the real world.
What’s next? Are they going to admit that Reaganomics is bullshit too?
I’m not holding my breath…
October 10th, 2008 at 4:32 pmIf TP will not banish clusterphuck, then EVERYONE should start ad-spammin. Amazon.com., e-bay, you name it.
This is BULLSHIT!
October 10th, 2008 at 4:34 pm“The Center for American Progress and other institutions have warned for years about the growing threat in Afghanistan.”
You Lyndon Larouchebags are an utter disgrace. Here you are bragging about “growing threats”, yet whenever a Republican “warns about growing threats”, you Milqtoasts call it “fear mongering”.
Bush lost this election for McCain, fair and square. Painting your party as some sort of champion for National Security is about as logical as Jim Nabors going fly fishing with Dick Cheney.
Stick to doing what you do best: Whining for Universal health care and blaming all of America’s woes on those fellow Americans who have worked hard to find some success in this country.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:35 pmNettles; BITE ME!
October 10th, 2008 at 4:38 pmhttp://www.rawstory.com
GOP insiders predict Obama victory.
Stick a fork in McPutz/Barbiemoose, they’re done.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:45 pmSoooo…
Privately, it is now agreed that Senator Barack Obama has been right all along. Except by McStain and his sidekick, MooseBreath.
PEACE
October 10th, 2008 at 4:46 pmStinking Nettles Says:
“Here you are bragging about “growing threats”, yet whenever a Republican “warns about growing threats”, you Milqtoasts call it “fear mongering”.”
Who’s bragging?
“Stick to doing what you do best: Whining for Universal health care and blaming all of America’s woes on those fellow Americans who have worked hard to find some success in this country.”
Nobody is blaming hard-working Americans. We’re blaming Bush.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:47 pmI really don’t know who’s more deluded, McCain or his moose-hunting deputy, Palin. I’m a cartoonist, and I came up with a drawing that features Bin Laden and Bush giving the same answer to a Jeopardy question about where the global battle of ideologies was centered back in 06. I cannot believe that McCain still has a death grip on the idea that Iraq is where the battle is raging - he just can’t let go of the surge.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:49 pmNettles Says:yet whenever a Republican “warns about growing threats”, you Milqtoasts call it “fear mongering”.
Untrue. Nobody accused anyone of fear-mongering on Afghanistan. Iraq is obviously another story. And yes, it was fear-mongering by the Bush Administration that got us into a huge, expensive and outright stupid mistake in Iraq.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:54 pmAcknowledging your mistakes is generally the first step toward correcting them. Think you can do that?
I knew Katie was small but I did not know the level of her stealth to hide undetected in White House rooms and overhear high level meetings……..this is news by its self.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:55 pmIs one a “milquetoast” because he or she calls the Bush administration out on their fear-mongering BS on Iraq?
October 10th, 2008 at 4:58 pmAm I a “milquetoast” because I spelled “milquetoast” correctly?
The central source of terror is the white house and it’s occupants, no matter which branch of government they pretend to be part of from day to day.
Why are we in Afghanistan? Because it would have looked funny attacking Saudi Arabia after their people attacked us. Is anyone stupid enough to believe what the white house is saying?
What a joke.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:00 pmNuttles is a liar, a moron, and quite possibly a whackjob.
Even the chimp administration now admits that it is Afghanistan — NOT Iraq — that is the central front in the war on terror. If they can admit it, why can’t he? In this case, when Republicans warned about growing threats, they were LYING. Lying to start a war so their oil buddies could control Iraq’s Oil fields once more.
He is right that Bush lost this election for McSame, but then again, he lost both of his own elections too and only managed to win by stealing both election in corrupt states where Republicans controlled the voting apparatus. Hopefully, Bush will continue to lose elections for Republicans for generations to come, or as long as anyone can remember how much money they lost because of Bush’s “handling” of the economy.
BTW, Universal health care, something all other industrialized long ago realized takes the onus off business, is a good thing. But then, only a moron would try to pass off the very real threat of losing one’s home and life savings due to a serious illness as “freedom.”
But there are none so blind as he who will not see.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:01 pmPerhaps the central front on terrorism should be right here in the good old USA. It seems like the white collar terrorists on Wall street are striking up more fear in our country then any muslim terrorist organization could.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:06 pmEven MDs are seeing the light about universal health care, if it includes the elimination of their outrageous malpractice premiums. Ala Japan, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Start wetting your pants, righties, socialism is on the march.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:08 pmNettles Says
October 10th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
______________________________________________________________
“You Lyndon Larouchebags are an utter disgrace.”
– Lyndon Larouchebags??? What in the world have we said or done that conforms with that crackpot’s ideology? Do you even know who Lyndon Larouche is? Or what he stands for? Or do you think his name just sounds vaguely insulting?
“Here you are bragging about “growing threats”, yet whenever a Republican “warns about growing threats”, you Milqtoasts call it “fear mongering”.”
– There’s a big difference between pointing out something that’s a “growing threat” because it’s actually a growing threat, and lying about a “growing threat” in order to manufacture a phony war. And the latter IS fear mongering (as well as an excuse to funnel billions of dollars to cronies on no-bid contracts).
“Bush lost this election for McCain, fair and square.”
– Oh, be fair. Bush has certainly poisoned the GOP well to the point where if Superman himself showed up and ran as a Republican, he’d probably lose. However, McCain still has done plenty to shoot himself in the foot. His flip-flops, lies, and abandonment of every principled stand he’s ever had in his life would make it hard for him to win even if he were following Reagan instead of Dubya.
“Painting your party as some sort of champion for National Security is about as logical as Jim Nabors going fly fishing with Dick Cheney.”
– The weirdest sentence of your whole post. First, you state a variant of the old saw that Democrats are weak on national security as if it’s an accepted fact. It isn’t. Try to provide some evidence to back up that position if you expect to be taken seriously. Second, you assume that Jim Nabors and Dick Cheney couldn’t go fishing together? I honestly don’t know how Nabors feels about fly fishing, but he might enjoy such an outing. And as long as Cheney is unarmed, he should be perfectly safe. But what does a potential Cheney fishing buddy have to do with national security logic?
“Stick to doing what you do best: Whining for Universal health care and blaming all of America’s woes on those fellow Americans who have worked hard to find some success in this country.”
– Ah, you’ve introduced a topic that has nothing to do with anything, except to paint the serious problem of health care in our country as frivolous. I’d ask you what you have against universal health care, except that it’s way off-topic here and you’d probably just parrot a few wingnut talking points. And as far as your accusation that I have something against Americans who have worked hard for what they have, nothing could be further from the truth.
Your whole post sounds like a rant from someone who really doesn’t have an intelligent argument, so you have settled for a shotgun blast of random insults. Not impressive.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:19 pmUncle Ho Says
October 10th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
If TP will not banish clusterphuck, then EVERYONE should start ad-spammin. Amazon.com., e-bay, you name it.
This is BULLSHIT!
__________________________________________________________
OK — take a deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep cleansing breath and let it out slowly.
Not too long ago, I was quite annoyed because we had a spammer who posted daily (in almost every thread) a link to a site about polygamists. I started flagging every post, and put in my comments my annoyance at the obvious spam.
I finally sent a very polite e-mail to ThinkProgress with some of the exact locations of this spammer’s posts, along with a plea that the spammer be banned — and why.
I received a nice reply from TP thanking me for my e-mail and their promise they would address the matter.
I never saw the spammer again after that.
I don’t know how diligently TP reads the abuse reports, but I do know they read their e-mail. So give that a try.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:26 pmHow long until they ridicule, or ignore, this NIE, like the previous one stating Iran’s nuclear weapons program shut down years ago? It’s so hard staying on message when the message is so clearly and publicly refuted. Got to give the GOP credit for it’s amazing powers of denial.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:29 pmAm I a “milquetoast” because I spelled “milquetoast” correctly?
No Bob- You’re a Milqtoast because you can’t admit that it’s more than slightly hypocritical for the Center for American Progress claim that they “recognize the threat in Afghanistan” yet so loosely emabraced the term “fear-mongering” in relation to the War on Terror (no b.s. quotations needed).
Admit it: According to Soros, Podesta, etc, Democrats “recognize threats” while Republicans ‘fear-monger”.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:35 pmWill someone, once and for all, explain to me what a “central front” is? If an army’s “front” is in a central position, it seems to me, it means that the army is outflanked at the least or encircled at worst.
Further enlightenment welcome.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:37 pmmissmolly,
We should all cut nettles some slack. He/she is just totally disconsolate that the Repug party is imploding faster than McDepends can change his mind.
After all, how would you feel if the only thing you had blindly held onto for your entire life just went POOF!. Kinda like when you learned there was no tooth fairy.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:40 pmPetraeus apparently said “Iraq is still viewed as the central front, if you will, for al-Qaeda and extremism of that flavor.” He didn’t say that HE viewed it as the central front. He may have meant that “Iraq is still viewed [by morons] as the central front”
(Source for Petraeus’ quote: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/ content/ article/ 2008/ 09/ 09/ AR2008090901662.html)
October 10th, 2008 at 5:43 pmFester Pontificates: “It seems like the white collar terrorists on Wall street are striking up more fear in our country then any muslim terrorist organization could”
This isn’t the French Revolution, you poorly informed little “man of the people”. Tens of thousands of hard working people who work on Wall St., who did everything right in their lives and who supplied hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue are now out of a job. America has painted the average Wall St. worker as Daddy Warbucks and the ill-informed fringe left is buying it hook, line and sinker. They needed a villian that looked like McCain and they found the easiest one.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:52 pmThat’s all it would take to finish the job of ruining American foreign policy for a generation. Put a “hockey mom from Alaska” in charge.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:57 pmWe should all cut nettles some slack. He/she is just totally disconsolate that the Repug party is imploding faster than McDepends can change his mind.
After all, how would you feel if the only thing you had blindly held onto for your entire life just went POOF!. Kinda like when you learned there was no tooth fairy
Clever, 99.
I appreciate the concern, but I’m all good. I congratulate you and other Obama supporters. I have respect for both he and Senator Biden and I will be the first to tip my cap to them and hope that they are able to bring this country together.
As for the fringe left, shame on you. You would have lost this election for Obama had Mccain not chosen Qualin (whomever came up with that one, I salute you as well).
October 10th, 2008 at 6:03 pmNettles,
So glad to see you are holding up OK.
But the main thrust of my comment wasn’t just the McCain/Flailin debacle but what looks to be a thrashing in both Houses as well.
And to your original post, I (and many other people), were crying out against the Iraq clusterfcuk before and after it happened. So the main point being, that BushCo had it wrong and continued to be wrong and just now are admitting it.
THAT is a major contributor to the sinking of the SS Repug, bow-first, and is trying to take the world economy down in its vortex.
October 10th, 2008 at 6:12 pmNettles,
Okay, I’ll play this tired game. So what EXACTLY did Iraq (you know, the country Bush said had WMDs including nuclear weapons—or is that not fear-mongering?) have to do with the War on Terror? And who was leading the fear-mongering on Iraq? Was it the Democrats?
October 10th, 2008 at 6:44 pm“Unfortunately, you gotta believe even bin Laden.”
why?
October 10th, 2008 at 6:58 pmditto oldtree @25. I hope, if he’s elected, that Obama doesn’t fall for this bait and switch tactic, and lay more bombs on poor Afghanistan and their wedding parties.
I wish NATO and England would just quit. How can anyone really argue that Afghanistan is a threat to any NATO nation? Sure—somebody IN Aghanistan could be a threat, but that’s not Afghanistan. This is a no-brainer to me. When is the country going to sober up.
For once, couldn’t someone with a voice in our government admit that some radical groups and people we supported when the Soviets were invading Afghanistan, are now this dreaded enemy our government is using as an excuse to usurp our constitutional rights!
October 10th, 2008 at 7:02 pmI thought the anti-war nuns were the new front on the war on terrorism.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:08 pm