Sun Aug 8, 4:55 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US invasion of Iraq was a "tremendous gift" to Osama bin Laden and a major setback in the struggle against al-Qaeda, according to a CIA terrorism expert who has written a scathing account of the conduct of the US "war on terror."
In an interview with AFP, the author of "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror" blasted the efforts of successive US governments and the US intelligence community in fighting what he describes as a a global Islamic insurgency.
"Anonymous," as he is known, painted a dismal picture of the situation in Iraq, a "very bleak" outlook for Afghanistan and advocated debate about US policies which he claimed are providing a fertile recruiting ground for al-Qaeda in the Muslim world.
A senior CIA analyst, "Anonymous" has been widely identified as the head of the bin Laden unit at the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He was allowed to write the book on condition he not reveal his identity.
Published last month with an initial print run of 10,000 copies the provocative work, which was vetted by his employer for classified material, has climbed to number five on the New York Times list of non-fiction best-sellers.
It has gone back to the printers for another 200,000 copies and translations into nearly a dozen languages are planned. They include Arabic, French, Greek, Japanese and Turkish.
"Anonymous," a bearded, professorial man in his 50s, is blistering in his criticism of the US decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
"It's a disaster," he said. "I'm not an expert at all on Saddam or WMD (weapons of mass destruction) or Iraq but as it factors into the war against al-Qaeda or al-Qaedaism it was a tremendous gift to bin Laden.
"It validated so many of the arguments he's made over the past decade," "Anonymous" said, particularly the claim by the Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader that the West seeks to occupy the Islamic holy places.
"We have the first one, the most important in the Arabian peninsula, we occupy that in their eyes," he said in a reference to Saudi Arabia. "We now occupy Iraq, the second holiest place, and the Israelis have Jerusalem, the third.
"The idea that we would smash any government that posed a threat to Israel -- that's validated by our actions," he continued. "And his claim that we lust after control of Arab oil; Iraq has the second greatest reserves in the Arab world.
"So it's been an astounding victory for Osama bin Laden in terms of perceptions and perceptions are reality so often," "Anonymous" said.
He said the situation in Iraq, where more than 900 US soldiers have died, "looks like Afghanistan in the '80s with the Soviets, kind of a mujahedeen magnet.
"I think you can see already the fighters that are flowing in from Algeria and from Saudi Arabia and from Malaysia and from all other places," he said.
As for Afghanistan, "Anonymous" said: "It's very bleak."
"The insurgency is increasing day by day in small measures," he said. "Eventually we'll be faced with a lose-lose situation of either increasing our forces dramatically or leaving."
"Anonymous" said capturing or killing bin Laden would be important "symbolically" but "he's also very valuable in death as a martyr.
"If he dies he'll be replaced and the movement goes on so the worth of taking him out is still there but it's drastically reduced from what it was four or five years ago in terms of its impact on improving American security," he said.
"Al-Qaeda is transforming really into al-Qaedism, if you will, more of a movement than just an organization," he said. "Not all of it agrees with bin Laden's theological arguments or his military actions but they're all united at least in the sense of detesting our policies."
To counter al-Qaeda, "Anonymous" advocates a coordinated strategy of tough military action, diplomacy, intelligence, energy independence, propaganda and debate over longstanding US policies.
"Rhetoric is not going to work," he said. "There's no one listening out there. I think the best we can do in the near term is to undercut the room bin Ladenism has to grow.
"And because we don't have any diplomacy that's working, because our policies basically are hated in the Muslim world, we only have a military option.
"It seems to me that the one national security effort we haven't made is to debate whether policies that have been on autopilot for 30 years are still serving us well," he said.
Asked what the reaction to his book has been at his workplace, "Anonymous" said "I think it represents a good deal of the views of the people who actually work this issue on a day to day basis.
"I can't claim that I speak for anyone but me but the reaction among my colleagues has certainly been positive," he said. "On the other hand from my superiors there's been kind of a thundering silence."
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