Can't Find Osama?

".......In a tour-de-force of misinformation disguised as fact, the report states, erroneously, that al-Qaeda in Iraq represents the principal threat for an attack on the U.S. homeland "because it has expressed a desire to attack us here." The "attack us here" theme has been around for several years, and it has lately been reinforced by the White House's incessant linkage of Iraq to al-Qaeda, culminating in a July 10 speech in Cleveland in which President Bush named the terrorist organization 30 times during comments that were ostensibly on the war in Iraq. Anyone who follows terrorism even in a pedestrian fashion might politely suggest that the administration's position on the terrorism problem is nonsense......

The NIE is not pleasant reading, even though it tries to make the essentially political point that everything possible is being done to protect "the Homeland." What it really is arguing is that everything that is being done should continue to be done, and more. That means more of the bloated bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security and the world's mightiest military budget. Another White House tactical response to the very real terrorist threat, which it doesn't want anyone to think about too much, is, predictably, to look for a diversion in the form of someone else to kick. With Iraq and Afghanistan in shambles, there just happen to be a couple of neighbors who can be credibly accused of "interference" with the U.S. military's civilizing mission. In the intelligence business it is sometimes necessary to use "disinformation" to establish a false factual basis or to create a straw man that can be used to divert attention from an unpleasant reality. If it is too hard to catch Osama bin Laden, it might be more convenient to talk about Iran instead. As Syria and Iran have both long been in the crosshair of the neoconservatives because of those countries' antipathy to Israel, it is reassuring to know that they have not been forgotten by the White House. It is possibly no coincidence that there has been a significant increase in the anti-Iran rhetoric emanating from both the Bush administration and Congress over the past few weeks, mostly seeking to establish a casus belli by contending that Iran is masterminding lethal attacks directed against U.S. troops in Iraq and NATO forces in Afghanistan. A tidy little war against Iran would be a useful diversion that would make everyone forget about the NIE and the inability to do anything about Osama bin Laden. "