WASHINGTON — Nearly six years after the United States set out to crush Al Qaeda, the terrorist network has "regenerated key elements" of its ability to attack targets in America and is intensifying its efforts to put operatives inside the country, according to a sobering new report from U.S. intelligence agencies.
The document says counter-terrorism efforts have constrained the ability of Al Qaeda to launch attacks in the United States. But it warns that the country is in a "heightened threat environment" largely because Osama bin Laden and his senior deputies have moved to reestablish their leadership of the far-flung network and refocus its energies on striking the United States.
The report also concludes that Al Qaeda "will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities" of the Iraq-based group Al Qaeda in Iraq. The document says the ongoing war has given a new generation of operatives lethal experience and has helped the broader network raise money and get recruits.
Many of the report's themes have come up previously in testimony by U.S. intelligence officials. But the document is the U.S. intelligence community's first comprehensive examination of the domestic terrorism threat in 20 years. The document, formally titled the National Intelligence Estimate on the Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland, represents the consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell released a declassified, two-page version of the report's key assessments on Tuesday, and it quickly entered the political debate over the war in Iraq.
President Bush touted the report Tuesday as evidence that Al Qaeda was "not nearly as strong as they were" before Sept. 11. He also called for a commitment to his course in Iraq, saying Islamic terrorists "want us to leave parts of the world, like Iraq, so they can establish a safe haven from which to spread their poisonous ideology."
But Democrats cited the report as evidence that the war in Iraq had worsened the terrorist threat.
"I think it's clear evidence that Bush's claim that we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here was, and is, false," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), chairwoman of the Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence. "The threat here is increasing, and part of it relates to the strength of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is a threat that postdates our military action in Iraq."
