Tuesday, September 26, 2006

WASHINGTON – Calling the recent leak of a National Intelligence Estimate another politically-motivated leak of classified information, U.S. Senator Kit Bond today cited remarks by CIA Director Michael Hayden describing why Iraq is crucial to winning the global war on terror.

Bond said that on April 25th, around the same time the NIE was produced, current CIA Director Michael Hayden, then the Deputy Director of National Intelligence, best summarized why Iraq is crucial to winning the global war on terror.

“Gen. Hayden was clear in his remarks,” said Bond. “He said that while the war in Iraq may inspire or motivate terrorists now, their failure would weaken the movement worldwide. Gen Hayden said that should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, that fewer fighters would step forward to carry the fight.”

“The fact is the war on Iraq is a central front in the struggle against radical Islamists. It is not a distraction from the war on terror, it is central to the war on terror.”

Bond said Hayden’s remarks highlighted the terrorists’ greatest vulnerability: the terrorists’ ultimate goal of establishing an ultra-conservative religious state spanning the Muslim world is unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims. Hayden said the emergence of a Muslim mainstream, like the one being built in Iraq, could emerge as the ‘most powerful weapon in the war on terror’.”

Bond also criticized the leak of the NIE and Democrats’ use of it for partisan attacks.

“Democrats may be trying to use selected leaks and political spin and half-truths cynically to win votes this election, but their efforts are a gross distortion of reality,” said Bond.

“Democrats would like the American people to believe this document confirms what Democrats believe: that the war in Iraq is simply a distraction from and has nothing to do with the war on terror, and that it is the reason for the growth of radical Islam. This is simply a pitiful election-year interpretation of a serious document.

“If we win in Iraq, moderate Islam wins and Bin Laden and all other extremists will have been handed a sound defeat that will have profound repercussions.

“The terrorists realize this, that’s why they are there and that’s why we are fighting them on their turf, before they have the opportunity to regroup and assault us on our turf. There is no way the United States can afford to let the terrorists have their way in Iraq.”

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