Everyone on Earth: Iraq created extremism [VIDEO]

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 7:28 AM on September 25, 2006.

As my estimable colleague Josh Holland notes in his post on Ned Lamont's letter to Lieberman, the leaked National Intelligence Estimate concludes that the invasion of Iraq has made America and the world less safe.

Period.

Josh writes:

Even though that's not news -- it's been the conclusion of one Israeli, two American and two British defense think-tanks, a study by the Saudi government and 87 of 100 of America's top international relations experts polled by Foreign affairs -- this was significant because it's the consensus opinion of the United States' 16 intelligence agencies.

This NIE, it should be noted, was approved by Director of National Intelligence, John "Iran-Contra" Negroponte, so this ain't no liberal overseeing the thing -- this is a yes-man.

The NIE collapses the last pillar of squirrely lies on which the invasion of Iraq stood (of course the second two reasons popped up after the invasion).

WMD... nope.
Creating democracy... nope.
"Fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here?"... nope.

All bullshit.

The CNN segment -- upper right -- actually poses the question at the bottom of the screen: Are We Less Safe? Which is a bit silly when exploring a document whose conclusion is categorically Yes.

It's like having the text read: Will Katrina Hit New Orleans? on the day after it hits.

Text aside, the CNN report does make clear, not only how conclusive the NIE is, but also just how off-target the Bush administration has been in any effort to reduce terrorism and extremism. Watch and pass it on...

Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.