Bush orders Iraq intelligence report made public

Washinton, Sep 27: President George W Bush said today a secret intelligence report that concluded the Iraq war had spread Islamic extremism would be made public and accused opponents of leaking it for political purposes.

Senior Republicans in the US Congress had pressed the White House to declassify the National Intelligence Estimate on trends in global terrorism after Democrats seized on it to criticize the administration's handling of the Iraq war.

At a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Bush said the report was completed in April and the collection of information for its conclusions had stopped in February.

''I think it's a bad habit for our government to declassify every time there's a leak,'' Bush said.

''But once again there's a leak out of our government, coming right down the stretch in this campaign, in order to create confusion in the minds of the American people, in my judgment is why they leaked it,'' he said.

Democrats pounced on the report to criticize the administration over the increasingly unpopular Iraq war, a key issue just weeks before the November 7 elections when control of Congress is at stake.

Bush is intent on portraying his party as stronger on national security than Democrats and better able to protect Americans.

The analysis by the 16 US spy agencies concluded the Iraq war had spread Islamic radicalism and made the overall terrorism problem worse, according to current and former intelligence officials familiar with the document.

Speculation

The White House said the disclosures offered an incomplete assessment.

''You can read it for yourself,'' Bush said. ''We'll stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy.'' Bush said he agreed with the report's conclusion that successes against the al Qaeda leadership had led to extremists ''becoming more diffuse and independent'' and that they were using Iraq as a recruiting tool.

But, he said, ''some people have guessed what's in the report and have concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree. I think it's naive.'' Bush insists his decision to invade Iraq was necessary to deal with a potential threat. But the American public has become increasingly weary of the war in which about 2,700 American troops have died and sectarian violence is rampant.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Americans could now decide on the merits of the report, and repeated his party's criticism that the Iraq war had made Americans less safe and in need of a new direction.

''Facts are stubborn things,'' Dean said in a statement.

''Nothing changes the fact that President Bush's failed leadership and war of choice in Iraq have made us less safe and hampered our ability to fight and win the global war on terror,'' he said.

Reuters