TOP SECRET: From the al Qaeda National Intelligence Council
Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for al Qaeda:
In the name of Allah, we judge the war in Iraq to be an unmitigated disaster.
Our reasons for this judgment go beyond a simple listing of the obvious pluses and minuses:
Obvious Pluses:
? We have killed more than 2,000 Americans in Iraq.
? The war has ignited a powerful ?anti-war? movement in the US, and in the West generally ? as we had predicted it would in our 2002 Estimate entitled ?The American and European Left Will Work for Us? ? that has weakened Bush and may, perhaps, bring the anti-war Democrats to power in Congress in November.
? The war has further separated the Great Satan from its European allies.
? It has aided our recruitment efforts worldwide.
Obvious Minuses:
? We have lost our brother Saddam and the invaluable support he gave us during the 1990s.
? Despite our continuing and highly successful destabilization campaign ?may our martyred brother al-Zarquari now enjoy the pleasures of 72 virgins?Iraqis have voted in free elections, put in place a modern constitution, and begun the revival of a vibrant economy. By doing so they have set an appalling example for all other Arab states that we can never erase.
? The American invasion of Iraq ?flipped? Libya, and the treasonous pig Qadaffi has surrendered his nuclear weapons to the Great Satan.
? The American armed forces ? which cannot be defeated on the battlefield by us or by anyone else on earth ? are fully deployed throughout the Mideast.
Our judgment that the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster rests on another logic entirely ? one that, praise be to Allah, our allies on the American left fail utterly to grasp. By dragging on for so long, and thus generating so much political controversy, this war has created the opportunity for those among the infidels who truly understand us to find their voice. Today in the American media once-obscure scholars such as Bernard Lewis, James Arlandson, and Andrew Bostom are reaching large and growing audiences with their accurate and deeply insightful analyses of Islam. And while it is one thing when the moron Bush stumbles onto the truth and calls us ?Islamofascists??it is quite another when the infidel leader Benedict visits a minor university in Germany, and there gives a scholarly speech about the nature of Islam that echoes across the globe and focuses worldwide attention on the central role of violence in our faith.
History teaches that when attacked, the infidel responds slowly ? and at first, clumsily. (Consider how many centuries went by before Christianity responded to our conquests in the seventh and eighth centuries with what they are pleased to call the Crusades.) And of all the infidels, none responds more clumsily than the Americans. They are too corrupt ? too distracted by their pornography and their shopping ? to see clearly or even to think clearly about the threats they face.
But history also teaches that, given enough time, the Americans always come to understand the true nature of their enemy. And history teaches that once they do, they win.
We judge that a great shift is now under way within the Great Satan. While the ?elites? in Washington continue to fight each other rather than us, the masses are becoming more resolute in their opposition to our jihad. Our agents report that throughout the Great Satan, in places like Birmingham, Alabama, and Raleigh, North Carolina, and Naperville, Illinois, and Fargo, North Dakota ? and even in the outlying districts of New York itself ? ordinary, working Americans are starting to wake up to who we truly are and what we mean to do. The people are moving ahead of their corrupt politicians.
For all the mistakes the Americans and their lackeys have made in Iraq ? may Allah continue to mislead them ? this war has been a disaster because it has triggered the one thing we were most determined to prevent: It has enabled the infidel to understand our true objective ? which is, of course, the destruction of Western civilization.
We report our final judgment with reluctance, but with a high level of confidence: If we cannot defeat the infidel soon, our opportunity for victory will evaporate.