Posted 10:32 AM by Blah blah

Are We Neglecting the War on Terror?

Top White House anti-terror boss resigns:

WASHINGTON, March 19 (UPI) -- The top National Security Council official in the war on terror resigned this week for what a NSC spokesman said were personal reasons, but intelligence sources say the move reflects concern that the looming war with Iraq is hurting the fight against terrorism.

Rand Beers would not comment for this article, but he and several sources close to him are emphatic that the resignation was not a protest against an invasion of Iraq. But the same sources, and other current and former intelligence officials, described a broad consensus in the anti-terrorism and intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq would divert critical resources from the war on terror.

Beers has served as the NSC's senior director for counter-terrorism only since August. The White House said Wednesday that he officially remains on the job and has yet to set a departure date.

"Hardly a surprise," said one former intelligence official. "We have sacrificed a war on terror for a war with Iraq. I don't blame Randy at all. This just reflects the widespread thought that the war on terror is being set aside for the war with Iraq at the expense of our military and intel resources and the relationships with our allies."

A Senate Intelligence Committee staffer familiar with the resignation agreed that it was not a protest against the war against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein but confirmed that frustration is widespread in the anti-terror establishment and played a part in Beers' decision.
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Remember I talked about John O'Neill a few days ago? I bet he felt just the same frustration with the government as Rand Beers. O'Neill was Chief of Counterterrorism in the FBI, was the main Al Qaeda expert, and came THIS close to uncovering the Sept. 11th plot. What stopped him? Lack of resources and people above him in the FBI who disliked him personally. He was in charge of the investigation of the Oct. 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, but in the middle of the investigation, Barbara Bodine, then U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, denied his visa to return to Yemen after he had returned to New York for a break. So no one discovered the connection to Al Qaeda till it was too late.

Guess whom the U.S. government wants to help run Iraq after the war? You guessed it---Barbara Bodine, the woman who helped hinder the U.S.S. Cole investigation! 3 U.S. administrators will run postwar Iraq (CNN). Will the stupidity never cease?

My point, pro-war guys, is that this war on Iraq is draining BIG time resources from the war on terrorism. You focus so much on avoiding a pothole that you get hit by a truck. And I worry more about the truck---Al Qaeda and all those small groups we are NOT focusing on right now. More of Bush's "weapons of mass distraction." Note the official in the UPI article said "relationships with our allies." To fight terrorism we need all the international cooperation from France, Russia, China and other nations we can get.