West will
fail, says ex-CIA operative
By The Age
0711/07 "The
Age" -- - -AS
PESSIMISM grows in the US about Iraq, the American commander
there has warned that the war will take many years to win
and a former top CIA officer has told a Sydney conference
that defeat is inevitable in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit until
2004, said the West was losing the global battle against
Muslim insurgents.
Mr Scheuer said the US and its allies had failed to commit
enough troops to win and did not understand the grievances
motivating Muslim insurgents.
"We in the West are fighting an enemy we have woefully
chosen to misunderstand and to whom we are losing hands down
and on every front," he said.
Mr Scheuer said the US and its allies continually became
involved in Middle East wars because of their reliance on
Arab oil supplies and had little other interest in the
region.
The US had tried "to do Afghanistan on the cheap" and that
defeat there was "just around the corner," he said.
Mr Scheuer's bleak declaration came as the US commander in
Iraq, General David Petraeus, said the war in Iraq could
last for many years.
General Petraeus said the new "surge" strategy involving
30,000 extra US troops was having a positive effect in parts
of Baghdad and the surrounding areas but such operations in
places such as Northern Ireland took decades.
"I don't know whether this will be decades but the average
counter-insurgency is somewhere around a nine or a 10-year
endeavour."
General Petraeus said the big question was how US troops
could be reduced to lessen the strain on the army and on the
nation.
There is growing pessimism in the US about the chances of
success in Iraq and the Washington Post reported yesterday
that President George Bush was planning to begin reducing
troop numbers next year.
Top officials in Washington had begun explaining to worried
Republicans the President's plan for "post-surge" Iraq that
would eventually involve bringing troops home.
Mr Scheuer said there was no hope of bringing democracy to
Iraq or Afghanistan without a much greater commitment to
defeat insurgents.
He said the West's biggest mistake in the war on terror was
to ignore the grievances of Islamic insurgents.
He said Western politicians, including Prime Minister John
Howard, deceived the public by suggesting that terrorists
were motivated only by hatred for freedoms enjoyed in the
West.
Mr Howard had "warbled" the "wildly inaccurate ditty" that
the London bombers were motivated by a hatred of Western
culture, Mr Scheuer said.
He said Al-Qaeda was motivated by anger towards US foreign
policy in the Middle East rather than by hatred for Western
culture.
That included the US military presence in the region, its
backing of tyrannical Arab regimes and "unqualified" support
for Israel.
Mr Scheuer said the United States needed to increase its
troops and take a heavy-handed, "brutal" approach to beat
insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan — or leave.
Mr Howard said he had not heard of Mr Scheuer.
"I don't know who you're talking about," Mr Howard said. "A
lot of people disagree with me on Iraq.
"My position is that we are there to help the people of Iraq
give effect to their desire to have democracy. They've voted
in the most fearful circumstances of intimidation to embrace
democracy."
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd challenged Mr Howard to say why
he would not set a timetable for a staged withdrawal of
Australian troops.
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