House Intel Chief: Al-Qaeda is Shi'ite

Does this concern anyone? [H/T: The Belmont Club]:

The dialogue went like this:
Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?
“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about
predominately?”
“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.
He couldn’t have been
more wrong.
Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al
Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

Wow! The guy that will run the house Intel committee fundamentally misunderstand the most prominent enemy of his country (and of the West). So, just in case you think this gap in understanding is a partisan matter, consider Trent Lott, incoming Republican Minority Whip:

Trent Lott, the veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, said only last September that “It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people.”

“Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion?” wondered Lott, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after a meeting with Bush.

“Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?

“They all look the same to me,” Lott said.

We're in lots of trouble if this is the quality of people the U.S. electorate want leading them in a war whilst they discard someone of Rick Santorum's calibre:

Our growing challenge, however, is that Iran is not alone in its rhetoric, intent or capacity to threaten the security of the U.S. It is important for Americans to know that the threat is more complex, and has grown more complex.The enemy that has to be named is greater than Islamic Fascism.

Many Americans are sleepwalking, just as they did before the world wars of the last century. They pretend it is not happening, that it all has to do with the errors
of a single American administration, even of a single American president. Some even pretend that it will all go away if only the Democrat Party-including my opponent who did not even know the name of the former Iranian president whose presence kicked up a firestorm a few weeks ago by coming to America-is elected in November.

How do they propose to save us from these people? By negotiating at the United Nations? By removing U.N. Ambassador John Bolton office? By relocating American forces from Iraq to Okinawa? By abandoning the Iraqi people to Iranian and Syrian slaughter and domination? By engaging in more direct talks with a nuclear North Korea?

Downer stands firm

I was overwhelmed after catching the tail end of Tony Jones' interview of the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer. Downer presented a realistic picture of the situation in Iraq ("its tough") but defended maintaining troops in Iraq. He was very critical of the cut-and-run strategy proposed by the left leaning Opposition Party and rightly ridiculed Tony Jones' persistent and repetitive questions on whether being in Iraq has worsened terror. He also linked the jihadist threat to the West's health and survival in such terms that I have not yet seen from a public figure.

Mark Steyn must have brain-washed him.

Once the transcript is put up, I will link to it. However, you can watch the entire interview here (broadband) or here (dialup).

UPDATE: Transcript has been put up at Foreign Affairs.

An example of some of the FMs fine, poignant and sometimes sombre comments include:

JONES: Put simply do you now accept this is also the view point of the national intelligence assessment of the United States - that the war on Iraq has made terrorism worse?

DOWNER: Well, you know, that's rather like saying that if you - you know when we went to war with Japan or with Germany they were not going to like it very much and get angry about it. I mean it had to be done. I don't think giving in to the terrorists in the end is going to be in our long-term security interests.

But this response doesn't satisfy Tony Jones. No he has the NIE, the Commander of the British Army AND the former Commander of the Australian Defence Force AND he has a very important point to make (presumably as a reporter):

JONES: But this is the fundamental point - I'm sorry to interrupt you there but it's the fundamental point and I'm wonder if your own intelligence assessments are the same, because the national intelligence assessment of the United States - of all those agencies essentially saying the war on Iraq is making international terrorism worse?

DOWNER: No, look, we're not looking at intelligence assessments of the past, whether I agree with them or whether I don't.

JONES: This is an assessment of the present, isn't it?

DOWNER: No, it's not because the challenge for me as a policy maker is the challenge of what decisions we make now. Now I do not get intelligence assessments from Australia or from America saying that if we withdraw from Iraq, if we surrender in Iraq this is going to lead to the jihadist movement collapsing and everything will return to quiet. Quite the contrary. The assessments of the intelligence - the American intelligence agencies - are quite clear, that if the jihadists and insurgents are victorious in Iraq then that is going to be an enormous boost to their campaign around the world and it will lead to a substantial increase in the terrorist risks. So I've got to deal with the decisions that we face in the future and I am very focussed on - I'm very focussed on the consequences of defeat in Iraq. I think defeat and surrender in Iraq - and look, I don't mind whether it's popular or unpopular, I'm going to say it because I profoundly believe this and believe it to be right - I think that defeat and surrender in Iraq is going to do Western and international security enormous damage quite apart from the awful things that would happen to the people of Iraq in those circumstances.

Iraq: A lucky turn of events?

According to MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), in addition to the sectarian violence tearing Iraq apart, a serious rift has opened between Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaeda in Iraq:

An Islamic website posted a 17-minute video cassette showing a masked man called "Abu Osama Al-Iraqi" who presented himself as one of the commanders of the jihad in Iraq. In the cassette, he addressed Osama bin Laden with accusations against Al-Qaeda in Iraq and its commanders, and threatened that the Iraqi mujahideen would fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

A strategy of divide and conquer was employed fairly effectively by the British in their occupation of Iraq in the early 1900s. It is time that the US and its allies seize this strategic opportunity afforded so fortuitously and turn the Islamofascists on each other.

House Intel Chief: Al-Qaeda is Shi'ite

Does this concern anyone? [H/T: The Belmont Club]:

The dialogue went like this:
Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?
“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about
predominately?”
“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.
He couldn’t have been
more wrong.
Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al
Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

Wow! The guy that will run the house Intel committee fundamentally misunderstand the most prominent enemy of his country (and of the West). So, just in case you think this gap in understanding is a partisan matter, consider Trent Lott, incoming Republican Minority Whip:

Trent Lott, the veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, said only last September that “It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people.”

“Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion?” wondered Lott, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after a meeting with Bush.

“Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?

“They all look the same to me,” Lott said.

We're in lots of trouble if this is the quality of people the U.S. electorate want leading them in a war whilst they discard someone of Rick Santorum's calibre:

Our growing challenge, however, is that Iran is not alone in its rhetoric, intent or capacity to threaten the security of the U.S. It is important for Americans to know that the threat is more complex, and has grown more complex.The enemy that has to be named is greater than Islamic Fascism.

Many Americans are sleepwalking, just as they did before the world wars of the last century. They pretend it is not happening, that it all has to do with the errors
of a single American administration, even of a single American president. Some even pretend that it will all go away if only the Democrat Party-including my opponent who did not even know the name of the former Iranian president whose presence kicked up a firestorm a few weeks ago by coming to America-is elected in November.

How do they propose to save us from these people? By negotiating at the United Nations? By removing U.N. Ambassador John Bolton office? By relocating American forces from Iraq to Okinawa? By abandoning the Iraqi people to Iranian and Syrian slaughter and domination? By engaging in more direct talks with a nuclear North Korea?

Downer stands firm

I was overwhelmed after catching the tail end of Tony Jones' interview of the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer. Downer presented a realistic picture of the situation in Iraq ("its tough") but defended maintaining troops in Iraq. He was very critical of the cut-and-run strategy proposed by the left leaning Opposition Party and rightly ridiculed Tony Jones' persistent and repetitive questions on whether being in Iraq has worsened terror. He also linked the jihadist threat to the West's health and survival in such terms that I have not yet seen from a public figure.

Mark Steyn must have brain-washed him.

Once the transcript is put up, I will link to it. However, you can watch the entire interview here (broadband) or here (dialup).

UPDATE: Transcript has been put up at Foreign Affairs.

An example of some of the FMs fine, poignant and sometimes sombre comments include:

JONES: Put simply do you now accept this is also the view point of the national intelligence assessment of the United States - that the war on Iraq has made terrorism worse?

DOWNER: Well, you know, that's rather like saying that if you - you know when we went to war with Japan or with Germany they were not going to like it very much and get angry about it. I mean it had to be done. I don't think giving in to the terrorists in the end is going to be in our long-term security interests.

But this response doesn't satisfy Tony Jones. No he has the NIE, the Commander of the British Army AND the former Commander of the Australian Defence Force AND he has a very important point to make (presumably as a reporter):

JONES: But this is the fundamental point - I'm sorry to interrupt you there but it's the fundamental point and I'm wonder if your own intelligence assessments are the same, because the national intelligence assessment of the United States - of all those agencies essentially saying the war on Iraq is making international terrorism worse?

DOWNER: No, look, we're not looking at intelligence assessments of the past, whether I agree with them or whether I don't.

JONES: This is an assessment of the present, isn't it?

DOWNER: No, it's not because the challenge for me as a policy maker is the challenge of what decisions we make now. Now I do not get intelligence assessments from Australia or from America saying that if we withdraw from Iraq, if we surrender in Iraq this is going to lead to the jihadist movement collapsing and everything will return to quiet. Quite the contrary. The assessments of the intelligence - the American intelligence agencies - are quite clear, that if the jihadists and insurgents are victorious in Iraq then that is going to be an enormous boost to their campaign around the world and it will lead to a substantial increase in the terrorist risks. So I've got to deal with the decisions that we face in the future and I am very focussed on - I'm very focussed on the consequences of defeat in Iraq. I think defeat and surrender in Iraq - and look, I don't mind whether it's popular or unpopular, I'm going to say it because I profoundly believe this and believe it to be right - I think that defeat and surrender in Iraq is going to do Western and international security enormous damage quite apart from the awful things that would happen to the people of Iraq in those circumstances.

Iraq: A lucky turn of events?

According to MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), in addition to the sectarian violence tearing Iraq apart, a serious rift has opened between Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaeda in Iraq:

An Islamic website posted a 17-minute video cassette showing a masked man called "Abu Osama Al-Iraqi" who presented himself as one of the commanders of the jihad in Iraq. In the cassette, he addressed Osama bin Laden with accusations against Al-Qaeda in Iraq and its commanders, and threatened that the Iraqi mujahideen would fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

A strategy of divide and conquer was employed fairly effectively by the British in their occupation of Iraq in the early 1900s. It is time that the US and its allies seize this strategic opportunity afforded so fortuitously and turn the Islamofascists on each other.