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Rumsfeld says can't measure if terrorism growing

By Kristin Roberts

PORTOROZ, Slovenia (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday there was no way to measure if more Islamic extremists were being created than killed in American-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Asked about a U.S. intelligence report that concluded the Iraq war had spread Islamic radicalism, Rumsfeld said intelligence could be faulty and sometimes "flat wrong."

Rumsfeld, who was speaking to reporters after a NATO meeting in Slovenia, would not comment on the details of the report, a portion of which was declassified by President George W. Bush.

Bush faced criticism from political foes after parts of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate leaked out, revealing intelligence experts' conclusion that Islamic extremists were "increasing in both number and geographic dispersion" due to the Iraq war.

The White House said the disclosures offered an incomplete assessment, and Rumsfeld deferred to Bush's statements.

Rumsfeld said there still was no clear way to determine if more extremists were being funded and trained than killed in current U.S. operations in Iraq and the war on terror.

"Are more terrorists being created in the world? We don't know," he said.

"The world doesn't know. There are not good metrics to determine how many people are being trained in a radical madrassa school in some country that's being funded by an extremist teaching young people to go out and kill people. There's no metric that you could gather all that information and pull it together and know what's being produced."

He said that while the impact of U.S. operations on the growth of terrorism could not be known, the numbers being killed and captured could.

"At any given day, at any given week, at any given month, is the pool going up or down?" he asked without answering.

"The implication that if you stop killing or capturing people who are trying to kill you that therefore the world will be a better place is obviously nonsensical," he said.

"Anyone who thinks that there is a single answer or a single reason or a silver bullet that can solve the problem can't be right. It's too complex. It's going to take time and it's going to take a lot of work by a lot of people who are patient and who believe in freedom," he added.

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 U.S. troops have died and sectarian violence is rampant.

A United Nations report released on Wednesday said the Iraq war provided al Qaeda with a training center and recruits, reinforcing the U.S. report blaming the conflict for a surge in Islamic extremism.

Source: www.hotnewsbox.com

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