White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan hasn’t had it easy lately. For example, hearing McClellan try to defend Dick Cheney’s comments about the Iraqi insurgency being in the “last throes” was genuinely painful.
But yesterday was uniquely embarrassing. The New York Times reported that a new CIA document explains that Iraq may soon be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda’s early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat. The war, in other words, is creating more terrorists than it’s destroying. What’s worse, the CIA also believes militants from other Middle Eastern countries are going to Iraq for training, and will soon return to their countries as more effective and experienced terrorists, leading to broader violence and instability in the region.
Naturally, the press corps had some questions about this for McClellan. It didn’t go well.
Q The [CIA] report suggested that there’s concern that Egyptians, Jordanians and others will go back to their home countries, using the techniques they’ve learned in Iraq to destabilize those countries.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I don’t know what your question is.
Q Are you concerned about that? Do you think there’s potential for that?
MR. McCLELLAN: Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism. In terms of what’s your question on it, I think you’re making the assumption that these individuals would just be sitting around sipping tea, as Secretary Rice likes to refer to in her previous comments. So I don’t know what your question is regarding that.
Q Just following up on that question, you said at the outset of that, the terrorists have made it a central front in the war on terrorism. I thought it was a central front in the war on terrorism before we invaded.
MR. McCLELLAN: It is. It’s part of the war on terrorism, yes.
Q It was.
MR. McCLELLAN: No, it is.
Q It is now —
MR. McCLELLAN: Both.
Q Was it prior to —
MR. McCLELLAN: Both. It’s part of the war on terrorism, David.
As amusing as this was, it touches on a point that’s lurked just under the surface for a long while. When we launched our invasion of Iraq, was it part of the war on terrorism, or more accurately, was it a diversion from the war on terrorism? McClellan seemed to get a little flustered with this yesterday, but that’s only because he can’t admit that we invaded a country that had nothing to do with what was our global campaign against terrorism.
Poor guy; it must be tough to defend the indefensible.