Britain's involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed to the terrorist attacks in London, a respected independent think tank on foreign affairs, the Chatham House organization, said yesterday.
According to the body, which includes leading academics and former civil servants among its members, the key problem in the UK for preventing terrorism is that the country is "riding as a pillion passenger with the United States in the war against terror."
It says Britain's ability to wage counter-terrorism measures has also been hampered because the US is always in the driving seat in deciding policy initiatives.
PHOTO: EPA
The report says the security services -- diverted by fighting the IRA over Northern Ireland and the rise of animal activists committing terrorist acts -- failed to give priority in the early 1990s to monitoring Islamist terror activists setting up in Britain, so "the British authorities did not fully appreciate the threat from al-Qaeda."
In the most politically sensitive finding, Chatham House, which used to be known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, concludes that there is "no doubt" that the invasion of Iraq has "given a boost to the al-Qaeda network" in "propaganda, recruitment and fund raising," while providing an ideal targeting and training area for terrorists.
"Riding pillion with a powerful ally has proved costly in terms of British and US military lives, Iraqi lives, military expenditure and the damage caused to the counterterrorism campaign."
This finding runs directly counter to the line from Downing Street, which has sought to detach Iraq from the London attacks.
On Saturday, Tony Blair said the fanatics who struck in London and launched other attacks around the world were driven by an "evil ideology" rather than opposition to any policy, and that it would be a "misunderstanding of a catastrophic order" to think that if we changed our behavior they would change theirs.
"Their cause is not founded on an injustice. It is founded on a belief, one whose fanaticism is such that it can't be moderated, can't be remedied. It has to be stood up to."
The dispute over the role of Iraq in the motivation of the bombers came as the debate grew over proposed new terror laws in Britain. The Tories will today offer Charles Clarke, the home secretary, the chance to speed up new terror laws, provided that the government delays proposals to revise the controversial control orders system for detaining suspect terrorists until next year.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, will ask the government to bring forward full details of one of the most divisive parts of the new legislation -- the indirect incitement to terrorism offense -- by a month to September, so MPs and human rights groups such as Liberty can study them properly.
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