US President George W. Bush blasted political opponents on Tuesday for selectively leaking a secret intelligence assessment on global terrorism and then made public the report's main conclusion that the Iraq war had become a cause celebre for Islamic extremists.
Democrats had seized on leaked parts of the "National Intelligence Estimate" to criticize the administration's handling of the Iraq war and members of the US Congress had pressed the White House to declassify the entire document.
At a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Bush said it was "a bad habit for our government to declassify every time there's a leak."
But he said he decided to make it public so "you can read it for yourself" and stop the speculation that he said was aimed at confusing the US public.
"Somebody has taken it upon themselves to leak classified information for political purposes," Bush said.
The office of intelligence director John Negroponte released a three-and-a-half page section of the April report "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States" compiled by the 16 US spy agencies hours after Bush ordered it declassified.
"The Iraq conflict has become the `cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement," the report said. "Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."
Democrats, hoping to take control of Congress in November elections, pounced on media leaks about the report as evidence that Bush's Iraq policy had worsened the global terrorism threat.
Bush is intent on portraying his Republican party as stronger on national security than Democrats and better able to protect Americans.
The report said that al-Qaeda would continue to pose "the greatest threat" to the US by a single group.
It said there was a large body of information indicating that activists identifying themselves as jihadists were increasing in number and geographic dispersion.
White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend said that estimate came in part from reviewing the increasing number of hostile Internet postings.
"If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide," the report said.
`IT'S NAIVE'
Bush agreed with the report's conclusion that successes against the al-Qaeda leadership had led to extremists "becoming more diffuse and independent" and that they were using Iraq as a recruiting tool.
He charged that it was "naive" and "a mistake" to think that the Iraq war fueled global terrorism, rejecting the reported conclusions of US spy agencies. 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 US troops have died and sectarian violence is rampant.
Democrats said the report supported their view that the administration's Iraq policies were a failure.
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