No comfort in being right

Just in time to underscore my point in the last post, MSNBC posts this item on "new" intelligence predicting a massive wave of terrorist attacks in Iraq to coincide with the release of the new draft constitution. Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last three years could have told them that. But here's the money grafs.

...some Pentagon officials now acknowledge that the two-and-a-half-year insurgent war has turned Iraq into a terrorist training camp.

U.S. intelligence indicates Islamic militants from several African nations — Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan and Somalia — travel through Syria into Iraq, where they get hands-on training in roadside and suicide bombings, assassinations and kidnappings as well as counter-surveillance and counter-intelligence against military targets, constantly changing their tactics to counter American defenses.

“They can change within seven to 10 days,” says the U.S. Marine commandant, Gen. Michael Hagee, “That’s pretty darn good. We’re going against a thinking enemy.”

And Pentagon officials now fear those freshly trained terrorists are taking the deadly lessons they learn in Iraq to other countries. U.S. intelligence indicates many of the militants are returning home or slipping into Europe, where they may join existing terrorist groups or create and train new cells of their own.

...“Instead of going in to eliminate Iraq as a source of terrorism, Iraq now has a stronger terrorist presence than it did when Saddam Hussein was in power,” says NBC News terrorism analyst Roger Cressey.

A new army of terrorists now being trained could remain a threat long after the U.S.-led war in Iraq is over.

Excuse me while I tear out my hair. I've been saying this since before we embarked on this dunderheaded occupation. Everything the left said turned out to be right and every talking point the right has been flogging ad nauseum has turned out to be wrong.

I take no satisfaction in that and in fact, am finding this new disconnect between the Pentagon and the White House somewhat disconcerting. Because I know Bush is going to tell us in tomorrow's radio address about how much progress we're making in keeping the world safe.

It was bad enough when they didn't have a plan, but now they can't even agree on a message. This can't be good.