Tim Ryan: “I think it is important. Again, this is a third-party validation from the national intelligence estimate. This is not us…”

“I think it is important. Again, this is a third-party validation from the national intelligence estimate. This is not us talking. Time and time again we find out there are these other people that are giving us information. This is not information coming out of the Democratic Caucus, and I want to read some assessments that are almost unbelievable, things that we have been saying, but finally now the best and the brightest of the national security teams across the countries, the spy agencies, professionals in the business are saying this. They are saying that although the intelligence officials agree that the United States has damaged al Qaeda, which we have, probably through Afghanistan more so than Iraq, the original front that we all agreed on, that we disrupted their abilities to plan and direct major operations, radical Islamic networks have spread and decentralized. We poured gasoline on a fire when we went into Iraq, and we need to make that point. Many of the new cells, the NIE conclude, have no connection to any central structure and arose independently. The members of the cells communicate only among themselves and derive their inspiration, ideology and tactics from the more than 5,000 radical Islamic Web sites. They spread the message that the war in Iraq is a western attempt to conquer Islam by first occupying Iraq and establishing a permanent presence in the Middle East.”