Police report blames Iraq war for instigating terrorism
Regional-UK, Politics, 7/8/2006

The war in Iraq has had a "huge impact" on motivating acts of terrorism, according to a UK police report compiled by anti-terrorist specialists.

The document, marked `restricted,' explains that British foreign policy, particularly over Iraq and Palestine, is used to justify acts of violence and that early progress in reducing the threat to the UK is not expected, according to the Guardian newspaper Friday.

"Iraq is cited many times in interviews with detained extremists but it is over-simplistic to describe terrorism as the result of foreign policy. What western foreign policy does provide is justification for violence," it said.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has consistently rejected any suggestions that Britain has become a target of terrorism because of its leading involvement in the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing debacle.

But within weeks of last July's London bombings, a poll in the Guardian found that an overwhelming 85 per cent of the British public believed the Iraq war was to blame as the main reason or a contributory factor.

Working parties, set up by the government, also unanimously reported in November that a key contributory factor was "British foreign policy - especially in the Middle East," which said Friday it had seen the report.

The police report, which was said to have been completed within the past three months before being distributed to senior officers, warned that the removal of grievances to justify terrorism will take time.

"What will change them - gradually - is argument, the removal of justifying causes (Palestine, Iraq), the erosion of perverted beliefs and day-to-day frustrations," it was quoted saying.

The police document added that terrorist anger at UK foreign policy "masks" other motives, which are "insecurity and fear, loss of identity through encroaching secularism and a sense of cultural failure, past and present." "All that said, though, it is still important to (a) continue to explain foreign policy, (b) accept failings and disappointing results, and c) remember that a few seconds of film footage showing ill-disciplined behavior by allied troops has more impact than thousands of well-argued words," it also said.

The last point was believed to be a reference to allegations of UK and US troops abusing and even killing Iraqi civilians, and to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

The Guardian reported that there was support of the role of Iraq in making Britain a target for terrorism among counter-terrorism experts.

"We should not slavishly follow the government line. It damages our ability to do our job," one counter-terrorism source was quoted saying.

Previous Stories:
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  Muslim house raid wrong but justified: UK police chief   (7/1/2006)
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