(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-11 09:16

Gates branded Islamist militancy a movement built on "false success," saying "about the only thing they have accomplished recently is the deaths of thousands of innocent Muslims while trying to create discord across the Middle East."

"What would happen if the false success they proclaim became real success -- if they triumphed in Iraq or Afghanistan, or managed to topple the government of Pakistan? Or a major Middle Eastern government?" he asked.

"With safe havens in the Middle East, and new tactics honed on the battlefield and transmitted via the Internet, violence and terrorism worldwide could surge," he said.

Gates cited more than a dozen attacks or plots against European targets, including bombings in London and Madrid, and recalled the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

"Imagine if Islamic terrorists had managed to strike your capitals on the same scale as they struck in New York," he said.

"For the United States, the lessons we have learned these past six years -- and in many cases re-learned -- have not been easy ones," Gates said.

Gates said the September 11 attacks were especially poignant as the United States had been heavily involved in Afghanistan in the 1980s only to turn its back on the country after Soviet troops withdrew and it become a safe haven for al Qaeda.

He described the decision to abandon Afghanistan as "a grievous error, for which I was at least partly responsible."

Gates was a senior official in the CIA when it helped mujahideen guerrillas fight the Soviets and later served as US deputy national security adviser and then CIA director.

   1 2   

   1 2