COX NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON – The United States is losing its fight against terrorism and the Iraq war is the biggest reason why, more than eight of 10 American terrorism and national security experts concluded in a poll released yesterday.

One participant, a former CIA official who described himself as a conservative Republican, said the war in Iraq has provided global terrorist groups with a recruiting bonanza, a valuable training ground and a strategic beachhead at the crossroads of the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Turkey.

“The war in Iraq broke our back in the war on terror,” said the former official, Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris, a popular book highly critical of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts. “It has made everything more difficult and the threat more existential.”

Scheuer is one of more than 100 national security and terrorism analysts surveyed by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.

Asked whether the United States is “winning the war on terror,” 84 percent said no and 13 percent answered yes. Asked whether the war in Iraq is helping or hurting the global anti-terrorism campaign, 87 percent said hurting. Eighty-six percent said the world is becoming “more dangerous for the United States and the American people.”