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Paris Attacks Show U.S., Allies Misjudged Islamic State No longer a regional threat, ISIS demonstrates a long and deadly reach By Damian Paletta And Philip Shishkin

Posted By Ruth King on November 16th, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/articles/paris-attacks-show-u-s-allies-misjudged-islamic-state-1447640755

The Paris terror attacks suggest that the U.S. and its allies overestimated recent successes against Islamic State while underestimating the group’s ability to strike far from its Middle East stronghold, according to U.S. lawmakers, analysts and former senior intelligence officials.

Islamic State now challenges Western intelligence agencies and policy makers not as a growing regional threat, but as a terrorist group with a long and deadly reach, despite a U.S.-led military campaign in Syria and Iraq.

“With an enemy that has developed a proto-state in the heart of the Middle East with such proximity to Europe and so many foreign fighters, including those from Europe, it is just really a matter of time before something like this happens even with good, or even great, intelligence,” said Hank Crumpton, a former Central Intelligence Agency official.

In the weeks leading up to the Paris attacks, U.S. spy agencies swept up what officials described as a drumbeat of calls by Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq for strikes on Western targets, particularly in Europe. But none of the agencies picked up any detailed communications among militants indicating an attack was imminent or was targeting Paris, U.S. officials said.

In a TV interview on ABC that aired hours before the Paris attacks, President Barack Obama said Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL, had been “contained,” a description that followed a stepping up of drone-strike assassinations and advances by Iraqi Kurd fighters battling for control of a town in northern Iraq.

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters over the weekend that the president had been referring “very specifically to the question of ISIL’s geographic expansion in Iraq and Syria.” Mr. Rhodes, who was with Mr. Obama in Turkey for a summit of leaders from the Group of 20 leading nations, said there would be “an intensification of our efforts” against extremist targets.

“I think we very clearly understand the threat from ISIL,” Mr. Rhodes said Sunday on NBC TV. “And the fact of the matter is, when we launched our air campaign in Iraq and then Syria, the president was very clear that this would be a long-term effort.”

The attack in Paris underscored the conundrum facing the Obama administration: whether it is possible to defeat Islamic State solely through airstrikes and local proxy forces without deploying U.S. and allied troops.

“If you don’t play offense, this thing quickly turns into penalty kicks,” said Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA and National Security Agency. “No matter how good your goalie is, the ball is going to eventually go into the back of the net.”

The U.S. has increased the tempo of air operations in Syria and Iraq—and agreed to send U.S. Special Forces to advise local fighters in Syria—but Washington and its European and Middle Eastern allies have avoided a direct combat role. Islamic State maintains control of its self-declared capital in Raqqa, Syria, as well as cities in Iraq, but hasn’t expanded its boundaries.

Pentagon officials say the group has been weakened by airstrikes against its leaders and infrastructure, along with increased efforts to deprive the group of oil revenues.

Yet Islamic State, while under pressure on the battlefield, apparently still commands the resources and fighters to plan and execute attacks in the West.

“Having a safe haven is the biggest force multiplier that a group can have, it gives them space and time to plan and to accumulate resources for external operations,” said Thomas Hegghammer, a fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. “To say they are contained, as in hermetically sealed, is clearly not true.”

Islamic State has also left its mark in Libya and Egypt where a local affiliate is suspected of planting a bomb on a Russian passenger plane last month that killed more than 200 people on board.

“The sophistication, ambition and geographic reach of ISIS has grown more quickly than we anticipated,” Mr. Hayden said. “The American air campaign against ISIS more resembles a fine Irish mist than it does a thunderstorm. And it’s got to look a lot more like a thunderstorm now.”

Questions have been raised previously about U.S. intelligence gathering. Over the summer, the Pentagon’s inspector general launched an investigation into whether the U.S. military may have distorted intelligence conclusions to cast a more positive light on the battle against Islamic State.

Senior U.S. military leaders expressed confidence in its intelligence gathering and analysis, but have declined to comment on the continuing inquiry.

The U.S. strategy of airstrikes and training local fighters hasn’t been enough, some analysts and former Arab officials said.

“They are much more organized, they are much better funded, and they are very, very good in tactics and logistical support,” Mowaffak al Rubaie, Iraq’s former national security adviser, said of Islamic State. “I think there is a very serious oversight in the world’s understanding of their ideological threat.”

The targeting of extremist leaders for drone strikes is of limited value, some U.S. intelligence officials said.

“I think that many politician types, and I think this is not true by the way for our intelligence community, think that killing some of these folks is akin to killing Hitler, and it isn’t,” said Robert Deitz, former general counsel at the National Security Agency and former senior counselor at the Central Intelligence Agency. “There’s always another evildoer waiting in the wings.”

For Europe, the challenges are greater because of the large numbers of Europeans who have traveled to Syria to join Islamic State. The return of these fighters is a terrifying prospect for European intelligence agencies. The U.S. has far fewer Americans fighting alongside Islamic State.

“It’s hard, but we are obviously going to be looking at all the intelligence to determine if there were signs that something was imminent that should have been seen by us, by the French, by others,” said U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. “It’s a phenomenal challenge though we benefit from being oceans away and having a more limited field to have to watch.”

The start of French airstrikes against Islamic State on Sunday is bound to raise questions about what it will require to eliminate the terror threat.

“You don’t see the French talking about sending troops into Syria, and I don’t think you will see the European Union doing that, which puts the burden of effort back to the intelligence community to stop these things in advance,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer, “and I think that’s going to be very hard to do.”

—Adam Entous contributed to this article.

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