War debate cited as aiding al Qaeda

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Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday told Congress that al Qaeda will establish a stronghold in Iraq's Anbar province if U.S. troops pull out prematurely and that the group is reacting to the war debate in Washington by stepping up attacks.

Furthermore, the entire war effort will be disrupted unless Congress quickly passes an emergency funding bill acceptable to President Bush, he said.

Mr. Gates' testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee preceded today's scheduled House vote on a bill that the White House promises to veto because it rations war spending and sets up a July vote to cut off funds if progress in Iraq is inadequate.

"If we were to withdraw, leaving Iraq in chaos, al Qaeda almost certainly would use Anbar province as another base from which to plan operations not only inside Iraq, but first of all in the neighborhood and then potentially against the United States," Mr. Gates told the committee.

The hearing was on the $481 billion Pentagon budget request for the next fiscal year, which is separate from the nearly $100 billion that Mr. Bush requested to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

Mr. Gates said delays in approving emergency funds -- which the president asked for more than three months ago -- have hampered the war effort.

He said al Qaeda is a "thinking enemy" that has adapted its strategies as the United States changes its own. The group also is expanding both its organization and terrorist capabilities, Mr. Gates said.

"We know that al Qaeda has re-established itself ... on the western border of Pakistan where they are training new recruits," he said. "They have established linkages now in North Africa. Al Qaeda has actually expanded, I would say, its organization and its capabilities."

The Army has slowed spending at bases in the United States and plucked $1.6 billion from Air Force and Navy accounts to fill funding gaps at the battlefront, Mr. Gates said, adding that more raids of military accounts are likely.

"If we pulled out all the stops, used everything possible available to us, we could probably fund the war into July," he said. "But I would tell you the impact on the Department of Defense, in terms of disruption and canceled contracts and programs, would be huge if we had to do that."