An intelligence report ordered declassified Tuesday by President Bush offers a sober assessment of the spread of Islamic terrorism, finding that the war in Iraq is "cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.''

In ordering the release of sections of a secret national intelligence estimate prepared last April, Bush was reacting to an election-year leak that threatened to undercut his claims about the war in Iraq.

Bush said the leaks this weekend of portions of the document had mischaracterized the report prepared by analysts from 16 intelligence agencies. But critics of the war said the report made their case that the war in Iraq has distracted the United States from the real war against terrorism.

While only a few paragraphs in the released "key judgments'' section of the report entitled "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States'' deal directly with Iraq, they do mirror reports in newspapers Sunday.

"We assess that the Iraqi jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere," read the declassified section of the intelligence report released Tuesday.

"The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight,'' the report read. The declassified portion amounts to just more than three pages of the 30-page document.

The report also noted that U.S. efforts "have seriously damaged the leadership of al Qaeda and disrupted its operations.'' It also said the philosophy of al Qaeda and other extremist groups is anathema to most Muslims, a fact that counter-terrorism efforts should try to exploit.

But the report said the terrorist movement has become more diffuse and "is spreading and adapting to counter-terrorism efforts.''

"Anti-U.S. and anti-globalization sentiment is on the rise and fueling other radical ideologies. This could prompt some leftist, nationalist or separatist groups to adopt terrorist methods to attack U.S. interests.

"The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely and more anonymously, raising the likelihood of surprise attacks,'' the report concluded.

Before the section of the report was released late Tuesday, Bush said earlier in the day during a joint White House press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that he had ordered all of the intelligence estimate released except for cuts needed to protect intelligence "sources and methods.''

Bush's National Security Adviser Frances Townsend said that in deciding what portions to release, the administration had to be careful. "We can't do further damage by declassifying too much,'' she said during a telephone conference.

Democrats anticipated that not all of document would be declassified. On the House floor, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco called unsuccessfully for a rare secret House session to make the entire report available to all 435 members so they could see and discuss it behind closed doors.

She also said the entire report should be given to the public after "sources and methods'' were removed.

Bush said he was sure the weekend leak of some of the analysis was an effort to embarrass his administration less than six weeks before the Nov. 7 mid-term congressional elections, by saying the war in Iraq had fostered a more dangerous terrorist threat.

In ordering the release, Bush also responded to the desire of senior Republicans who hoped the report's declassification would defuse the sudden furor that has returned the issue of the unpopular Iraq war to the forefront of the campaign.

"There's a leak out of our government, coming right down the stretch in this campaign, to create confusion in the minds of the American people, in my judgment, is why they leaked it,'' Bush said.

"Some people have guessed what's in the report and concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree," Bush said.

"We'll stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy'' (by releasing the report), the president said.

Pelosi, a former House Intelligence Committee member who would become speaker if the Democrats gain a net 15 seats in November, introduced a non-debatable motion after Bush's press conference but before the report's release calling for a secret session. It lost 217-171, on a largely party-line vote.

After the vote, Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders said they feared the administration would spin the data for its political purposes.

"This administration will release selective portions to rebut'' the press accounts of the analysis' content,'' said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles.

The last time the House had a closed session, with even staff ordered out of a sealed chamber, was in 1983 when the subject was U.S. support for the Contra rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

On the Republican side, reaction to Bush's decision was supportive. "I think the president made the right decision,'' said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. "Instead of hearing the leaked information, people ought to see the whole truth.''

In calling for the report's release, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the news stories about the analysis gave the incorrect impression that it focused on Iraq, when in fact the document was a far-ranging look at global terrorism.

After the release, Roberts' Democratic counterpart, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said, "As I have been saying for some time, the war in Iraq has made us less safe."

He said the released sections "make it clear that the intelligence community -- all 16 agencies -- believe the war in Iraq has fueled terrorism.''

War of words heats up between Clinton, Bush camps

"They had eight months to try (to capture Osama bin Laden), they did not try. … I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it, but I did try."
--Bill Clinton in Sunday interview

"The notion that somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false. … What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years."
-- Condoleezza Rice

"If my husband and his national security team had been shown a classified report entitled 'Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States,' he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our current president and his national security team."
-- Hillary Clinton

"We'll let history judge all the different finger-pointing and all that business. I don't have enough time to finger-point."
-- President Bush

©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

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