A row is underway in the US following claims that American intelligence services believe the Iraqi War has increased the overall terror threat rather than reduced it. The report in the New York Times is an embarrassment for the White House which defends its presence in Iraq by claiming the opposite.

President George W Bush insisted Americans were safer now than five years ago during this year’s 9/11 commemorations. And campaigning ahead of November’s mid-term elections, Bush has been striving to portray the Republican Party as the best to protect America. But Democrats have pounced on the Times report – the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by all of the US’s spy services since the invasion of Iraq. The report says the conflict has given rise to a new generation of Islamic radicals and made the terror problem worse. The White House says the extracts in the Times are “not representative of the complete document”.

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