In 1998, bin Laden officially declared war on all Americans. It was the “individual duty for every Muslim,” bin Laden declared, “to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military.” His declaration was apparently an effective recruitment tool. By 2001, al Qaeda had trained in Afghanistan “perhaps over 10,000 terrorists,” according to Richard Clarke, before they dispersed to "probably between 5o-60 counties." The 1998 war declaration/recruitment propaganda listed the “crimes and sins committed by the Americans” against Muslims. At the top of list was Iraq:

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.

Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.

So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

Charles Krauthammer put all this into perspective in light of the NIE last night on Fox News:

On the one hand it is a "cause celebre," it attracts jihads. But in fact, Iraq before 9/11 was a "cause celebre." If you look at the declaration of war that Osama issued in 1998 against the United States, Iraq, with reasons No. 1 and No. 2.

No. 2 was the sanctions embargo, killing Iraqi children, that was a reason to go to war against America due 9/11. No. 1 was the stationing of American troops, infidels if the holy places of the Mecca and Medina, meaning our troops in Saudi Arabia who were there protecting against Saddam. So, Iraq has always been a factor.

On the other hand, the factor is that if we fight the jihads in Iraq and we succeed, then that will be a defeat for jihad. It's on the one hand and on the other, the idea that it is the cause of the spreading of terrorism is absurd. It was propaganda in the press and it was not a reflection of reality….

[L]ook, when we attacked Japan, the home islands, it increased a recruitment for kamikazes. Was that a reason not to attack the Japanese home islands? If you're going to hit the bad guy, of course he's going to get upset about it. Big deal. What's new about that?

And, secondly, look, if it is a magnet, just this week a guy called Omar Faruq, the head of al Qaeda in Southeast Asia was killed in Basra, by the British. He was a guy who ordinarily would be in Southeast Asia planning attacks on Americans, on Australians, et cetera. He went to Iraq, he died in Iraq. If that's a magnet -- and a lot of them go to Iraq and die in Iraq. It's a good thing.

Andrew McCarthy has more here on Iraq and al Qaeda recruitment.