Is AQ and its cause stronger or weaker after 9/11?

[OzmO]

Is AQ and its cause stronger or weaker after 9/11?

Since the events of 9/11 has AQ or other terrorists organizations increased in power and capability? 

Have they increased in membership?

Have they increased in funding?

Have they increased in good world opinion? 

Do you think they would like to do it different if they had a chance to do it all over?

[GigantorX]

Is AQ and its cause stronger or weaker after 9/11?

Since the events of 9/11 has AQ or other terrorists organizations increased in power and capability?  I would say it has been diminished quite a bit.

Have they increased in membership? There really isn't any way to know. But I bet the regular killings of their "Brain Trust" isn't helping matters.

Have they increased in funding? No way to know.

Have they increased in good world opinion? Our President seems to have a good opinion of them. He was happy to gift them 2 whole nations.

Do you think they would like to do it different if they had a chance to do it all over? Probably.

[a_ahmed]

People have short memories huh?

Al Qaeda and Iraq blamed for attacks
Immediately after the anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressured FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove that they were a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda following the September 11 attacks. During the president's morning intelligence briefings, Mueller was "beaten up" for not producing proof that the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide. "They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official stated. The FBI knew early on that the anthrax used was of a consistency requiring sophisticated equipment and was unlikely to have been produced in some "cave". At the same time, both President Bush and Vice President Cheney in public statements speculated about the possibility of a link between the anthrax attacks and Al Qaeda.[95] The Guardian reported in early October that American scientists had implicated Iraq as the source of the anthrax,[96] and the next day the Wall St. Journal editorialized that Al Qaeda perpetrated the mailings, with Iraq the source of the anthrax.[97] A few days later, John McCain suggested on the Late Show with David Letterman that the anthrax may have come from Iraq,[98] and the next week ABC News did a series of reports stating that three or four (depending on the report) sources had identified bentonite as an ingredient in the anthrax preparations, implicating Iraq.[80][81][82]

Statements by the White House[83] and public officials[84] quickly proved that there was no bentonite in the attack anthrax. "No tests ever found or even suggested the presence of bentonite. The claim was just concocted from the start. It just never happened."[99] But, a few journalists repeated ABC's bentonite report for several years,[100][101][102] even after the invasion of Iraq, as evidence that Saddam not only possessed "weapons of mass destruction", but had used them in attacks on the United States.

2003 Department of Defense commendation
On March 14, 2003, Ivins and two of his colleagues at USAMRIID at Fort Detrick received the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service—the highest award given to Defense Department civilian employees—for helping solve technical problems in the manufacture of anthrax vaccine.[44]

[whork]

Is AQ and its cause stronger or weaker after 9/11?

Since the events of 9/11 has AQ or other terrorists organizations increased in power and capability? 

Have they increased in membership?

Have they increased in funding?

Have they increased in good world opinion? 

Do you think they would like to do it different if they had a chance to do it all over?

Weaker.

Decreased fiunding.