BBC's Newsround "fed youngsters Al-Qaeda propaganda"

The former head of the Government's Joint Intelligence Committee has accused the BBC's childrens programme Newsround of feeding youngsters Al-Qaeda propaganda.

On the Newsround website it answered the question concerning 9/11, "Why did they do it" by saying: "The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al Qaeda - who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks."

It seems like some people like to bury their heads in the sand despite all the evidence to the contrary. These are just a few examples of many:

A report in July 2005 by Chatham House, the respected thinktank on foreign affairs, concluded that there was "no doubt" that the invasion of Iraq had "given a boost to the al-Qaida network" in "propaganda, recruitment and fundraising", while providing an ideal targeting and training area for terrorists. "Riding pillion with a powerful ally has proved costly in terms of British and US military lives, Iraqi lives, military expenditure and the damage caused to the counter-terrorism campaign."

On 19 July 2005, the New York Times published extracts from an assessment, drawn up in mid-June 2005, by the UK's Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC). The most striking sentence in these extracts was: "Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist related activity in the UK"

In April 2005, a report drawn up by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was even more explicit about the motivating effect of the invasion of Iraq . It was entitled International Terrorism: Impact of Iraq. The following extracts from it were published in The Sunday Times on 2 April 2006:

"It [the invasion of Iraq ] has reinforced the determination of terrorists who were already committed to attacking the West and motivated others who were not."

"Iraq is likely to be an important motivating factor for some time to come in the radicalisation of British Muslims and for those extremists who view attacks against the UK as legitimate."

"There is a clear consensus within the UK extremist community that Iraq is a legitimate jihad and should be supported. Iraq has re-energised and refocused a wide range of networks in the UK"

"We judge that the conflict in Iraq has exacerbated the threat from international terrorism and will continue to have an impact in the long term. It has reinforced the determination of terrorists who were already committed to attacking the West and motivated others who were not."