From the downfall of the Soviet Union to the notable absense of WMD in Iraq, the CIA has missed the mark on accurate assessments in the past, but this prognosis is truly scary:

WASHINGTON, June 21 – A new classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda’s early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat. The New York Times

Hmmmmm….If true, then maybe there is something of value by looking at the reverse: coaltion forces and their security contractors may be learning how to counter any newly-skilled terrorists in the schoolyard of Iraq that they have come to call the “Sandbox.”
(Are we talking chicken and the egg here? Does this mean the global business market for private security contractors is ensured for decades to come because the war in Iraq cultivated a new spawning ground for terrorists? )
Osama bin Laden picked up his terrorist chops on the battlefields of Afghanistan and was emboldend after helping to defeat one of the world’s leading superpowers, the Soviet Union.
Iraq could spawn an even worse nightmare, according to the news reports, including the NYT:

The officials said the report spelled out how the urban nature of the war in Iraq was helping combatants learn how to carry out assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other kinds of attacks that were never a staple of the fighting in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet campaigns of the 1980’s. It was during that conflict, primarily rural and conventional, that the United States provided arms to Osama bin Laden and other militants, who later formed Al Qaeda.

As Australian reporter Edmond Roy notes:

Two decades ago Afghanistan became the magnet for Islamic militants, who later on became the al-Qaeda network operating under the protection of the Taliban. While the Afghan operation was largely fought on a rural battlefield, the CIA report says that Iraq is now providing extremists with more comprehensive skills, including training in operations devised for populated urban areas. Thus bombings, assassinations and conventional military attacks on police and military targets have increased with deadly effect, but the White House isn’t quite ready to admit to anything just yet. Australian Broacasting Corporation