Al-Qaede Must be Destroyed in Iraq to Protect America!
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JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
The argument that President Bush falls back on to NOT begin removing U.S. Forces from Iraq is that our withdrawal would allow the foreign terrorist organizations to plan and conduct future attacks in our country. The notion we are better to fight them over there then here.
The truth is that even if we were able to eliminate ALL foreign terrorist operations in Iraq we would remain in the same danger from future attacks by al-Qaeda et al. All the previous attacks such as the first twin tower bombings, The Cole, and 9/11 were all planned and conducted from al-Qaeda NOT LOCATED IN IRAQ! Our NIE has concluded that al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and the border region of Pakistan are as viable as they were BEFORE 9/11. Thus even if we were able to destroy al-Qaeda in Iraq, we have the same level of danger of future attacks as before 9/11.
What has prevented another attach is NOT that the Bush War on Terrorism has succeeded in reducing the danger. It is that we have been more adept at defending ourselves from these attacks. Bush himself has admitted there have been attempts to attack the U.S. since 9/11.
Bush now says the NIE report that said al-Qaeda has reconstituted itself is not true. How would Bush know that? He has no first hand intelligence. The one thing that is documented is spades in the Tenet Book; At the Center of the storm is that Bush does not pay attention to anything that does not support what HE WANTS TO DO.
Between March and September 2002, before 9/11 there were many very cogent warnings that the U.S. was in danger of attack from bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The Bush administration ignored EVERY one of those warnings. There was not a single warning that we were in ANY danger from an attack by Saddam—ONLY al-Qaeda and bin Laden. What did Bush do as soon as 9/11 took place—Moved forwarded with his plan to invade Iraq and sent only a token force into Afghanistan were 9/11 was planned.
We are expending the vast majority of our resources chasing an illusion—that if we eliminate al-Qaeda from Iraq we will have reduced the risk of future attacks. Just the opposite is what the NIE concluded when our 16 Intelligence agencies said the Iraq War is the major cause of the increase in foreign terrorism.
When you look at Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel it is not possible to conclude that the Bush approach to fight the Islamic terrorism that grips all of these countries IS WORKING! The principle reason is that Bush does not use the available intelligence to formulate policy and continue to evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts. He decides on a plan and then looks for those elements of the intelligence that appear to support the preconceived policy he has chosen and either ignores or keeps secret any intelligence that suggests what he is doing is not in our best interest or is not working!
