On this, as on so many other important claims made by the White House, the President is full of shit.
First, while there is an ongoing low-grade civil war in Iraq, the war being waged against US forces there is primarily a Sunni nationalist insurgency against an occupying army. Remove the occupying army and you remove the reason and the opportunity for nationalist insurgents to attack Americans. The Sunni nationalist insurgents in Iraq tolerate the presence of a small number of foreign jihadists only insofar as they contribute to the anti-ocupation insurgency. The jihadists do not have a popular base of support in Iraq. If we end the insurgency by ending the occupation -- and especially if we do so in a way which promotes accommodation between Sunnis, Shiia, and Kurds -- Iraq will not become a terrorist super-base as Bush insists.
Second, our invasion and occupation of Iraq lends credibility to Osama's narrative that the West, led by America, is waging an aggressive war against Islam.
"The war in Iraq isn't preventing terrorist attacks on America," said one U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he's contradicting the president and other top officials.* "If anything, that - along with the way we've been treating terrorist suspects - may be inspiring more Muslims to think of us as the enemy."
The war in Iraq is not keeping us safe from terrorist attack (London calling), so ending the war won't make us less safe. On the other hand, by prolonging the occupation we will be even more likely to provoke terrorist acts by extremists, and to increase their base of popular support worldwide, making future terrorist attacks here more, rather than less, likely.
Finally, the Iraq invasion and our overall policy of being a global asshole is making lots of people hate us, not just militant jihadists. Hard to see how that makes us safer.
* Let's pause for a moment to reflect on the reluctance of this US intelligence official to speak the truth in public. Why would that be? Might it have anything to do with the chilling effect of a career deliberately, vindictively destroyed? And who would do something like that?
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