Just when Democrats start mounting an offensive based on what they’d like the NIE to confirm, President Bush and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani strike back at Democrats’ assertions. Here’s how President Bush hit back:

But at the White House, the president called critics who say the Iraq war was a mistake “naive.” “I think it’s a mistake for people to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm to the American people makes us less safe,” he said. He also took issue with the conclusion that the Iraq war is responsible for creating new terrorists, saying that those who “see a rosier scenario with fewer extremists joining the radical movement” if not for the Iraq war are ignoring 20 years of history.
“We weren’t in Iraq when we got attacked on September 11. We weren’t in Iraq when thousands of fighters were trained in terror camps,” Mr. Bush said. “We weren’t in Iraq when they first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. We weren’t in Iraq when they bombed the Cole. We weren’t in Iraq when they blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.”

This fits nicely with Dr. Rice’s statement:

“Now that we’re fighting back, of course they are fighting back, too. I find it just extraordinary that the argument is, all right, so they’re using the fact they’re being challenged in the Middle East and challenged in Iraq to recruit, therefore you’ve made the war on terrorism worse. It’s as if we were in a good place on Sept. 11. Clearly, we weren’t.”

Logically speaking, Democrats’ assertions that we’re worse off now in fighting terrorists must be based on the assumption that Iraq and Afghnanistan were islands of tranquility. 9/11 tore down that illusion and have forced us to see things clearly for the first time in 30 years. As students of the international jihadist movement will tell you, jihadists declared war on the US in 1979. It just took 9/11 to bring us to the sober conclusion that they were a threat we could no longer ignore.

Here’s how President Talabani responded:

“The American presence has always prevented any kind of foreign invasion to Iraq,” Talabani said. “That’s one of the main reasons why we think that we need an American presence, even symbolical, in the country to prevent our neighbors attacking us,” he said at a forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think thank.

I’d defy Democrats to say that they won’t take Talabani’s words to heart, especially since he isn’t begging for thousands of troops to stay there indefinitely. He’s merely saying that having an American presence, even a symbolic one, gives the bad guys pause. I don’t think we can tell a steadfast ally that we won’t work with them in securing their country. That’s hardly the right signal to send to the region.

Technorati Tags: President Bush, NIE, National Security, 9/11, Talabani

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. [...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: Iraq, Iran, Terrorism, President Bush, 9/11, Foreign Policy | [...]

   Pingback by Let Freedom Ring » Blog Archive » Bush, Talabani Strike Back — September 27, 2006 @ 1:57 pm

2. Xanax….

   Side effects of drug xanax. What happens when you crush xanax xr. Does xanax make sex better. Xanax. Geniric xanax. Generic xanax….

   Trackback by Xanax. — August 4, 2007 @ 8:14 pm

1. Bush and Talabani Strike Back… I guess that makes them the Emperor and Darth Vadar?

   But to seriously address the rather stupid remarks Bush made, yes, precisely. We were neither in Iraq on 9/11, nor was Iraq behind 9/11. Nor was Iraq responsible for the first WTC bombing in 1993 (which I’d like to take this opportunity to say that it was the Clinton Administration that caught, tried — using plain-ol’ legal and consitutional methods — and convicted the perpatrators of said attacks). And finally, it wasn’t Iraq that bombed the Cole.

   So why are we in Iraq again? Oh yeah, WMD… err, take out Saddam… err, bring democracy to the Middle East… err, Operation Iraqi Liberation! For those of you who have a certain attraction to acronyms, that would be OIL.

   When the government’s own intelligence tells us what the Democrats have been pointing out — that we are worse off in Iraq than not — don’t blame the Democrats for seizing the opportunity to make the point. This must been Karl Rove’s worst nightmare. Just 6 weeks to go before the election, and this NIE comes out, validating everything that the people who really understand what’s going on have been saying for some time: this war of choice was a humongous mistake, and one that the US will be paying for in both terms of blood and treasure for the forseeable future.

   President Talabani is right on this point: having us there does prevent the neighbors from invading. They don’t have to invade to make it bad for us; all they have to do is send in a few insurgents amd suicide bombers and kill a few more Iraqis and American troops.

   CONservatives keep saying this is not a conventional war, and they’re right. Our weaknesses are being used against us. Iran is getting revenge for the Iran-Iraq war at our expense. We can keep chasing insurgents around Iraq, discarding our long-held and cherished beliefs in the sanctity of human life, justice and rule of law, all in pursuit of what amounts to a few radical Islamic terrorists. To win, we have to totally annihilate the terrorists. All they have to do is survive. Who has the greater task in front of them?

   And where in the world is Osama bin Laden?

   Comment by Stop Bush! — September 27, 2006 @ 6:59 pm