Not Safer
Posted on | October 16, 2007
Years ago, the Bush Administration swore to us that Saddam Hussein stood ready to nuke us if we didn’t invade right now. Well, the director of our National Counterterrorism Center is finally close to admitting that the invasion and conquest of Iraq hasn’t made us safer.
Asked by reporter Richard Engel if the war in Iraq had created a “giant recruiting tool” for terrorists, Center head Scott Redd said that “in the short term, that is probably true. But the question is you’ve got to look at this, I believe, in the long term strategic view.”
“Tactically, probably not,” Redd said in response to a question about whether the US is generally safer after having invaded Iraq. “Strategically, we’ll wait and see.”
An investigation by Engel into the motives of accused terrorists in Iraq — many of whom previously held ordinary jobs prior to the US invasion — indicated that America’s presence in the country was a motivating factor in inspiring attacks.
Interviewing prisoners at a police detention center in Baghdad, Engel found that “to a man, each one says that it’s the American occupation of Iraq that has driven him to violence.”
“An aggressor occupied my country, destroyed it and made millions refugees. It is an honor to fight this,” said one detainee, a construction company owner who admittedly attacked US troops.
The standard fall-back at this point in the debate is that we are spreading freedom at gunpoint. Not very convincing.
