Bush says that if we leave Iraq the terrorists will follow us hom. Ask McClatchy

Bush keeps saying that if we pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and bring them home, then the terrorists will follow them to the the U.S. and we'll have to fight them here. William Douglas of McClatchy Newspapers looked into the likelihood that would happen. Here is what he found:

There are very few foreign fighters who are going to be leaving the area because they don’t have the skills or languages that would give them access to the United States,” said Benjamin, who served as the National Security Council’s director for transnational threats from 1998 to 1999. “I’m not saying events in Iraq aren’t going to embolden jihadists. But I think the president’s formulations call for a leap of faith.”

"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."

Carafano and Lewis believe that a U.S. troop pullout would embolden Islamic jihadists, but that they’re much more likely to stay closer to home and spread violence to neighboring countries with poor records of combating terrorism, such as Somalia, Morocco, Algeria and perhaps Egypt, than they are try to penetrate America.

Increased terrorism in those places would tax the United States, which would have to deal with the economic costs, global refugees and health crises that combat in those countries could produce.

“The danger is not that they’ll follow us home,” Carafano said. “The problems will come to our doorstep, not the terrorists.”

Lewis of CSIS believes that a U.S. pullout could prompt some foreign fighters in Iraq to go home, head to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces there or move to Europe, where Muslim anger is high and there are more Muslim communities to blend into.

“The United States is a distant (fourth),” he said.

So there is no real difference in the degree of danger to the U.S. of terrorism here at home regardless of whether we are fighting a senseless war in Iraq or not.

In fact, fighting in Iraq drains resources that would be put to much better use by providing better security to U.S. chemical plants and checking the contents of containers that come into each port daily. If we pulled out the Army and Marine Corps units currently in Iraq then we could begin the at least decade-long job of rebuilding, retraining and reequipping our ground forces so that if they are really needed anywhere they could actually go there and fight.

The alternative is that we stay in Iraq. That leads to two clear possibilities and a messy middle point between them.

• First, the surge might actually work. If that were to happen, then we could turn the problem over to the successful Iraqi government with its successful military and police forces, then leave. That is the least likely possibility.
• The second least likely situation is that the U.S. will remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future with little or no change. In that case the insurgency will continue, U.S. casualties will continue, the Iraqi government will not get substantial numbers of military or police forces trained, equipped and motivated to replace the Americans and the government of Iraq will gain little or no control outside the Green Zone and perhaps a few Shiite areas. If this is the case, then the U.S. public will require the next President after 2008 to pull the U.S. out of Iraq under any circumstances and to Hell with the consequences.
• The third (and most likely) prospect is a messy middle ground in between those two alternatives. The surge will change things just enough so that the Bush administration can claim that victory is just around the corner, but not enough to disarm the militias, stop the insurgency, and get an effective Iraqi government operating. The Iraqi military and police forces will continue to improve a little, but not enough to allow the Americans to leave the fighting to them. With the militias still armed and operating, the military and police of the central government will have no way of motivating the individual troops and will never know who can be trusted and who cannot. The U.S. political class will be encouraged just enough to keep on saying that success is only another Friedman Unit (six months) away. This is the alternative in which the Americans will continue to fight in Iraq for the longest period of time, while finding it most difficult to admit failure and get out. This is also the alternative that leaves Iraq in the weakest position and least likely to be able to recover from the war anytime soon after the fighting ends. It is the alternative most likely to leave Iraq as a failed state that cannot control terrorists who train there as they previously did in the failed Afghan state. That danger will be the reason that the American troops remain there even when American public opinion has totally turned against the war.

Since anything resembling an American victory is extremely unlikely, bordering on the level of requiring a real miracle, what is left is a miserable mess. The same mess that was predicted by a lot of people before the NeoCons conned Bush into the ill-fated invasion in the first place.

Of course, George W. Bush has found his place in history. He is clearly the worst President America has ever suffered through, and there is almost no possibility that any President who follows him will vie with him for the title. Assuming that there is a Hell, there is no doubt the Devil is preventing Andrew Johnson, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover from learning that they have been eclipsed and removed from contention from the bottom rung of the Presidency by the "Shrub."

Why would the Devil embargo information on Bush's status, you say?

Simple. Finding how extremely bad Bush's status is now would provide his competitors for the lowest rung so much pleasure that the very punishment purpose of Hell would be severely disrupted, and the Devil could never have that happen!