Note to Bush: Iraq does not equal Terrorism Against U.S.

Jay Bookman wrote in the AJC today (snippet):

We are aggressively striking the terrorists in Iraq, defeating them there," Vice President Dick Cheney said a week ago, "so we do not have to face them on the streets of our own cities." "You are defeating the terrorists in Iraq, so we don't have to face them in our country," President Bush likewise told U.S. troops during his lightning visit to Baghdad. Such statements are simply false. Our men and women in uniform are not fighting for their lives against international terrorists in Iraq. They are not fighting the people who attacked us on Sept. 11, nor are they fighting allies of those people. Instead, the guerrillas who are launching mortars at our military bases, attacking our troops on patrol or hiding booby traps on Iraqi highways are native Iraqis who are trying to evict American troops from their country. Despicable and cowardly as their tactics are, the Iraqi resistance is almost entirely Iraqi. They are not attacking us because they hate Americans. They are attacking us because they hate Americans who are occupying their country. Bureaucrats and politicians in Washington try repeatedly to pretend otherwise, suggesting that al-Qaida-linked terrorists are pouring into Iraq from Syria, Iran and even Saudi Arabia to attack our troops. But U.S. generals in Iraq, the people actually doing the fighting, have said repeatedly that they have seen little evidence of international involvement. Furthermore, the captains, majors and colonels charged with guarding Iraq's borders report no influx of foreign terrorists into Iraq and are puzzled by claims to the contrary.