Cheers,
Stacey
AT WAR
>
> Our Troops Must Stay
>
> America can't abandon 27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists.
>
> BY JOE LIEBERMAN Democratic Senator from Connecticut
>
> I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and
> can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but
> the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the
> primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing,
> self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has
> given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.
> Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is
> continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South
> remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and
> other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing
> greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by
> Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where
> most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is
> progress.
>
> There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on
> the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than
> before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni
> candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly.
> People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in
> the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the
> civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect
> it.
>
> It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to
> live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000
> terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or
> al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back
> if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping
> this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq
> to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making. We are
> fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is
> critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the
> terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to
> further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East,
> which has long been a major American national and economic security
> priority.