It would appear that “Fighting them over there, in a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 or al-Qaeda” is stating that we want to hide behind Iraqi women and children when we fight.
We (those who have more than two brain cells to rub together, always knew, regardless of the never ending lies from the Fringe on this to the contrary) now know beyond any doubt from last Fall’s Senate Intelligence Report on al-Qaeda in Iraq, back when the Republicans were still running it; that not only was al-Qaeda not operating in Saddam’s Iraq, he had issued orders to arrest any and all al-Qaeda operatives if they were found. He even issued a personalized arrest warrant for al-Zarqawi once he heard that Zarqawi might be in Iraq.
And we know from a ‘4th Infantry Division Commanding General's Briefing from Iraq’ by Army Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno back in January 22, 2004 that al-Qaeda was still “are trying to infiltrate into Iraq”.
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=1432Q: You believe al Qaeda foreign fighters are trying to organize outside and get in? You have evidence of that?
Odierno: I think we have some reports that they are trying to infiltrate into Iraq and organize themselves in order to conduct operations against coalition forces. We have no specific evidence yet. We have not had any specific contact in my area of operation with al Qaeda. But we do believe that they are trying to organize and then try to conduct attacks. Our job is to try to, again, interdict that and I think we've been fairly successful so far. But we have to work that very hard. And we are looking for that very carefully every day.We know a Deputy CIA director is on the record publicly stating that the CIA has found that in 2004 “Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President” when bin Laden released a tape just before the 2004 elections, knowing it would give Bush a bump, and hopefully helping Bush win the election so we would stay in Iraq.
The CIA’s Deputy Associate Director for Intelligence is also on the record publicly stating that the CIA has found that our invasion and occupation of Iraq “were serving al-Qaeda's strategic goals”.
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has released an internal al-Qaeda document that was captured in Iraq, and have verified the messages authenticity, that ‘our presence in Iraq was in al-Qaeda best interest’? And that another captured internal document shows that al-Qaeda’s biggest fear was that we would pull out of Iraq.
Military and intelligence professionals have all told Congress in testimony under oath that al-Qaeda is settling down comfortably in Pakistan. The CIA’s report that documents how our presence in Iraq has become a big money maker for al-Qaeda and that money is flowing into Pakistan to al-Qaeda because of Iraq.
So it would appear that it was Bush, not bin-Laden who was trying to make Iraq a front in the war on terror; and is using Iraq women and children as fodder/human shields to achieve his goals.
“We are fighting them over there”, in a country that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or 9-11 is a coward’s way of saying we’ll go fight our wars with innocent men, women and children as convenient props that everyone can use for target practice because we didn’t and still don’t have the will to take the war to the real enemy where it was and is hiding.As the July 17th NIE (National Intelligence Estimate), the unanimous conclusion of all our Intelligence Agencies, stated that; “the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership”
Along with (again, for those that have more than 2 brain cells to rub together) the obvious that: “the Islamic terrorist organization's rise has been bolstered by the Iraq war and the failure to counter extremism in Pakistan's tribal areas.”