Lieberman: "Today, Al Qaeda is on the run. We are winning."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,313207,00.html

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LIEBERMAN: This is the third time I have been in Iraq since last December. And last December, Al Qaeda was winning — it's as simple as that — and we were losing. Today, Al Qaeda is on the run. We are winning.

What's more important, the normal people of Iraq are winning. They are returning to their homes. Their businesses are opening up again, and they have decided something that's critically important not just in Iraq, but in the larger war against terrorism. They have decided that al Qaeda is their enemy, and, ultimately, we are more supportive of their future than Al Qaeda is.

So, it's been, I think, one of the most remarkable turnarounds in modern military history. And it's time that everybody, including Democratic candidates, acknowledge reality and get off of this storyline of retreat and defeat that they have been too committed to.

...

LIEBERMAN: Well, in a way, Usama bin Laden is using the media more frequently, I think because of the defeat his forces are suffering in Iraq.

Make no mistake about it, the main battlefield in the war against Islamist extremism and terrorism, Al Qaeda, is in Iraq, and they are being defeated. And they are being defeated because of the bravery, yes, of the American military, but they're being defeated because the Muslims of Iraq have turned against Al Qaeda. And I think the media and the tapes coming out from bin Laden are his way of swaggering and telling people he's still there.

But, in some ways, the more frequently he appears, the more it says to me that he's anxious about the future of his movement, not time for us to relax. These people are killers. They hate us and our value system.

But we have made progress. And the last thing we should do is to lose that progress by attaching conditions or demanding early withdrawal of our troops from Iraq.