US admits Iraq could become haven for terror

It's almost the final nail in the coffin. The last piece of the jigsaw to undermine President Bush's flawed reasoning for invading Iraq.

The US state Department has admitted that Iraq could become "a safe haven for terrorists" three years after the US invaded it.

The report says: "Iraq is not currently a terrorist safe haven, but terrorists including Sunni groups like al-Qaida in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunna, as well as Shia extremists and other groups, view Iraq as a potential safe haven and are attempting to make it a reality."

The department said some of Iraq's neighbours, including Syria, had not been helpful in the battle to try to prevent the creation of a terrorist safe haven.

The report said there had been more than 11,000 terrorist attacks worldwide, killing 14,600 people, and blamed al-Qaida or al-Qaida-linked groups.

The undeniable truth is that global terrorism has risen every year since George Bush declared war on it.

A hard fact that he, and his regime, have sought to downplay.

Terrorism remains a global problem, but it seems obvious that Bush's military solution has merely exacerbated this problem, it has not provided a solution.

In order to tackle terrorism one has to understand what lies beneath the terrorists actions.

Bush, by his rhetoric since 9-11, has rendered even considering such things as unpatriotic.

For instance, I find it genuinely astonishing that more Americans don't question why their nation was attacked. They seem to have accepted Bush's inane rhetoric that the US was attacked because others hated "their freedoms", totally ignoring the fact that other free nations such as Sweden face no similar threats.

One of the first things the police look for at any crime scene is a motive. In the current American mindset, the search for motive is forbidden and unpatriotic.

Bush has, so far, got away with this. However, the undeniable truth - as the state department now admit - is that the current plan is not working.

Bush is losing, by every measurement, his War on a Noun.

Maybe now would be a good time to stop stoking the flames and making things worse, and perhaps pause and reconsider.

Why are al Qaeda doing this? What do they want?

Only by honestly addressing those points, will we know the correct way to proceed.

Tags: US, Iraq, war on terror, safe haven, al Qaeda, bin Laden,