“Our Troops Must Stay”

I’ve just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the last 17 months and I have verified the progress achieved in that country, progress that has nothing to do with the model made by Sadaam Hussein’s dictatorship. Progress is even noticed in the Sunni triangle. Life is better in Iraq and there’s a strong economic development. The true war in Iraq is that between 27 million Iraqis against 10,000 terrorists that want Sadaam Hussein back in power or are Al Qaeda members. 10,000 terrorists who don’t want a free and democratic country. To defeat them is a priority for our national security and our economic safety.
Before my trip to Iraq, I visited Israel. It’s the only real democracy in the region that will soon be joined by the Iraqis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Kuwaitis, Egyptians and the Saudis. Today, Iraq is the most democratic State in the Arab world. Every time Iraqis said something, it was to express their support for the political process.
In this trip, the Iraqi leaders asked me all the time whether the United Status was planning to occupy Iraq in the long term. I think it’s necessary to do so and I regret that some democratic congressmen question, still, the causes that provoked the war three years ago and that some Republicans keep paying attention to elections coming next November. The Iraqis must be liberated and the 10,000 terrorists must be defeated. That’s what we work for by training Iraqi troops and reforming the local economy as Zalmay Khalilzad already did in Afghanistan.