Frontline: Better there than here
There is a fundamental point that is being missed in the analysis of Iraq. Iraq is a magnet for anyone wanting to blow themselves up right now. The large collection of US troops in Iraq gives the would be terrorists a huge target. Yes, there is a legitimate mission in Iraq and the Iraqis will be better off once the job of building a government and creating a self-sufficient Iraqi security force in complete. The work in Iraq is benefiting Americans more than some would care to admit. The simple fact is that these troops are our family and friends. The US troops are taking the bull’s eye off of the American soil while helping a country take back their land from a tyrant. These troops are fighting these terrorist on their own soil not ours. It is much easier for a would be suicide bomber to carry out his dirty work in Iraq right now rather than do it here on US soil.
No one should take this as a view of US soil being safe. There are gapping holes in our security. For instance, just over two years ago the following was reported by our government.
Currently, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection in the Department of Homeland Security inspects only a small percentage of cargo containers. Some are scanned with x-ray equipment; others are physically opened to verify their contents. Either way, the process is time consuming and burdensome, and historically, Customs has been able to physically screen only about two percent of these containers.
That was leaving over 20,000 containers per day to be moved onto US soil without any screening in 2003. There is no way to know exactly how many of these containers are entering the US without being screened today. That lack of information is a good thing relative to the terrorists, but there are still plenty of opportunities for some nasty stuff to have made its way onto US soil. The amount of nuclear material required to make a ash pile out of a small metropolitan area will fit into your average microwave oven. It is not likely that a terrorist could put together anything nearly as sophisticated and as powerful as one of our nuclear weapons. What is possible is that one of these guys might be able to put together a dirty version of one that could kill many and make a ton more people very sick.
Now the war in Iraq was not started to distract terrorist, but it seems to be doing just that. We continue to read stories like Sen. Feingold put out in response to President Bush’s speech where the critics rant about how insecure we have been as a result of the war in Iraq. Well why don’t they name a few examples of how we have suffered from a security perspective on US soil as a result of the war in Iraq? This may be news to some, but the US military is not you local police, FBI, or even border patrol. The troops in Iraq would not be combing the streets for terrorist if they were back on US soil. Again, why exactly are we less secure with a large number of troops in Iraq? Let’s look at the global Army commitment of troops. This graphic shows less than half of our Army deployed world wide. This graphic also shows less than one third of our national guard deployed.
The war in Iraq has not caused us a lack of security on US soil. There have been a total of zero terrorist attacks on US soil while our troops have been deployed in Iraq.