http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/23/politics/23diplo.html?ei=5094&en=013b9cacddbc00a1&hp=&
ex=1127448000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
New York Times
"WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 - Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said Thursday that he had been warning the Bush administration in recent days that Iraq was hurtling toward disintegration, a development that he said could drag the region into war."
"Mr. Bush said that if the United States left Iraq now, it could turn into a haven for terrorists, as Afghanistan was before the fall of the Taliban.
"To leave Iraq now would be to repeat the costly mistakes of the past that led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001," he said."
On one hand, you have the Saudis saying things are teetering on the edge of a disaster and on the other, you have Bush saying we must keep on keeping on if we don't want another 9-11.
This Newsweek article,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9379240/site/newsweek/ indicates that Iraq has become a terrorist haven and is exporting fighters to other countries, in this case Afghanistan. Iraq has become a failed state despite our presence there, and there seems to be little indication that situation will change if we maintain our current stance.
Furthermore, how does leaving Iraq equal the mistakes that led to 9-11? Is the mistake allowing failed states such as Afghanistan or Sudan to exist? No doubt, failed nations can brew some nasty stuff, but even after our Afghan incursion, that country remains largely in the hands of warlords and Bin Laden still roams somewhere in the Afghan-Pakistan border region. Recent increases in violence in Afghanistan call into question our ability to transform the country from a failed state into a functioning democracy.
What really turned Bin Laden's sights on the US was the continued presence of our military in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War. For some reason, people don't like it when a foreign military presence seems to embed itself in their country. And I'm sure you all have a nice list of the mistakes the Bush administration made that prevented detection of the planning that led to 9-11.