Reply #13: It's a difference between Strategically being safer here at home,

[deminflorida]

or the troops being tactically safer in Iraq. I don't belive anyone is safer here at home or while traveling abroad. Especially since Bush has allocated our forces in the War on Terrorism to the wrong theater of operations in the first place, (i.e. Iraq). This can be thought of as strategic safety.

However, and there is no changing this now, because we are there, like it or not....our soldiers may start to become safer (tactically safer) in the coming months due to the arrest/capture of Saddam Hussein. Eventhough there are still deaths continuing presently. The military will chip away at this insurgency until it no longer exist and that seems to working in one respect, because there seems to be evidence now that the insurgency is running out of leadership and money. The problem the military is having now seems to have shifted to the Islamic miltants that have sprung up in Iraq since the invasion. If they can't get control of the militants lets say in three maybe four months from now, then Dean will have a point, and Bush will have a big problem with how to handle what will be perceived as the Iraq disaster. But if the militant attacks drop off significantly, and they just might...because
the military seems be improving their intelligence capability daily in Iraq...

Then Dean has a problem, and maybe DOA for the general election. "The Nobody is Safer" argument is risky because of all the general spin directions that it can go, but it was the only one Dean could take in the wake of the Saddam capture because the center piece of his campaign has been against the war in Iraq.

The following article sums of the progress that has been achieved since the arrest of Saddam Hussein.

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/12/23122003155506.asp

"Iraq: U.S. Forces Step Up Arrests Of Insurgents In Wake Of Hussein Capture
By Charles Recknagel

U.S. troops continue to round up suspected militants in Iraq as they step up counterterrorism efforts that have been buoyed by the capture of Saddam Hussein. The past 24 hours have seen sweeps catch a senior general in Hussein's former security services and three militants with suspected links to Iraq's current most-wanted man: top Hussein aide Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri.

Prague, 23 December 2003 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. forces say they have had some noteworthy success in gathering up top figures in the Iraqi insurgency thanks to the capture of Saddam Hussein earlier this month.

A senior U.S. commander in Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel William Adamson, told Reuters that in the past 24 hours his troops detained three individuals with ties to the man Washington now most wants to catch -- former top Saddam Hussein aide Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri.

"We detained three individuals in an extremist religious organization with ties to high valued target number six, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri and attacks in Fallujah, Ramadi, and the Baquba area. Those three individuals are currently in our custody, including the cell leader," Adamson said.

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