Foreign militants converging, making Iraq terror battlefield

Iraq is becoming the new lead battleground in the war against terrorism as Islamic militants are being drawn there — a situation more favorable to the United States than having to battle terror at home.

“From the point of view of the al Qaeda types, this is a pretty important battlefield for them,” said L. Paul Bremer, U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq.

Mr. Bremer made his comments on CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer” and appeared on the other Sunday political talk shows, where he outlined the new front line against terrorism.

Asked on “Fox News Sunday” whether a significant influx of foreign fighters is gathering in Iraq, Mr. Bremer said, “I’m afraid they are.”

Mr. Bremer also said Iraq would be the logical arena for international terrorists to gather and make a stand.

“It’s a plausible argument, because the terrorists hate everything that we stand for, the United States, and they hate the vision we have for Iraq, because the vision we have for Iraq is fundamentally threatening to the terrorists’ vision,” Mr. Bremer said.

“I suppose they could calculate that if we can succeed in Iraq, it will change the entire structure of this area of the world. And so it certainly is attracting a lot of them here, and it shows what the stakes are for all Americans. We’ve got to win this fight here,” Mr. Bremer said.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Bremer said the line in the war against terrorism appears to have been drawn in Iraq.

“We can’t duck this fight; it’s a fight against us. … We’ve got to deal with what we’ve got, which is a significant terrorist threat, and we’ve got to defeat it here,” Mr. Bremer said.

“It started for us in a big way in New York, but you could say it’s in Nairobi and Dar es Salam. We’ve seen it in Somalia. We’ve seen it in Saudi Arabia. And we are now seeing a large number of international terrorists coming into Iraq.”

Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” the American people would support the war on terrorism, no matter where the battle lines are drawn.

“The American people fully would understand that we cannot protect our own borders, we have to go where the terrorists are,” Mr. McCain said, appearing via satellite from Iraq.

“If they win here, then obviously we cannot win the war on terrorism — and the dictators in this part of the world are paying attention as well as the terrorist organizations,” Mr. McCain said.

The foreign fighters are reportedly coming into Iraq from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran. “They are coming in because they know what’s at stake, and we cannot afford to lose this,” Mr. McCain said.

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