I Just Don't Know Whether It Was

Al-qaida In Particular Remains Dangerous, And There [in Iraq] Is Some Residual Militia And Special Group Presence. There Are Still Between 20 And 30 Attacks Per Day, Still Periodic Car Bombs And Still Loss Of Innocent Civilians.

First And Foremost Is To Not Allow The Reestablishment, If You Will, Of An Extremist Sanctuary That Can Export The Kind Of Terror That Ended Up With Terrorists Taking Down The World Trade Center And Plowing Into The Pentagon And A Field In Pennsylvania. That's The Point: We Started This War Because The Sept. 11 Attack Came From This Area. And We Do Not Fight Alone, But With Some 40 Allies Who Share That View.

Over The Last Few Years They Have Done A Superb Job In Their Fight Against Al-qaida. As You May Recall, Our Embassy In Jedda (in Saudi Arabia) Was Overrun Some Four Years Ago And A Number Of Foreign Workers Went Home Because Of Violence Against Them.

In Afghanistan You Are Not Rebuilding, You Are Building. There Is Very Limited Infrastructure And Extreme Terrain, With Deserts In The South And Mountains So High In Some Areas That Helicopters Don't Even Fly Well At A Certain Altitude Because The Air Becomes So Thin. The Country Has A Serious Problem Of Illiteracy, Especially After So Many Years Of War And Taliban Rule.

The Sunni Arabs Began To Realize That They Had Made A Huge Mistake By Not Voting In The Election Of 2005 And By Not Being Part Of The New Iraq. They Had Reasons For This: They Were Effected By The Disestablishment Of The Military And By De-baathification (the Dismantling Of Saddam Hussein's Party) In Winter 2007-2007. They Increasingly Recognized That Their Future Lay In Being Part Of The Solution Rather Than A Continuing Part Of The Problem.