Fear of Clowns

•Vice-Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, tells the Senate Intelligence Committee, "Our policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment."

•CIA Director Porter Goss testifies, "Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists."

•Gen. George Casey, the most senior commander of coalition forces in Iraq, tells a Congressional panel that coalition forces "feed the notion of occupation" and "fuels the insurgency".

•Gen. John B. Abizaid of the U. S. Central Command testifies that it is critical to "reduce our military footprint" in the region to "make clear to the people ... that we have no designs on their territory and resources."

•Larry Diamond, former advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, states,  "Intense opposition to U.S. plans to establish long-term military bases in Iraq is one of the most passionate motivations behind the insurgency...There are many different strands to the violent resistance that plagues Iraq: Islamist and secular, Sunni and Shiite, Baathist and non-Baathist, Iraqi and foreign. The one thing that unites these disparate elements is Iraqi (or broader pan-Arab) nationalism-resistance to what they see as a long-term project for imperial domination by the United States...Neutralizing this anti-imperial passion - by clearly stating that we do not intend to remain in Iraq indefinitely - is essential to winding down the insurgency."

•Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a veteran of Viet Nam, states, "We should start figuring out how we get out of there... I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur."