Answers Harry Reid does not want to hear

Hugh Hewitt: Is the U.S. presence in Iraq manufacturing terrorists? ...or is it simply attracting them to the most obvious battlefield?

Frederick Kagan, co-architect of the surge, scholar, and writer for the Weekly Standard:

I know for sure that it is attracting them to the most obvious battlefield. Is it making more of them? I'm not sure. But if you take a look at the example of Afghanistan in the 1980's, there was a situation where the Soviet presence - was definitely manufacturing terrorists, and as long as the Soviets were there, they were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. As soon as the soviets left, the terrorists didn't just go home and take up gardening. they left, they moved all around the world, and then they started attacking us - that's how we got al Qaeda. So the question really is, if we were to leave Iraq tomorrow, what would happen with these guys? And the answer for sure is that they would find other ways to attack and kill us elsewhere.

Kagan also said:

al Qaeda is surging against us and I think that's happening globally, and I think al Qaeda is funneling all of the resources it can into defeating us in Iraq, and it is funneling all of its resources in Iraq to creating spectacular attacks against us, and against innocent Iraqi civilians - both Sunni and Shi'a. And they're indiscriminate in their killing, this isn't really sectarian killing, this is just terrorism, plain and simple. And they are surging to try to break our will, and I hope to heaven that we won't let them.