{"id":3474,"date":"2008-05-14T14:59:23","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T13:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/bush-warns-of-iraq-exit-terror-risk\/3474\/"},"modified":"2008-05-14T14:59:23","modified_gmt":"2008-05-14T13:59:23","slug":"bush-warns-of-iraq-exit-terror-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/bush-warns-of-iraq-exit-terror-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush warns of Iraq exit terror risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bush5.jpg\"By Elizabeth Stewart<\/font><\/a> | The US president, George Bush, today claimed the Democratic presidential candidates’ plans for a quick withdrawal of troops from Iraq could lead to another terrorist attack on America.<\/p>\n

In an online interview for the Yahoo News and Politico websites, Bush said a “premature” withdrawal from Iraq would “embolden” extremists throughout the Middle East, which would “eventually lead to another attack on the United States”.<\/p>\n

Not maintaining a “forward presence” in the region would send out “the wrong signals”, he said, adding: “It would shake everybody’s nerves, and it would embolden the very same people that we’re trying to defeat.”<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton – who originally voted in favour of invading Iraq – has spoken out during her campaign against the continued US presence in the country, urging an “orderly withdrawal”.<\/p>\n

“The administration often talks about the cost of leaving Iraq, yet ignores the greater costs of continuing the same failed policy,” Clinton told a recent Senate armed services committee hearing.<\/p>\n

She is also against the Bush administration’s plans to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Clinton’s rival, Barack Obama – who spoke out against the war in 2002, warning of an occupation of “undetermined length and consequences” – last year pledged the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq if he became president.<\/p>\n

However, he left the door open for maintaining a US base in the country if al-Qaida sought to establish a presence in the region.<\/p>\n

In a question and answer session with the websites’ users, Bush said he did not believe US intelligence agencies had intentionally misled him about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n

“Misled is a strong word,” he said. “It almost connotes some kind of intentional.” However, he admitted he was “disappointed” to discover how flawed US intelligence had been.<\/p>\n

The president revealed he had given up playing golf because it “sent out the wrong signal” to the families of soldiers fighting overseas.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”<\/p>\n

He admitted it was “tough” hearing that people had lost loved ones as a result of his decision to go to war, but said his Christian faith had helped him through.<\/p>\n

“If you’re a faithful person, you try to empathise with the suffering that that person is going through,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Elizabeth Stewart | The US president, George Bush, today claimed the Democratic presidential candidates’ plans for a quick withdrawal of troops from Iraq could lead to another terrorist attack on America. In an online interview for the Yahoo News and Politico websites, Bush said a “premature” withdrawal from Iraq would “embolden” extremists throughout the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1616,16],"tags":[27,38,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-3474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa-news","7":"category-war-terrorism","8":"tag-bush","9":"tag-iraq","10":"tag-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}