Distracted

Before Iraq, when we were not distracted by all our operations overseas, when all our troops were at home, we were successfully attacked at home by Al Qaeda twice. One attack on the World Trade Center was partially successful and the other was 9/11. Now that we are completely distracted by Iraq, with more people hating us because of our actions in Iraq and elsewhere, the number of times we have been attacked at home is zero. And today that number remains zero, thanks to intercepted terrorist chatter and other surveillance.

What are our troops supposed to do make us safer after we bring them home?

We want to hunt down and kill the terrorists wherever they are.
We can hunt down and kill the terrorists wherever we are.
We will hunt down and kill the terrorists wherever both we and they are.

To help win the war on terror our troops need to be where the terrorists are. Not at home, not where the terrorists were, but where the terrorists want to be. Right now, this is Iraq. Iraq is where the most terrorists are being killed. That is because our troops can be there and the terrorists want to be there. We cannot hunt down and kill them where we are not or where they are not.