Safer?

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

"It does makes us safer." - John Kline in a June 28, 2004 interview with Kevin Diaz of the Star Tribune, talking about the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Madrid. London. And now it seems, we came within a hair's breadth of "mass murder" over the Atlantic:

British authorities said the threat involved terrorists who aimed to smuggle liquid explosive material aboard airplanes in hand baggage, including timers and detonators that could be assembled in flight. British Home Secretary John Reid said the operation was aimed at bringing down "a number of aircraft" -- reportedly at least ten -- "through mid-flight explosions, causing a considerable loss of life."

The State Department recently reported that the number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005. Thankfully, none of these attacks occurred on American soil, but that seems to be mostly coincidence. John Kline himself has posted a feature on his congressional web site titled 'Terrorists in America'. And there were certainly Americans on the transatlantic flights which this most recent terrorist effort was targeting.

Taking all of this into consideration, together with Republican Senator Chuck Hagel's recent statement that continued U.S. involvement in Iraq is "ruining our United States Army," I would like to ask John Kline exactly how keeping our soldiers in Iraq is making Americans safer. How is it making anyone safer?

Please phrase your answer in the form of an answer, not a wild-eyed distortion about something one of our staffers did months before joining the campaign.