The New York Times, in an effort to discredit the Bush Administration, quotes two army officals under the banner "Few Signs of Infiltration by Foreign Fighters in Iraq"

Follow this twisted logic - becuase "most of the attacks on our forces are by former regime loyalists and other Iraqis, not foreign forces" and that it one region the army "had captured perhaps (only) 20 foreign fighters trying to slip into the country" therefore it's impossible that Bush could be telling the truth about 1,000-3,000 foreign fighters in Iraq. What does who perpetrates these attacks and a slow trickle of recent arrests translate into a headcount of the existing population of foreign fighters already in Iraq?

If the U.S. Border Patrol arrests 100 Mexican illegals this month, does that disprove that there are millions already living here?

The Times then claims that "the White House has been suggesting that foreign fighters are continuing to enter the country" in order to link "the war in Iraq to the global campaign against terror".

First of all the White House have said that foreign fighters and terrorists have been infiltrating Iraq for a long time and are still trying to get in, not that they are still successful at getting in since obviously we've tightened the border patrols in recent months.

Also, according to an MSNBC report on November 4th: "Senior American officers in Iraq believe foreign fighters are involved in the insurgency now along with Saddam loyalists, but have no firm reason to link them to al-Qaida or any other international terrorist group. Asked at the Pentagon last week about fighters in Iraq from other countries, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said between 200 and 300 people believed to be foreigners have been captured, with a “high percentage� from Syria and Lebanon." That's only who's been captured - Add a multiple for those who haven't been and you easily come to the 1,000 to 3,000 estimate.

Somehow the Times has twisted a story about the success of our border controls in Iraq to prove that the Bush administration is "lying" for the sake of expanding the war on terrorism.