Still A Distraction?

It amazes me, but some people insist that military action in Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror. News stories like this tend to disprove it:

American forces have captured three members of Osama bin Laden (news – web sites)’s terrorist network in northern Iraq (news – web sites), a U.S. military commander told The Associated Press on Sunday. If confirmed, it would be the first disclosed detention of al-Qaida militants in Iraq.
About 10 members of Ansar al-Islam — an Islamic group U.S. officials believe has al-Qaida links in northern Iraq — also have been arrested by U.S. troops in the past seven months, said Col. Joe Anderson, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division.

There are two explanations for al-Qaeda to be in Iraq. One: they were there all along, as our intelligence indicated, or they are coming to Iraq to fight American soldiers, instead of coming to America to kill civilians. Either way, it would appear that the battle for Iraq is, as many of us have maintained all along, a key piece of the war on terror in general and on al-Qaeda in particular.