A September 19 article in The Gazette of Colorado Springs featured U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard's (R-CO) criticism of “Democrat [sic] Sen. Ken Salazar” for his call to “pull[] U.S. troops out of combat roles” in Iraq. The Gazette quoted Allard as saying, “If you make those moves without thought, you put lives at risk,” and further reported that Allard “has said Americans battling in Baghdad prevent terrorist attacks on the home front.” Allard's comment about preventing “terrorist attacks” echoed President Bush's repeated assertions that if the United States were to withdraw troops from Iraq, the terrorists “would follow us home” or would be emboldened to launch attacks against America, as Media Matters for America has noted. In uncritically reporting Allard's comments, however, The Gazette failed to note expert opinion that a U.S. troop withdrawal is unlikely to result in a terrorist attack on the United States.

The Gazette also failed to provide a response from Salazar regarding Allard's criticism of his stance on the Iraq war or his “move to delay possible Army expansion of Fort Carson's Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in southern Colorado.”

As The Gazette reported on September 18, “Sen. Ken Salazar says that he'll push legislation to pull U.S. troops out of combat in Iraq and that he thinks he can win over enough moderate Republicans to overcome a 60-vote threshold that has stymied similar efforts.” The article further reported:

The move comes after Salazar's return from a trip to Baghdad. He said during a telephone news conference Monday that his plan to pull U.S. troops back to training and support roles would spur Iraqi politicians to the path of reform.

“The Iraqis need to be forced to achieve that reconciliation, otherwise the war will continue endlessly and our soldiers will be forced to keep the top on a powder keg,” Salazar said.

The September 18 Gazette article also reported the comments of James Jay Carafano of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, who called Salazar's plan “nuttiness.” According to the article, “Carafano said limiting the role of troops would prevent them from taking the fight to the enemy and thus putting more Americans in danger.”

Although the September 18 Gazette article about Salazar's plan included criticism of the proposal, the September 19 article included no response by Salazar to Allard's attacks:

For signs of the split over the Iraq war, look no further than Colorado's two senators.

Monday morning, Democrat Sen. Ken Salazar called for pulling U.S. troops out of combat roles. Tuesday morning, the state's senior senator, Republican Wayne Allard, criticized Salazar's plan.

“If you make those moves without thought, you put lives at risk,” said Allard, who has said Americans battling in Baghdad prevent terrorist attacks on the home front.

Allard also renewed his criticism Monday of Salazar's move to delay possible Army expansion of Fort Carson's Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in southern Colorado.

The war debate is sharp in the Senate this week as the chamber ponders defense-spending bills. Salazar has said he wants U.S. troops limited to training Iraqis, playing support roles or targeting al-Qaida in Iraq. Allard said commanders should make those calls.

“It's not a good idea to run a battlefield operation from the halls of Congress,” Allard said.

Allard acknowledged that Americans are getting restless about the long war in Iraq.

“The American people get impatient,” he said.

To get a war-limiting measure through the Senate, Democrats would need to pick up about a dozen Republican votes.

While Salazar said his constituents in Colorado are getting weary of the war, Allard said he thinks his constituents want him to stick with the Bush administration on the war.

“Coloradans prefer a common-sense approach,” he said.

Furthermore, in reporting Allard's assertion that “Americans battling in Baghdad prevent terrorist attacks on the home front,” The Gazette ignored a “Terrorism Index” survey by the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine, which found that only 12 percent of experts believe that terrorists are either very likely or likely to attack the United States as a direct result of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. Moreover, some foreign policy experts have said that it is the U.S. occupation of Iraq that increases the likelihood of a terrorist attack on the United States, as Media Matters pointed out: An April 30 report on National Public Radio's All Things Considered quoted retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns saying, “It's actually leaving American forces in Iraq ... that increases the chances of a terrorist attack on the U.S.”

Additionally, according to an April 6 McClatchy Newspapers article, "[m]ilitary and diplomatic analysts" say that a similar claim by Bush -- that “this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here” -- “exaggerat[es] the threat that enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland.” The article further reported: “U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in Bush's own government say the violence in Iraq is primarily a struggle for power between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis seeking to dominate their society, not a crusade by radical Sunni jihadists bent on carrying the battle to the United States.” The article quoted a U.S. intelligence official as saying that "[t]he war in Iraq isn't preventing terrorist attacks on America" and noted that “the likelihood that enemy combatants from Iraq might follow departing U.S. forces back to the United States is remote at best.”