"We will all be slaughtered."

From Newsbusters.Org:

JOHN BURNS: Well, I think, quite simply that the United States armed forces here -- and I find this to be very widely agreed amongst Iraqis that I know, of all ethnic and sectarian backgrounds -- the United States armed forces are a very important inhibitor against violence. I know it`s argued by some people that they provoke the violence. I simply don`t believe that to be in the main true. I think it`s a much larger truth that where American forces are present, they are inhibiting sectarian violence, and they are going after the people, particularly al-Qaeda and the Shiite death squads, who are provoking that violence...
A senior American official told me just the other night that he had been to see Tariq Al Hashimi, who - the Sunni vice president, a former Saddam army officer who never joined the Baath Party and left Iraq in the early `90s. In other words, a Sunni who - who has genuine credentials as a moderate. Tariq Al Hashimi asked this senior American official, "is your Congress really serious about withdrawing troops?" And the American official said to him, "you`d better believe that it may be. This is a serious debate and it`s very finely balanced, and it could - it could fall in favor of withdrawing those troops and withdrawing them on a fairly rigorous, tight schedule." Tariq Al Hashimi responded to that by saying "then we will all be slaughtered," then we will all be slaughtered.

I am sure, however, that Obama believes Iraqis are not worth saving from that slaughter.