Last month, U.S. generals told Congress that American forces would not defeat the insurgency. They reported that the military campaign was creating more terrorists than it was stopping, and it was crucial for the U.S. to begin a gradual withdrawal from Iraq.

But the question of whether America should begin withdrawing troops is plagued with uncertainty. There is civil war, a stable government has yet to emerge, and only one battalion of Iraqi forces can fight without the help of American troops.

Some advocate immediate withdrawal, contending that troops should leave soon because they are increasing the possibility of a nuclear attack on America, and intensifying civil war by trying to unite a profoundly divided country.

Others argue that wanting to bring troops home now is an attitude fundamentally disconnected from the battleground in Iraq, insisting that a premature withdrawal will plunge the country into escalated chaos.

Former military intelligence officer David Dionisi has talked to more than a 100 veterans of the Iraq war. He said that with each day the American military is in Iraq, it becomes easier for terrorists to direct hatred towards America, resulting in the expansion of a thriving jihadist network which is increasingly capable of delivering a nuclear attack on the U.S.

“When the U.S. is over there pursuing evil, setting up a puppet government so we can take their oil and control the largest source of water in the Middle East, we‘re only guaranteed that the situations going to get worse,” said Dionisi. “And it’s going to lead to nuclear retaliation.”

In Dionisi’s book, “American Hiroshima,“ he warned that Al-Qaeda is planning to kill four million Americans by detonating nuclear “suitcase” bombs (devices small enough to fit in 100-pound suitcases) at eight nuclear power plants in or near San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston.

Esam Pasha, a native Iraqi artist who came to America in June 2005, feared the country would slip deeper into civil war if the military left. But he urged the U.S. to change its military strategy.

“They aren’t controlling the borders, and they’re letting the terrorists cross the borders easily. So they come in and they fight them in the country. Why let them cross?”

He believes the key to creating stability is training an Iraqi army to defend the country. “It would be practical to recruit experienced Iraqi officers who speak the language, who know the country.”

Peter Galbraith, a consultant who helped Iraqi government officials form their constitution, said the U.S. must begin withdrawal because American efforts to unite the country under a single national Iraqi army are actually intensifying civil war.

He points out that Iraq is split into three deeply-divided states which are loyal to their own communities instead of the nation, with Kurds wanting their own country, and a civil war ensuing between Shiites who control the government and Sunnis who fuel the insurgency.

“Even by paying soldiers salaries that are ten times the military salaries under Saddam Hussein, the United States cannot build an Iraqi army when there is no Iraqi nation.”

Illustrating his argument is the composition of the 115 Iraqi army battalions: 60 of them are made up of only Shiites, 45 of them are made up of only Sunnis, and nine of them are made up of only Kurds.

He says the U.S. army cannot solve the situation, and the best way to combat the insurgency, led primarily by Sunnis, is to let Sunnis control their own government and military.

“Thanks to their regional armies, Kurdistan and the Shiite south are stable and reasonably secure. A Sunni Arab military force—responsible not to a Shiite-dominated federal government or an American occupation army but to Sunni officers and a Sunni Arab political authority—is the best hope of combating the Sunni Arab insurgency and its jihadist allies,” said Galbraith.

After a year of leading an infantry platoon in Iraq, Paul Rieckhoff formed Operation Truth, an advocacy group for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that beginning withdrawal means more bloodshed and mayhem.

“If you start bringing troops home now, you’re going to see a dramatic increase in casualties, the country’s going to become a lot more unstable, and it‘s going to make the job a lot harder for the troops that are still over there,” said Rieckhoff.