COL Gene

BUSH HAS ABANDONED MILITARY VICTORY IN IRAQ

BUSH HAS ABANDONED MILITARY VICTORY IN IRAQ



The strategy at the White House has changed with respect to the Iraq War. We are now attempting to withdrawal just as soon as we have trained enough Iraq security and military forces. Bush wants to make the withdrawal appear legitimate and when that magic number has been achieved, you will see the troops begin to come home. The truth is we are not winning the military battle against the insurgents. Our military fight and die to secure an area and a few months later the very same elements are operating in that area. We then repeat the action and loose more of our troops. We do not have the manpower to control the entire country and prevent the reintroduction of the insurgent forces in the areas that we cleared with our precious military lives.

When the history books are written about this conflict, it will not be a positive oration. First, the rationale for the war was untrue. Bush supporters will say everyone thought there was WMD and therefore he did not lie as to his reason for attacking Iraq. The problem with that rationale is that the reason given today is to provide the Iraqi people the right to choose their own government. If that were the reason we chose to depose Saddam Hussein, that is the reason that Bush should have provided the Congress of the United States before asking for approval of the war resolution. Bush did not give that reason and this whole process was justified by the imminent danger to the United States. Then Bush said it was to enforce the UN Resolutions however the UN NEVER made the United States or England the enforcement agent for UN resolutions. Another rational Bush gave to remove Saddam was to rid the world of an evil dictator. There are many more evil dictators that exist in this world and Saddam Hussein was not the worst of the lot. If you have any doubt about that, look at what is happening to millions of people in Africa. If we were to provide this choice of the type of government that Bush NOW claims is the reason for the war, why not Cuba 90 miles from Florida? Why not Syria, North Korea, Iran, China or a host of other countries where the people do not have a choice. Why not our so-called ally, Saudi Arabia.

The real reason Bush wanted to invade Iraq may never be known. It was clear that this was in Bush's mind when he first took office. The removal of Saddam Hussein was a discussion item at the VERY FIRST Cabinet meeting. This has been clearly stated by the former Treasury Secretary Paul O' Neal. This was before 9/11, before we were attacked or heard about the War on Terrorism in America. The lesson we must learn is that in the future if a president asks Congress to go war with reasons that are not as stated, that president needs to be impeached and removed from office. If George W. Bush had asked Congress for authorization to attack Iraq so that Iraq people could select their own form of government, the resolution would NEVER have been approved. It is a sad day for this country that our president did not give the actual reason for America to go to war. The Bush LIE has cost America over 1,800 lives, more then 25,000 injured and over $300 billion dollars! It has created thousands if not millions of NEW enemies all over the world!
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Reply #51 Top
So can anybody give me a justification currently being used, that was not clearly enunciated by the President in one or more public speeches prior to the invasion?

Liberation of the Iraqis? Check.

Weapons of Mass Destruction? Check.

Harm to terrorists and terror-sponsoring states? Check.

Paving the way for a liberal democracy in the Middle East? Check.


The purpose of the invasion of Iraq was never to make terrorism go away. It was to make Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism go away.

In that purpose, it has been wildly successful, in the short term. In the long term, the success of this strategy remains to be seen, but I am full of hope.

Now, if we could just get rid of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and North Korea as state sponsors of terror, we'd be left with something on par with the Bloods and the Crips in the "world threats" ranking...

The sooner "enough" Iraqi security forces are trained and effective, the sooner we can reallocate our own security forces in Iraq to the next country on the old Axis of Evil list.


Besides, the military victory was achieved in Iraq the day that Coalition forces seized the capital and the main airport. Everything since then has been peacekeeping, with mixed but generally positive results.
Reply #52 Top
You have not given ANY reason why Bush lied to Congress as to the reason we should invade Iraq.


I don't give a reason because he didn't lie col. You have never proven Bush lied. I have a post going on right now asking for proof of a lie, and not one has come with it. You keep making up reasons which don't fit reality col. You have officially lost it.

Now as usual you have avoided the question. You think it's some grand conspiracy that Bush talked about Iraq. So what? Clinton signed an executive order declaring regime change in Iraq. Would you be so anti-Clinton if he did it? Clinton bombed Iraq for not complying and for having WMD's. Was he lying also col. I have provide a list of democrats that said Saddam was a threat to the U.S., and that he was producing WMD's. Will you please tell me if they are liars also col?

Congress voted in support of this war based on the intelligence we had. There was no lies, no conspiracies, and deceit. The committee which investigated this found no wrongdoing by anyone in the administration. That's it col, it's over. You have lost.
Reply #53 Top
Today Bush is saying the reason we went to war was to give the Iraqi people the ability to select their form of government. That has NOTHING to do with WMD. Bush changes the reason we are in Iraq as often as one reason is proven wrong. Even if Saddam had WMD, he was NO THREAT TO US. No rogue state dictator would attack a super power for the simple reason they would lose their ass. There are lots of rogue states with WMD - Like North Korea, Seria, Iran. The iraq war had nothing to do with terrorists or the War on terrorism. Terrorists began operating in Iraq when we removed Saddam. He did not allow them to operate for he wanted to be in control. The mess both in Iraq and in this country created by the Bush's Iraq adventure is becomming serious. Bush has become a divider within America and among other countries in the world!
Reply #54 Top
"U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says [or shall we say "leaked"?]

The Washington Post article Link goes on to state:

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

Excuse me, but the WMD excuse fell apart. Not even a "program" for WMD's stood the laugh test. Then came the "link to Bin Laden and the terrorists" excuse. Well, that was thoroughly debunked. So, then democracy became the reason, but that's not working either. THey didn't have a serious security (other than Saddam) or economic challenges, but now with Iraq bordering on civil war, it's worse there then it ever was. So, the administration is "shedding the unreality" that dominated the invasion. Huh? The only unreality was the lies perpetrated onto the American people, who bought it, hook, line and sinker to invade Iraq. But for what, you may ask, if all the other excuses fell apart? Oil, maybe. Yeah, think about it.

This entire administration, Bush, Cheney, Rice, and the rest of them are oil executives. The fact that Cheney wouldn't make public his energy meeting notes, which of course included the Enron and Kenny Lay oil barrons, certainly smacks of a conspiracy.

Here's another exerpt:

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

Of course it wasn't realistic. They never had a workable plan. It was doomed to failure. The whole "Shock and Awe" crap was all those pea brains did plan. So, what followed was really what the skeptics were predicting from before the invasion. But, if the skeptics questioned the policy or the "intelligence", they got fired. Hence, the Plame smear campaign.

But, for all the good things that we've accomplished, which has really only been fixing what we broke in the first place, is this excerpt:

But the realities of daily life are a constant reminder of how the initial U.S. ambitions have not been fulfilled in ways that Americans and Iraqis once anticipated. Many of Baghdad's 6 million people go without electricity for days in 120-degree heat. Parents fearful of kidnapping are keeping children indoors.

Barbers post signs saying they do not shave men, after months of barbers being killed by religious extremists. Ethnic or religious-based militias police the northern and southern portions of Iraq. Analysts estimate that in the whole of Iraq, unemployment is 50 percent to 65 percent.


Even as far as creating a democratic state, we've failed. Iraq is becoming a segmented government, with enclaves of Sunnis, Kurds, Shiites, and they will all have varying degrees of shia law, that being theocratic governments. Now, that's a HUGE failure, given that even though Saddam was a murderer, at least he maintained the only secular arab country in the Mideast, and certainly the most progressive. Yeah, we broke all that, too, with this invasion.

As much as I hated the invasion from the very beginning, and as much as I hate dubya and his henchmen, after 2-1/2 years, I was really hoping for something good to come out of this for the Iraqis. After all, they are the ones who have been slaughtered by the tens of thousands. And, our reservists who really only wanted an education, only to find themselves coming home as amputees or worse. On top of all the wasted resources and billions of dollars that we've poured into this debaucle, we'll be paying through the nose, our grandchildren's grandchildren will be paying through the nose for war reparations. Then dubya has the audacity to say he lowered taxes. Fuch him. He lowered it on a few of the richest, but raised them for our future generations. I hope that sonnovabitch and his flunkies go to prison for this crap.

Fuch this administration. No wonder dubya is a maniacal depressive. He fuched up royally. He came into office claiming to be "a uniter, not a divider." I guess, in one respect he has been successful. He's managed to unite most of this country against him and his hopeless and illegal follies, according to most polls coming out these days.

If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Reply #55 Top
Fuch this administration. No wonder dubya is a maniacal depressive. He fuched up royally. He came into office claiming to be "a uniter, not a divider." I guess, in one respect he has been successful. He's managed to unite most of this country against him and his hopeless and illegal follies, according to most polls coming out these days.


How classy dabe. I would address the rest of your post, but as usual you are so clueless it's not even worth the effort.
Reply #56 Top
According to the Brookings Institution's indispensable Iraq Index, brookings.edu/iraqindex, the number of on-duty Iraqi security personnel has risen from 125,373 in January to 175,700 today. They fight beside coalition forces against terrorists and Baathist holdouts. One joint raid nabbed 22 alleged insurgents in Yusufiyah on July 25, while another 10 suspected terrorists were caught in Ramadi on Aug. 3. In both cases, the Pentagon reports, citizens offered intelligence that helped Iraqis and their coalition partners nail these killers.

Civic-affairs work by uniformed personnel may have persuaded average Iraqis to furnish useful information. On Aug. 5, GIs and medics from the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Division, plus Iraqi police, performed health screenings on 200 Mosul children. They also gave these kids soccer balls.

During five such missions since mid-July, some 1,000 kids in Mosul received basic medical attention.

Infrastructure improvements also are encouraging. A new Kirkuk treatment plant began providing clean water to 5,000 people on June 27, the State Department says. Another 84 U.S.-led waterworks projects are under way in Iraq, while 114 have been completed.

Some 18,000 pupils will study in rehabilitated classrooms when they go back to school in mid-September. According to U.S. and Iraqi officials, 43 more schools were slated for renovation Aug. 6. So far, 3,211 schools have been refurbished, and another 773 are being repaired.

Iraq's monthly oil exports have grown from $200 million in June 2003 to $2.5 billion last month. This is due both to higher prices and to the fact that fuel supplies have swelled from 23 percent to 97 percent of official production goals in that period. These key improvements also help explain why Iraq's gross domestic product increased from a World Bank estimate of $12.1 billion in 2003 to a projected $21.1 billion in 2004.

Iraqis who endured Baathist censorship now enjoy a vibrant, free press.

Commercial TV channels, radio stations and independent newspapers and magazines have zoomed from zero before Operation Iraqi Freedom to -- respectively -- 29, 80 and 170 today.

Internet subscribers have boomed from 4,500 before Iraq's liberation to 147,076 last March, not counting the additional Iraqis who use Internet cafes. When Saddam Hussein fell, Iraq had 833,000 telephone subscribers. In July that figure had soared 356.4 percent to 3,801,822.

In the political arena, women hold seven of Baghdad's top 40 ministerial positions. While Iraq is more than 17.5 percent female, this is impressive political involvement for women in the world's most sexist region. Among others, women run Iraq's ministries of communications, environment, public works and human rights.

America's National Democratic Institute (a global outreach organization) last month trained 208 members of 70 political parties and 10 NGOs from across Iraq. They studied U.S.-style campaign skills including knocking on doors, canvassing petitions and organizing rallies. In another workshop, activists learned how to promote their parties' agendas on TV during two-minute and even 30-second sound bites.

The White House communications team -- hobbled by institutional bashfulness and a nearly terminal incapacity for self-expression -- must educate Americans and our allies more effectively on what works in Iraq.

While journalists should not whitewash Iraq's mayhem, they should cover the accomplishments of U.S. personnel, soldiers from the 27 other nations with boots on the sand, and the Iraqis who are rebuilding their country -- never mind the evildoers' blasts and billowing smoke.


Link
Reply #57 Top
IslandDog

With all this good news, we should tell Iraq as of 12/31/05 we will be gone and allow them to provide the security for their country!
Reply #58 Top
With all this good news, we should tell Iraq as of 12/31/05 we will be gone and allow them to provide the security for their country!


Then you would write and complain that we left too early. You will never be happy with whatever we do, so why do you bother?
Reply #59 Top
No, I would hope we would NEVER make the error Bush made in Iraq again! I belive it is time for the Iraqi people to defend their country! I know it is time for America to STOP allowing our military from being killed and injured in Iraq! NO MORE STAY THE COURSE
Reply #60 Top
No, I would hope we would NEVER make the error Bush made in Iraq again! I belive it is time for the Iraqi people to defend their country! I know it is time for America to STOP allowing our military from being killed and injured in Iraq! NO MORE STAY THE COURSE


Cut and run. Typical liberal response. Pathetic.
Reply #61 Top
Wrong Again. The time has come for the Iraqi people to take responsibility for their country. You are the pathetic person.

Your BOY looks sad in Crawford!!!
Reply #62 Top
Wrong Again. The time has come for the Iraqi people to take responsibility for their country.


And they are more and more everyday. You complain when troops aren't pulled out, and now you are complaining that we are pulling out. Which is col? Hypocrit.


Your BOY looks sad in Crawford!!!


He's not my boy col. And the only person who is sad is you. You spend all your time bashing Bush and nothing comes out of it except the lessen credibility of yourself. You can't prove your lies, and your propaganda is the same as the terrorists.
Reply #63 Top
With all this good news, we should tell Iraq as of 12/31/05 we will be gone and allow them to provide the security for their country!
--ColdefectiveGenes

That would definitely result in a bloody civil war, an occurrance which you claim not to wish for.
This would do nothing more than allow you and your fellow unreasoning Bush-haters to trumpet the failure of our Iraq policy, despite the fact that a pullout is exactly what you keeping calling for. There's no pleasing you.

If we pulled out of Iraq before the right time (which may be quite a long time), the same thing would happen, quite probably, as happened in Afghanistan in the wake of the end of the USSR war and pullout. There would be a struggle for power and seething anger at us for leaving them in the lurch. Bush seems to have learned from the past, so he sees that it's not an option. Maybe you should follow his example if you can.
Reply #64 Top
The Washington Post article Link goes on to state:
--from dabe's reply

And here we have another non-biased article from the Post that we should all read with rapt attention and believe unquestioningly, right, dabe?
Reply #65 Top
Col is losing again. It's time for him to start talking about the deficit.
Reply #66 Top
Wrone Again-- The looser is the United States and our brave military. If you believe we are gaining control of the insergents in Iraq you are very mistaken. The only thing we are doing is killing our military. If the Iraqi people want to stop the insergents, they have the power to do just that. There are 25 million people in Iraq and they CAN shut them down and STOP the support for the terrorists. If they choose not to take responsibility for their security then that is their fault. Bush has created a MAJOR problem and it is time to end this farce.
Reply #67 Top
Wrone Again-- The looser is the United States and our brave military. If you believe we are gaining control of the insergents in Iraq you are very mistaken. The only thing we are doing is killing our military. If the Iraqi people want to stop the insergents, they have the power to do just that. There are 25 million people in Iraq and they CAN shut them down and STOP the support for the terrorists. If they choose not to take responsibility for their security then that is their fault. Bush has created a MAJOR problem and it is time to end this farce.


Do you even look at the good news coming out of Iraq? Do you even know the extent of progress there? The answer is no because you based your opinions on the headlines, not the reality.


Wrone Again-- The looser is the United States and our brave military


Only you could think our country is losing. You are pathetic and no better than the terrorists themselves.
Reply #68 Top
Island Dog.

When you have served 30 years in the military come talk to me. There were no Terrorist operating in Iraq until George W. Bush opened the door for them to operate! Every day the deaths occurr ( US, British and Iraqi) . We clear an area and in a short time the terrorists are operating in the same location. We go in again, loose more troops and the cycle statrs again. We never had anything close to the number of troops needed to establish and maintain control in Iraq. That is because George did not listen to the military experts that knew what it would take to control the country when Saddam's government fell. Bush is responsible for the deaths because he went to war in the first place aginst a country that posed NO DANGER TO the United States and then did so with out the number of troops required! You are the pathetic person defending Bush given what is taking place on Iraq!!!!!
Reply #69 Top
The Washington Post, Bradley Grahm just reported, one month before the start of the Iraq War three State Dept Bureau Chiefs warned of "Serious planning gaps for post-conflict security" in a secret memo. I guess this warning was correct! To bad Bush did not pay attention to his staff in both the DoD and State Departments.
Reply #70 Top
Wrone Again-- The looser is the United States and our brave military. If you believe we are gaining control of the insergents in Iraq you are very mistaken. The only thing we are doing is killing our military.


The terrorists must love you, col.


There were no Terrorist operating in Iraq until George W. Bush opened the door for them to operate!


LOL... are you insane?


You are the pathetic person defending Bush given what is taking place on Iraq!!!!!


*salutes Island for being a proud American*
Reply #71 Top
The CIA has said there were no terrorists operating in Iraq prior to the fall of Saddam. He was a dictator but the type of terrorists operations that take the lives of Americans almost every day were not in Iraq before Bush deposed Saddam. The security situation appears to be getting worse and we simply do not have nearly enough forces to control that country! This situation is 100% at the door step of Gerore W. Bush! The latest poll shows 28% believe we are safer because of the war. About 35% agree with the way Bush is operating in Iraq. Bush and the CIA admitted that Saddam was not linked to 9/11. How then is this war a part of the War on Terrorism?
Reply #72 Top
How classy dabe. I would address the rest of your post, but as usual you are so clueless it's not even worth the effort.


Why do you even bother wasting bandwidth with such a non-response? In fact, you have nothing to say, but insults, because you're an empty bag of god knows what. If you really had something worthy to refute my case, then fine. Instead, your adolecent behavior is nothing but annoying. Kind of like a cockroach.
Reply #73 Top
How classy dabe. I would address the rest of your post, but as usual you are so clueless it's not even worth the effort.


Why do you even bother wasting bandwidth with such a non-response? In fact, you have nothing to say, but insults, because you're an empty bag of god knows what. If you really had something worthy to refute my case, then fine. Instead, your adolecent behavior is nothing but annoying. Kind of like a cockroach.


If anyone here would be "kinda like a cockroach"it would be "YOU"! Adolesent behavior? Don't look in a mirror.
Reply #74 Top
Bush deserves bashing on this. he knowingly lied to you for other hidden agendas, he planned poorly, he had vert unsophisticated plans for rebuilding Iraq and still does. he has made the life of ordinary Iraqis much worse. those that can leave Iraq are leaving creating a brain drain of the talent that the country needs. The rebuilding process is as corrupt as the 'oil for food' programme ever was with companies like Halliburton securing multi-million dollar contracts with no tendering or public process. The Kurdish timebomb is still times to explode.
Iraq has had no positive contribution to the wider Middle east conflict and Iraq has diverted attention from the battle against extremism.
I'll be in the Bush bashing Queue right begind you.
Reply #75 Top
Iraq has had no positive contribution to the wider Middle east conflict and Iraq has diverted attention from the battle against extremism.
I'll be in the Bush bashing Queue right begind you


More like the "brainless queue"!