tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332250412024-03-06T20:29:02.254-08:00What Flavor Is Your Kool-Aid™?None of the Neocon horses on which Bush rode into the White House (2001) and who drove us into Iraq (2003) have been fired, scorned, or repudiated by the American people. Some have been promoted to even higher office and others awarded prestigious honorariums. Most of them continue to hold high office, enjoy plush tax-paid salaries and enjoy vast media access with which they intend to give us more of the same. How much longer do we drink from the same cups they offer? Which swill do you prefer?Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-26109784240614666652010-06-06T22:38:00.000-07:002010-06-06T22:49:12.803-07:00Matthew Alexander<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFV85RTnjY_B_X6fb25whHwghbJN1C6YVOsrOgL5hg4qXYMeJ_dVjsp1qM_P9hqNTMFf_AFrfw1qYDwu27t8-NQXFAohnh0ZbpyIP-UwiEBnhmeYTRahYvpmamjGFEEdmvVFUNQ/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFV85RTnjY_B_X6fb25whHwghbJN1C6YVOsrOgL5hg4qXYMeJ_dVjsp1qM_P9hqNTMFf_AFrfw1qYDwu27t8-NQXFAohnh0ZbpyIP-UwiEBnhmeYTRahYvpmamjGFEEdmvVFUNQ/s320/Capture.JPG" width="195" /></a><span style="color: lime;">Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym) is a former senior military interrogator and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Break-Terrorist-Interrogators-Brutality/dp/1416573151">How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq</a>. He led an elite interrogation team in Iraq that located Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former Al Qaida leader, who was killed in a subsequent airstrike. He has conducted more than 300 interrogations and supervised more than 1,000. Alexander has served for 17 years in the Air Force and Air Force Reserves. He is currently a Fellow at the Open Society Institute. When Bush made the comment while speaking to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, Mich. (June 2nd, 2010) that,</span> "Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed... I'd do it again to save lives,"<span style="color: lime;"> Matthew Alexander responded that Bush's statement </span><br />
<blockquote><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOZYeNCJ5t8ULFzcjWYV77g6z8iCWIMsn_H7ttqQqmpPpk4OsEPRny5FZt2UoAEMDgeZqhQLA5vaK9dPrLT8oKc7kptUqYEuyIU9NBlIVWt5wyNJjpLbBrPtmelUO6m0XIdxY5DQ/s1600/Mathew+Alexander.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOZYeNCJ5t8ULFzcjWYV77g6z8iCWIMsn_H7ttqQqmpPpk4OsEPRny5FZt2UoAEMDgeZqhQLA5vaK9dPrLT8oKc7kptUqYEuyIU9NBlIVWt5wyNJjpLbBrPtmelUO6m0XIdxY5DQ/s200/Mathew+Alexander.png" width="160" /></a>is <i>de facto</i> approval of the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of American soldiers in Iraq who were killed by foreign fighters that Al Qaida recruited based on the President's policy of torture and abuse of detainees.<br />
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At least now we know where the blame for those soldiers' deaths squarely belongs. President Bush's decision broke with a military tradition dating back to General George Washington during the Revolutionary War and the consequences are clear: Al Qaida is stronger and our country is less safe.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156346223591274302009-08-31T08:16:00.000-07:002009-09-19T17:40:22.416-07:00George W. Bush<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIkdDNhh0Zsb1O_8nhRdGDQ13Jac7igEZ-oYfkZaJrznBH93ulmFz8CIQv0mV58VEXYBF_7PkE1zTVKe7SlkxcjxIS7zjEIoe81y29qDs0Y7sxZ4Kv1OXXWw9PxovA4RrjNAD8hA/s1600-h/Herman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIkdDNhh0Zsb1O_8nhRdGDQ13Jac7igEZ-oYfkZaJrznBH93ulmFz8CIQv0mV58VEXYBF_7PkE1zTVKe7SlkxcjxIS7zjEIoe81y29qDs0Y7sxZ4Kv1OXXWw9PxovA4RrjNAD8hA/s200/Herman.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132183408804064962" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">According to Sig Christenson, on </span><a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003671351">11-Nov-1997</a>, <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">George Bush defended his father's decision during the Gulf War not to remove Saddam Hussein.</span><blockquote>There are a lot of Americans (who say), 'Why didn't you go get him?' Well, I'm confident that losing men and women as a result of sniper fire inside of Baghdad would have turned the tide of public opinion very quickly. . . would have transformed the battle from a desert conflict to an unpopular guerrilla war.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3AVCLISha_WbW0GnZu0Lyj68dJs-Xx0ZPuBJVEOP9bA76J802Jo20PWPBiWjlqqh8wGJ_u7Jk_7WoQRuwL7J9VwPHoPPcXNP2dWlULyYNKLqaH_itq3i7JDuWbW_XKkREQ9Lm5w/s1600-h/ACharge2Keep.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3AVCLISha_WbW0GnZu0Lyj68dJs-Xx0ZPuBJVEOP9bA76J802Jo20PWPBiWjlqqh8wGJ_u7Jk_7WoQRuwL7J9VwPHoPPcXNP2dWlULyYNKLqaH_itq3i7JDuWbW_XKkREQ9Lm5w/s200/ACharge2Keep.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5032922113496144402" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">In <a href="http://www.afa.org/magazine/feb2003/0203evolution.asp">Airforce Magazine</a>, John T. Correll wrote that the <i>Evolution of the Bush Doctrine</i> in foreign policy began with the future 43rd president's September 1999 address at The Citadel where he said,</span> <blockquote>Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless deployments is the swift solvent of morale. ... I will work hard to find political solutions that allow an orderly and timely withdrawal from places like Kosovo and Bosnia. We will encourage our allies to take a broader role. We will not be hasty. But we will not be permanent peacekeepers, dividing warring parties. This is not our strength or our calling.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Two Years Before 9/11, candidate Bush was already talking privately about attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, author and journalist <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm">Mickey Herskowitz</a>, who has quoted Bush as saying:</span> <blockquote>One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. . . My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. . . . If I have a chance to invade - if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Herskowitz also reports,</span> <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake. That was one of the keys to being a leader.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/priceloyality.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/priceloyality.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Paul O'Neill, Bush's first Secretary of Treasury (fired) saw <a href="http://thepriceofloyalty.ronsuskind.com/thebushfiles/archives/000067.html">documents</a> showing that in early 2001 the administration was already considering the use of force to oust Saddam, as well as planning for the aftermath.</span><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. . . For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap. . . . It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this'.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"> In the interview in December 2001, only three months after the 911 attacks, Bush admitted that "<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/they-knew-but-did-nothing/2008/03/07/1204780065676.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap9">there was a significant difference in my attitude after September 11</a>" about al-Qaeda and the threat it posed to the United States.<br />
<br />
Before the attacks, he said: <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">I was not on point, but I knew he was a menace, and I knew he was a problem. I knew he was responsible, or we felt he was responsible, for the previous bombings that killed Americans. I was prepared to look at a plan that would be a thoughtful plan that would bring him to justice, and would have given the order to do that. I have no hesitancy about going after him. But I didn't feel that sense of urgency, and my blood was not nearly as boiling.</blockquote>Robert Parry, </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.informationclearinghouse.info%2Farticle2835.htm">Bush's Alderaan</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">: Time magazine reported that in March 2002 – a full year before the invasion – Bush outlined his real thinking to three U.S. senators. Bush disclosed this after sticking his head in the door of a White House meeting between National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and three senators who had been discussing strategies for dealing with Iraq through the United Nations. The senators laughed uncomfortably at Bush’s remark when he said,</span> <blockquote>Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Ironically, it was during a March <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html">23rd press conference</a> that Bush, in answering a question about Osama bin Laden, said</span><blockquote>Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not; we haven't heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.<br />
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Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.<br />
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So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.<br />
<br />
. . . . as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country.<br />
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. . . . we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his al Qaeda killers anymore.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/GoingSouth.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/GoingSouth.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Remarks by President Bush and President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia in Photo Opportunity,<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020925-1.html">(September 25, 2002)</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">:</span></span><blockquote>The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">7-November-02:</span><blockquote>He's (Saddam) a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">January 2003; the President invited three members of the Iraqi opposition to join him to watch the Super Bowl. In the course of the conversation the Iraqis realized that the President was not aware that there was a difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. He looked at them and said,</span> <blockquote>You mean...they're not, you know, there, there's this difference. What is it about?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Devos Performance Hall, Grand Rapids, Michigan, </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030129-4.html">(January 29, 2003)</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">:</span><blockquote>My point is, our presence in the world is more than just our might; but our might is needed in the world right now to make the world a more peaceful place. The war on terror is not confined strictly to the al Qaeda that we're chasing. The war on terror extends beyond just a shadowy terrorist network. The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein and his willingness to terrorize himself <span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(Sic!)</span>.<br />
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Saddam Hussein has terrorized his own people. He's terrorized his own neighborhood. He is a danger not only to countries in the region, but as I explained last night, because of al Qaeda connections, because of his history, he's a danger to the American people. And we've got to deal with him. We've got to deal with him before it is too late.<br />
<br />
Before September the 11th, during a period when a lot of us thought oceans would protect us forever from gathering threats far from our land, the thought of containing somebody like Saddam Hussein made sense -- so we could step back in America and say, gosh, well, don't worry, he's only a threat to somebody in the neighborhood, and we might pick or choose whether or not we're going to help in the neighborhood.<br />
<br />
But, see, our fellow citizens must understand that September the 11th, 2001 changed the equation. It's changed the strategic outlook of this country, because we're not protected by oceans. The battlefield is here. And therefore, we must address threats today as they gather, before they become acute.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Pat Robertson, founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition and an ardent Bush supporter, recounted on <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/19/robertson.bush.iraq/index%3Cbr%20/%3E.html">CNN</a> telling Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties.</span><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. . . . I warned him about casualties. . . . And I was trying to say, '<i>Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.</i>' I mean, the Lord told me it was going to be A, a disaster, and B, messy.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">But the president told him,</span><blockquote>We're not going to have any casualties.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Robertson described the president at that meeting to CNN's Paula Zahn as</span><blockquote><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. . . the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life. You remember Mark Twain said, '</span><i style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.</i><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">' I mean he was just sitting there like, '</span><i style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I'm on top of the world.</i><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">'</span></blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">US President George W. Bush and former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar discussed plans to go to war with Iraq even while claiming to be seeking a peaceful solution through the UN Security Council, according to the minutes of a meeting in Crawford Texas on 22-Feb-03, less than a month before the 20-Mar-03 invasion. The minutes of that meeting (released by <a href="http://www.iht.com/pdfs/elpais/ep3.pdf">EL PAÍS</a> on 26-Sep-07), show that Bush told Aznar,</span><blockquote>There are two weeks left. In two weeks we will be ready militarily… We’ll be in Baghdad by the end of March. We’ll destroy the loyal troops and the [Iraqi] army will really know what this is about. We have given a clear message to Saddam Hussein’s generals: they’ll be treated as war criminals. We’re planning for a post-Saddam Iraq and I think there are grounds for a better future.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">The President detailed threats against recalcitrant Security Council members and added,</span> <blockquote>The more the Europeans attack me, the stronger I am in the United States.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Aznar response was that </span><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The only thing that worries me is your optimism.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Replied the obtuse Bush </span><blockquote>I'm optimistic because I believe I'm right. I'm at peace with myself.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">It was not until March 16, during a meeting in Portugal’s Azores Islands, that Bush, Aznar and Blair publicly announced their war plans. In the intervening period, they had tried and failed to get a new UN resolution approved that would legitimize the invasion, although all three, the minutes indicate, knew that they would go to war even without international support.<br />
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After his invasion, asked by Tom Brokaw on <a href="http://www.talkingproud.us/EditorChoice042603.html">24-April-03</a> about Shock and Awe as a revolutionary military doctrine, the President observed:</span><blockquote>Yes, I think it's true. I think that's an accurate look back. Shock and awe said to many people that all we've got to do is unleash some might and people will crumble. And it turns out the fighters were a lot fiercer than we thought. Because, for example, we didn't come north from Turkey, Saddam Hussein was able to move a lot of special Republican Guard units and fighters from north to south. So the resistance for our troops moving south and north was significant resistance. On the other hand, our troops handled it, handled that resistance quite well.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Brokaw:</span> <blockquote><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Did that give you a pause for a while?</span></blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">The President:</span> <blockquote>Well, first of all, I had confidence in the plan, because I've got confidence in my national security team. Remember, my advisors are people such as Dick Cheney, who had been through the war before as the Secretary of Defense; Colin Powell, who's not only an Army general, but also had been through a war before; Don Rumsfeld, who's a very successful man in the private sector, but also has got great judgment when it comes to the military; Tommy Franks, I really trust Tommy, we speak the same language -- after all, Tommy went to Midland Lee High School, graduated in 1963, one year ahead of Laura; Condi. I get good, solid advice from people who analyzed this war plan, analyzed the strategy, looked over it in depth, had looked at it for quite a bit of time and convinced me that it would lead to victory. . . .</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Brokaw:</span> <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There used to be an American doctrine about when we go to war it's overwhelming force. Now it's speed and flexibility, based on Iraq, and instant communication -- not only behind the scenes, but everybody gets to look in on the battlefield.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">The President:</span> <blockquote>Well, the instant communications part was one of the reasons why I was comfortable in giving Tommy Franks and the commanders in the field the go-ahead to take the shot at Saddam Hussein on the first day. Because there in the Oval Office we were getting near instant feedback from eyes on the ground what he was seeing, what he felt the conditions were like. It was an amazing moment to think that a person risking his life, viewing the farms, watching the entries, seeing, observing what was taking place inside one of Saddam's most guarded facilities, was able to pick up a device, call CENTCOM, and CENTCOM would call us in near real-time.<br />
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And the ability to communicate has changed the nature of warfare. It allows for more interoperability; more ability for the Navy and the Air Force and the Special Ops and the Army and the Marines to work side by side in a coordinated basis. Which makes it easier to fight a war with flexibility and speed and precision. So the doctrine really has changed.<br />
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As well, it's an amazing concept when you think about real-time TV focusing on war. . . . rocketing across the desert. It's an amazing feeling.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/BushBrokaw.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/BushBrokaw.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Brokaw asked Bush about borrowing some perspectives and wisdom from his father (the 41st President). Bush admitted that however closely his dad followed the news, he wasn't asking for help or advice. His father</span>,<blockquote>. . . .follows everything in the news and the opinion . . . he's an every word man.<br />
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Well, I really don't spend a lot of time hashing over policy with him. He knows that I am much better informed than he could possibly be. He gives me -- our relationship is more of, and our conversations are more along the line of a dad and a son, a dad conveying to his son how much he loves him. Which is important, even at the age of 56 years old it's important.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/mission%20accomplished.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/mission%20accomplished.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">When Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln on May Day, it appeared that every detail of the day's events had been carefully planned, including the president's arrival in the co-pilot's seat of a Navy S-3B Viking after making two flybys of the carrier. The exterior of the four-seat S-3B Viking was marked with "Navy 1" and "George W. Bush Commander in Chief.":</span><blockquote>Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.)<br />
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. . . . carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history.<br />
<br />
The character of our military through history -- the daring of Normandy, the fierce courage of Iwo Jima, the decency and idealism that turned enemies into allies -- is fully present in this generation.<br />
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. . . . We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated.<br />
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The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on.<br />
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. . . . Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made clear to all: Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American justice.<br />
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. . . . Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home. And that is your direction tonight. (Applause.) After service in the Afghan -- and Iraqi theaters of war -- after 100,000 miles, on the longest carrier deployment in recent history, you are homeward bound.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Remarks by President Bush and Prime Minister Howard of Australia at the Bush Ranch in Crawford Texas <a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030503-1.html">(May 3, 2003)</a><br />
<br />
<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Question:</span><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Is there a possibility that you may never find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? And how would that square with your rationale for going to war?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">The President:</span></span><blockquote>Yes -- the question is about weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The United States -- United Nations Security Council voted 1441, which made the declaration it had weapons of mass destruction. It's well-known it had weapons of mass destruction. And we've also got to recognize that he spent 14 years hiding weapons of mass destruction. I mean, he spent an entire decade making sure that inspectors would never find them. Iraq's the size of the state of California. It's got tunnels, caves, all kinds of complexes. We'll find them. And it's just going to be a matter of time to do so.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Interview of the President by TVP, Poland </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html">(May 29, 2003)</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">:</span><blockquote>We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">As Jay Garner, replaced as director of the Iraq Reconstruction Group was on his way out the door <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15075326/site/newsweek/page/5/">18-June-03</a>, he was slapped on his back by Bush:</span> <blockquote>Hey Jay, you want to do Iran?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">The Israeli paper <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37944-2003Jun26?language=printer">Haaretz</a> (online 25-Jun-03), that Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Abu Mazen, meeting recently with militants to enlist their support for a truce with Israel, said that, when they met in Aqaba, President Bush had told him this:</span><blockquote>God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act. . . .</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">President George W. Bush, challenging militants attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, July 2, 2003 (</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2003%2FALLPOLITICS%2F07%2F02%2Fsprj.nitop.bush%2F">CNN</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">):</span><blockquote>There are some who, uh, feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Bring 'em on.</span> We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">UN speech</span> <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,98060,00.html">(9/23/03)</a>:<blockquote>The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/Looking4WMD.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/400/Looking4WMD.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">During the Radio & Television Correspondents' Association Dinner on <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3570845.stm"> March 24, 2004</a>, Bush was mocking himself in a slide show including images of him searching under furniture in the Oval Office for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction:</span><blockquote>. . . . tonight I'm going to do one of my slide shows. These are actual, unstaged photos pulled from the files of the White House Photo Office. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present a White House election-year album.Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere. <span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(Laughter and applause.)</span><br />
<br />
As you can tell from the look on Andy Card's face, we've become a little concerned about the Vice President lately. <span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(Laughter.)</span><br />
<br />
Nope, no weapons over there. (Laughter and applause.) Maybe under here. <span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(Laughter.)</span> Oops, this photo wasn't supposed to be in here. This is the Skull and Bones secret signal. <span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(Laughter.)</span><br />
<br />
I'm not paranoid. <span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(Laughter)</span>. . . .</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Press Conference by the President</span> (<a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060821.html">August 21, 2006):</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"> A Question:</span> <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Quick follow-up. A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">The President:</span> <blockquote>I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East.<br />
<br />
Now, look, part of the reason we went into Iraq was -- the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn't, but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction. But I also talked about the human suffering in Iraq, and I also talked the need to advance a freedom agenda. And so my question -- my answer to your question is, is that, imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein was there, stirring up even more trouble in a part of the world that had so much resentment and so much hatred that people came and killed 3,000 of our citizens.<br />
<br />
You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Question:</span> <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What did Iraq have to do with that?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">The President:</span> <blockquote>What did Iraq have to do with what?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Question: </span><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The attack on the World Trade Center?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">The President:</span> <blockquote>Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case.<br />
<br />
And one way to defeat that -- defeat resentment is with hope. And the best way to do hope is through a form of government. Now, I said going into Iraq that we've got to take these threats seriously before they fully materialize. I saw a threat. I fully believe it was the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein, and I fully believe the world is better off without him. Now, the question is how do we succeed in Iraq? And you don't succeed by leaving before the mission is complete, like some in this political process are suggesting.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/bush_williams_nola_160.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/bush_williams_nola_160.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Bush, in an interview with Brian Williams (29-Aug-06):</span> <blockquote>No, I don't see that at all. The fundamentalist world attacked the United States and killed 3,000 people<span style="font-weight: bold;"> <span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">before I even thought about removing Saddam Hussein from power</span>.</span> I just don't buy that argument. It is an argument that's not based upon fact.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Bush, Sept. 6, 2006:</span><blockquote>You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Bush, (24 September 2006):</span><blockquote>I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma.</blockquote><embed flashvars="videoId=185019" src="http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml" quality="high" bgcolor="#cccccc" name="comedy_central_player" allowscriptaccess="always" allownetworking="external" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" align="middle" width="332" height="316"></embed>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156427602401219642006-08-30T06:50:00.000-07:002009-06-02T07:58:51.360-07:00Dick Cheney<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/dick-cheney.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/dick-cheney.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Secretary of Defense</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Dick Cheney 1991 (</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://blogsonbush.blogspot.com/2006/01/dickcheney.html">Blogs on Bush</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">):</span><blockquote>Once you get to Baghdad, it's not clear what you do<br />with it. It's not clear what kind of government you<br />put in place of the one that's currently there now.<br />Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime, a<br />Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists,<br />or one that tilts toward Islamic fundamentalists?<br />How much credibility is that going to have if it's<br />set up by the American military there? How long<br />does the United States military have to stay there<br />to protect the people that sign on for that government,<br />and what happens once we leave?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">In 1994, invading Iraq was not rationally in the national interests of the United States!<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6BEsZMvrq-I"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6BEsZMvrq-I" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br />Even when the Vice President appears on Meet the Press with Tim Russert, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010916.html">(September 16, 2001)</a></span>:<blockquote>Saddam Hussein's bottled up, at this point, but clearly, we continue to have a fairly tough policy where the Iraqis are concerned.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">But by the time the Vice President speaks at VFW 103rd National Convention,</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html">(August 26, 2002)</a>, <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">he had changed his views:</span><br /><blockquote>. . . .The Taliban has already learned that lesson, but Afghanistan was only the beginning of a lengthy campaign. Were we to stop now, any sense of security we might have would be false and temporary. There is a terrorist underworld out there, spread among more than 60 countries.<br /><br />. . . . The case of Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of our country, requires a candid appraisal of the facts<br /><br />. . . . .Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors -- confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth.<br /><br />. . . .Another argument holds that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world, and interfere with the larger war against terror. I believe the opposite is true. Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. As for the reaction of the Arab "street," the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are "sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans." Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced. . . .</blockquote>"<a href="http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fac2%2Fwp-dyn%2FA61622-2003Jul15%3Flanguage%3Dprinter">Meet The Press</a>" <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">March 16, 2003:</span><blockquote>We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">"</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fmsnbc.msn.com%2Fid%2F3403519%2F">Meet the Press</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">," March 16, 2003:</span><blockquote>Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . .</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">QUESTION: <blockquote>If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?</blockquote></span><blockquote>Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. . . . The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/"></a></blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Meet The Press, </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244/">(14-September-03)</a><blockquote>Well, it’s significant, Tim. Any loss of life or injuries suffered by American military personnel is significant. Everyone wishes that that weren’t necessary. But from the standpoint of the activity we’re engaged in over there and what we’ve been able to accomplish over the last two years, I think it’s important to keep all of this in perspective. I looked at some numbers yesterday. I had them run the numbers, for example, in terms of our casualties since we launched into Afghanistan, began the war on terror a little over two years ago now. And the number killed in combat, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, as of yesterday, was about 213. When you add in those from non-hostile causes—the plane crashes, helicopter goes down without hostile fire—we’ve got a total of 372 fatalities since we started the war.<br /><br />Remember, we lost 3,000 people here on 9/11. And what we’ve been able to accomplish—although I must say we regret any casualties. You’d like to be able do everything casualty-free.<br /><br />When you think about what we’ve accomplished in terms of . . . . launching an attack into Iraq, destroying the Iraqi armed forces, taking down the government of Iraq, getting rid of Saddam Hussein, capturing 42 out of the 55 top leaders, and beginning what I think has been fairly significant success in terms of putting Iraq back together again, the price that we’ve had to pay is not out of line, and certainly wouldn’t lead me to suggest or think that the strategy is flawed or needs to be changed.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">In his remarks at <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031223-1.html">McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma</a> (December 22, 2003), Cheney endorsed the policy of preventive war:</span><blockquote>In a sense, 9/11 changed everything for us. 9/11 forced us to think in new ways about threats to the United States, about our vulnerabilities, about who our enemies were, about what kind of military strategy we needed in order to defend ourselves. And we've been actively and aggressively involved in doing that now for more than two years. It's a combination of strategy that involves not only going after the individuals who perpetrate terrorist attacks -- we've done that before. But we've got to go far beyond that. We've got to take down the financial networks that support them. We've got to mount military operations whenever that's necessary and appropriate, in order to take out the bad guys before we can launch further attacks against the United States.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Vice President Cheney, 1/22/04: </span><blockquote>There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident that there was an established relationship there.</blockquote><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/"><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"></span></a><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/"></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4603/3460/1600/cheney_baghdad_dick.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4603/3460/200/cheney_baghdad_dick.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Larry King Live</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/">,</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"> (6/20/05):</span><blockquote>I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"><a href="http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2006/09/_russert_grills_cheney_cheney.html">Meet the Press</a> (September 10, 2006):<br /></span><blockquote>If we had to do it over again, we would do exactly the same thing.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Cheney told Juan Williams</span> <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6377454">(24-Oct-06)</a>.<blockquote>I would have expected that the political process we set in motion -- the three national elections and so forth -- would have resulted in a lower level of violence than we're seeing today. It hasn't happened yet. I can't say that we're over the hump in terms of violence, no.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKYzfZwP-lmkumhks6Nj5TXWWHspfVtmYvhTeFNOkHtLBg1B_v4onfIyEM64C3SmNcjIuBaFzqDXEYcuFVFOAXZ1-0lzuRA7xVjCWdrVTYXN82LHUn9oUT8-xcPHn4UhaBfLAyBw/s1600-h/SituationRoom.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKYzfZwP-lmkumhks6Nj5TXWWHspfVtmYvhTeFNOkHtLBg1B_v4onfIyEM64C3SmNcjIuBaFzqDXEYcuFVFOAXZ1-0lzuRA7xVjCWdrVTYXN82LHUn9oUT8-xcPHn4UhaBfLAyBw/s200/SituationRoom.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5028612418575121218" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Wolf Blitzer's </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/24/cheney/index.html">Situation Room</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"> (January 24, 2007), Cheney said:</span> <blockquote>There's problems -- ongoing problems -- but we have in fact accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime, and there is a new regime in place that's been here for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off. Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes and we will continue to have enormous successes.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">In a June 1st 2009 interview with</span> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/02/cheney-there-was-never-an_n_210145.html">Fox News</a>' <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Greta van Susteren ex-Vice President confesses:</span><blockquote>On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9-11, there was never any evidence to prove that.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156347426957200722006-08-29T08:36:00.000-07:002007-02-17T06:51:31.385-08:00Don Rumsfeld<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">At a press conference at NATO Headquarters in Brussels in June 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously said:</span> <blockquote>Now what is the message there? The message is that there are no 'knowns.' There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Rumsfeld, a political survivor of the Watergate era whose main goal was to exorcise the ghost of Vietnam forever—restoring American power and prestige in the world—was outraged </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15674303/site/newsweek/">in the fall of 2002</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"> at the very suggestion of a resemblance with Iraq.</span> <blockquote>Vietnam? You think you have to tell me about Vietnam? Of course it won't be Vietnam. We are going to go in, overthrow Saddam, get out. That's it.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Rumsfeld: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/01/15/sproject.irq.inspections/">January 15, 2003</a><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">The fact that the inspectors have not yet come up with new evidence of Iraq's WMD program could be evidence, in and of itself, of Iraq's noncooperation. We do know that Iraq has designed its programs in a way that they can proceed in an environment of inspections and that they are skilled at denial and deception.</blockquote>A month before the unprovoked invasion of Iraq, (February 20, 2003) Rumsfeld was asked by PBS's Jim Lehrer:</span><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Do you expect the invasion, if it comes, to be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">And Rumsfeld responded:</span><blockquote>There is no question but that they would be welcomed. Go back to Afghanistan--the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and the Al Qaeda would not let them do.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">10 days after the launch of the invasion, Secretary Rumsfeld was interviewed on ABC "This Week with George Stephanopoulos", </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/t03302003_t0330sdabcsteph.html">(March 30, 2003)</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">: </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Mr. Stephanopoulos:</span> <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet. . . . None was found. How big of a problem is that? And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/rumsfeld.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/320/rumsfeld.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Sec. Rumsfeld: </span><blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"></span>Not at all. If you think . . . the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. . . .</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Mr. Stephanopoulos:</span> <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Do you think we'll still be fighting in Iraq six months from now?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Sec. Rumsfeld:</span> <blockquote>Oh, goodness, you know, I've never -- we've never had a timetable. We've always said it could be days, weeks, or months and we don't know. And I don't think you need a timetable. What you really need to know is it's going to end and it's going to end with the Iraqi people liberated and that regime will be gone.</blockquote><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030624-secdef0301.html">June 24, 2003</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">:</span><blockquote>I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Responding to a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq who asked him why troops had to dig through scrap metal to armor vehicles, Dec. 8, 2004 (</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fnewshour%2Fbb%2Fmilitary%2Fjuly-dec04%2Farmor_12-9.html">PBS</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">):</span><blockquote>As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156654902754440372006-08-26T22:00:00.000-07:002006-09-01T23:53:26.506-07:00Charles Krauthammer<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/krauthammer_big.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/krauthammer_big.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer cheerleading about Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech, Washington Post, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;contentId=A6177-2002Jan31¬Found=true">(February 1, 2002)</a>:</span><blockquote>Bush is using his war popularity to seek support for more war -- far wider, larger and more risky. . . . what really moves him. . . .<br /><br />Which is why this speech, unlike most State of the Union addresses, will be remembered. It was important. It redefined the war.<br /><br />Until now the war had been about Sept. 11. The campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda is a campaign of revenge and justice. That campaign is not yet over, but the war, the real war, is not about last Sept. 11. It is about preventing the next Sept. 11. . . .<br /><br />The joint resolution Congress passed on Sept. 14 simply authorized the use of force against those who perpetrated Sept. 11. This is seriously shortsighted. . . . .<br /><br />We have serious enemies with bottomless hatred and, soon, the weapons to match. Whether they were involved in Sept. 11 is irrelevant. We are in a race against time. We have to get to them before they get to us.<br /><br />. . . . Which brings us to Iraq. Iraq is what this speech was about. If there was a serious internal debate within the administration over what to do about Iraq, that debate is over. The speech was just short of a declaration of war.<br /><br />It thus addressed the central war question today: After Afghanistan, where do we go from here?. . . . But this is all prologue. Stage Three is overthrowing Saddam Hussein. . . . between this year's State of the Union and next year's, the battle with Iraq will have been joined.<br /><br />That was the unmistakable message of this astonishingly bold address. This is not a president husbanding political capital. This is a president on a mission. We have not seen that in a very long time.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">In the middle of the invasion's offensive, (19 April 3003), Krauthammer wrote in Inside Washington, WUSA-TV:</span><blockquote>The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Fox News' Special Report With Brit Hume, (1 June 04):</span><blockquote>It's the beginning of the end of the bad news. I mean, we're going to have lots of attacks, but the political process is under way.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Time</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.time.com/time/columnist/krauthammer/article/0,9565,1035052,00.html"> (7-March-05)</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">:</span><blockquote>Three Cheers for the Bush Doctrine: History has begun to speak, and it says that America made the right decision to invade Iraq:<br /><br />. . . . The Administration went ahead with this great project knowing it would be hostage to history. History has begun to speak. Elections in Afghanistan, a historic first. Elections in Iraq, a historic first. Free Palestinian elections producing a moderate leadership, two historic firsts. Municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, men only, but still a first. In Egypt, demonstrations for democracy -- unheard of in decades -- prompting the dictator to announce free contested presidential elections, a historic first.<br /><br />. . . . And now, of course, the most romantic flowering of the spirit America went into the region to foster: the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, in which unarmed civilians, Christian and Muslim alike, brought down the puppet government installed by Syria. There is even the beginning of a breeze in Damascus. More than 140 Syrian intellectuals have signed a public statement defying their government by opposing its occupation of Lebanon.</blockquote></span>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156616988778196092006-08-26T11:29:00.000-07:002007-02-04T22:52:28.597-08:00William Kristol<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/kristolpq.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/kristolpq.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">William Kristol, one of the most influential neo-conservative thinkers in Washington and a proponent of what has become known as the Bush Doctrine, is the editor of The Weekly Standard and chairman of The Project for the New American Century.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJWnm_aT40nAY3lZaJGADJlck7Uu2F0OspfShFjUPnlD7zSk_55prHbsQhmFC64LchSBWmI_pBZkhyphenhyphenIixTlEBIYWI5zZHx0TFCyqqNDYiCGI7XhM4zd4RT8O43GmHmfgbvHwZGMA/s1600-h/Kristol-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJWnm_aT40nAY3lZaJGADJlck7Uu2F0OspfShFjUPnlD7zSk_55prHbsQhmFC64LchSBWmI_pBZkhyphenhyphenIixTlEBIYWI5zZHx0TFCyqqNDYiCGI7XhM4zd4RT8O43GmHmfgbvHwZGMA/s200/Kristol-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5027939199631342306" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">He has written that the significance of President George W. Bush's State of the Union address in 2002 (the "axis of evil" speech) is too easily forgotten -- that it was a rare moment, "the creation of a new American foreign policy".<br /><br />On September 11, 2002, as the Bush administration began its sales campaign for the coming war, Kristol suggested that Saddam Hussein could do more harm to the United States than al Qaeda had: <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">we cannot afford to let Saddam Hussein inflict a worse 9/11 on us in the future.</blockquote>On September 15, 2002, Kristol claimed that inspection and containment could not work with Saddam: <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">No one believes the inspections can work.</blockquote>Actually, UN inspectors believed they could work. So, too, did about half of congressional Democrats. They were right. On September 18, 2002, Kristol opined that a war in Iraq <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East.</blockquote>On September 19, 2002, Kristol once again pooh-poohed inspections: <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">We should not fool ourselves by believing that inspections could make any difference at all.</blockquote> During a debate with David Corn on Fox News Channel, after Corn noted that the goal of inspections was to prevent Saddam from reaching "the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons, Kristol exclaimed, <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">He's past that finish line. He's past the finish line.</blockquote>On November 21, 2002, Kristol maintained, <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">. . . we can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/kristol.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/kristol.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The Republicans in the Senate called the likes of William Kristol to testify before their Foreign Relations Committee. </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/2002_hr/shrg207.pdf">What's Next in the War on Terrorism?</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">(7-Feb-02):</span><blockquote>The larger question with respect to Iraq, as with Afghanistan, is what happens after the combat is concluded. [...] And, as in Kabul but also as in the Kurdish and Shi'ite regions of Iraq in 1991, American and alliance forces will be welcomed in Baghdad as liberators. Indeed, reconstructing Iraq may prove to be a less difficult task than the challenge of building a viable state in Afghanistan.<br /><br />The political, strategic and moral rewards would also be even greater. A friendly, free, and oil-producing Iraq would leave Iran isolated and Syria cowed; the Palestinians more willing to negotiate seriously with Israel; and Saudi Arabia with less leverage over policymakers here and in Europe. Removing Saddam Hussein and his henchmen from power presents a genuine opportunity -- one President Bush sees clearly -- to transform the political landscape of the Middle East.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Weekly Standard</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/564ueebn.asp">(April 28, 2003)</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">:</span><blockquote>The United States committed itself to defeating terror around the world. We committed ourselves to reshaping the Middle East, so the region would no longer be a hotbed of terrorism, extremism, anti-Americanism, and weapons of mass destruction. The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably. But these are only two battles. We are only at the end of the beginning in the war on terror and terrorist states.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">On February 20, 2003, Kristol summed up the argument for war against Saddam:</span> <blockquote>He's got weapons of mass destruction. At some point he will use them or give them to a terrorist group to use...Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world....France and Germany don't have the courage to face up to the situation. That's too bad. Most of Europe is with us. And I think we will be respected around the world for helping the people of Iraq to be liberated.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">On March 1, 2003, Kristol dismissed concerns that sectarian conflict might arise following a US invasion of Iraq:</span><blockquote>We talk here about Shiites and Sunnis as if they've never lived together. Most Arab countries have Shiites and Sunnis, and a lot of them live perfectly well together.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">He also said,</span> <blockquote>Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">And Kristol maintained that the war would be a bargain at $100 to $200 billion. The running tab is now nearing half a trillion dollars. On March 5, 2003, Kristol said,</span> <blockquote>I think we'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction and when we liberate the people of Iraq.</blockquote> <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Then on NPR, on </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1215563">(April Fools' Day, 2003)</a>, <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">he uttered the words that Al Franken never gets tired of playing:</span><blockquote>There's been a certain amount of pop sociology in America ... that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156429226327759202006-08-24T07:18:00.000-07:002008-07-05T11:47:23.422-07:00Condoleezza Rice<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Airing July 29, 2001, </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0107/29/le.00.html">CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">:</span><blockquote>I can be certain of this, and the world can be certain of this: Saddam Hussein is on the radar screen for the administration. The administration is working hard with a number of our friends and allies to have a policy that is broad; that does look at the sanctions as something that should be restructured so that we have smart sanctions that go after the regime, not after the Iraqi people; that does look at the role of opposition in creating an environment and a regime in Baghdad that the people of Iraq deserve, rather than the one that they have; and one that looks at use of military force in a more resolute manner, and not just a manner of tit-for-tat with him every day.<br /><br />...let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.<br /><br />This has been a successful period, but obviously we would like to increase pressure on him, and we're going to go about doing that.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/Rice-Fire.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/Rice-Fire.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"></span></blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">In July 2001, the Administration was told that terrorists had explored using airplanes as missiles. </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">And, according to the </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-092701genoa.story">LA Times</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">, on August 6, 2001, the President personally<blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> received a one-and-a-half page briefing advising him that Osama bin Laden was capable of a major strike against the US, and that the plot could include the hijacking of an American airplane.</blockquote></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Nevertheless National Security Advisor told her Press Briefing of </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020516-13.html">May 16, 2002</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">, that</span><blockquote>I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.</blockquote><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/26/national/main523326.shtml">Sept. 26, 2002</a>:<blockquote>There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there's a relationship here.<br /><br />. . . We clearly know that there were in the past and have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al Qaeda going back for actually quite a long time," Rice said. "We know too that several of the (al Qaeda) detainees, in particular some high-ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda in chemical weapons development.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnNZq55iiMaa_1_f4UIwLPZAL_anrsIImms5rRrUKeFHyo-tH6NzQhSNPrhOHlpiLtkHC0ezX4gDjxIlQHixYrIv553GmfX0W8XTG8XnpuK11AXPe8qdLERC7EQd9Y7sKk50KqJA/s1600-h/Rice-08.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnNZq55iiMaa_1_f4UIwLPZAL_anrsIImms5rRrUKeFHyo-tH6NzQhSNPrhOHlpiLtkHC0ezX4gDjxIlQHixYrIv553GmfX0W8XTG8XnpuK11AXPe8qdLERC7EQd9Y7sKk50KqJA/s200/Rice-08.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5219603398932535394" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">On July 3rd, 2008, as Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/04/condoleezza-rice-i-was-pr_n_110876.html">summed up the Bush legacy in Iraq</a>, she saying she was proud of the decision to Invade:</span> <blockquote>Yes, it’s been very, very tough. But I know that great historical events go through difficult phases and often emerge with the world left for the better. And I am proud of the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I am proud of the liberation of 25 million Iraqis.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1165904840300137712006-04-02T22:25:00.000-07:002006-12-11T22:55:31.730-08:00Ted Rall<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Cartoonist and conspiracy-theory book author Ted Rall, April 2, 2003:</span><blockquote>Regardless of their political affiliations, patriotic Iraqis prefer to bear the yoke of Saddam's brutal and corrupt dictatorship than to suffer the humiliation of living in a conquered nation. . . . The thought of infidel troops marching through their cities, past their mosques, patting them down, ordering them around, disgusts them even more than Saddam's torture chambers. </blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156730965972069512006-04-01T19:05:00.000-08:002006-11-07T21:36:31.543-08:00Please Sign Our Guest Book?<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">I am saving this space for the purpose of making my own comments at a later time. In the meantime I didn't want to miss any feedback from readers who were inclined to disclose theirs.</span>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156392731671895152005-03-17T21:09:00.000-08:002007-05-17T09:06:28.214-07:00Paul Wolfowitz<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Promoted to President of the World Bank, March 2005</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/wolfie22.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/wolfie22.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was an example of key planners of the invasion and occupation of Iraq who have been rewarded – not blamed – for their incompetence.<br /><br />Questions following a Policy address to the <a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=1335">Council for Foreign Relations</a> in New York City (January 23, 2003)<br /><br />Question: <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I think, Mr. Wolfowitz, your answer amounts to: "We can't tell you what we have of information, but trust us. It's there." Now, isn't the fundamental principle of a democratic free nation precisely not to trust government? Why should Americans trust their government? We've heard that before in Vietnam, we've heard it many times: "Trust us," and it turned out to be untrustworthy.<br /><br />I don't see how this administration thinks it can build a policy for war, preventive war, that would be accepted by our allies and by American citizens on the basis of "We've got the info; we can't tell you how we got it or where we got it; we got it, trust us." And isn't that a foolish and ultimately self-destructive way for this administration to proceed?</blockquote>Wolfowitz: <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">In some cases, we can tell very clearly where we got information from. In some cases, you would put somebody's life at risk if you told how you got it. That's a fact of life; it's not something you can overcome.<br /><br />I must say I sort of find it astonishing that the issue is whether you can trust the U.S. government. The real issue is, can you trust Saddam Hussein? And it seems to me the record is absolutely clear that you can't. And we're going to have to have some very powerful evidence that he has changed and that we can trust him, because otherwise, we are trusting our security in the hands of a man who makes ricin, who makes anthrax, who makes botulism toxin, who makes aflatoxin, and who has no compunctions whatsoever about consorting with terrorists. Who do you want to trust?</blockquote>Question (Kathleen McCarthy, the Graduate Center, City University of New York):<blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">My question is this: Why is it a much more important immediate short-term goal to disarm Iraq than North Korea, when we know that North Korea also has a very sophisticated arsenal and ties to terrorist groups. Why is supporting and promoting freedom in Iraq more important than promoting freedom in North Korea, when we also know that the administration there is very cruel as well?</blockquote>Wolfowitz: <blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">It's a reasonable question and I hear it a lot . . . . These are different cases, different countries. The North Korean people suffer as much, maybe worse, if it's possible. They're the only candidates in the world for suffering worse than the Iraqi people.<br /><br />But again, it is a different case. We have different partners, different countries to work with. We have got to have a strategy that doesn't just do one problem at a time, take the most important one and wait for everything else. We're trying, in a reasonable way, to focus now where we have the world's entire attention focused, to clean up something that's 12 years old.</blockquote> Wolfowitz, on <a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/t02202003_t0219npr.html">Feb. 19, 2003</a>:<blockquote><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">We're seeing today how much the people of Poland and Central and Eastern Europe appreciate what the United States did to help liberate them from the tyranny of the Soviet Union. I think you're going to see even more of that sentiment in Iraq. There's not going to be the hostility that you described Saturday. There simply won't be.</span></blockquote><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"></span> </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Wolfowitz, testifying before the </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;cdn=entertainment&tm=274&f=11&su=p284.2.420.ip_p532.0.400.ip_p445.92.150.ip_&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/031124fa_fact1_c">House Budget Committee</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"> prior to the Iraq war, Feb. 27, 2003:</span><blockquote>It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">House subcommittee on Iraq testimony (February 28, 2003):<blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years.</blockquote>27-March-03:</span><blockquote>We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Wolfowitz told Vanity Fair in May 2003 that the members of Bush's war cabinet couldn't make up their minds on the reasons for the invasion of Iraq:</span><blockquote>The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but . . . there have always been three fundamental concerns. One was weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Wolfowitz, later embarrassed by the publication of this quote, claimed Vanity Fair misconstrued his remarks; but this quote comes from a transcript that was posted on the Department of Defense web site.<br /><br />Paul Wolfowitz June 4, 2003:</span><blockquote>Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Roger Hedgecock Show (February 6, 2004):</span> <blockquote>This word imminent keeps coming up. The President never said that there was an imminent threat. . . . . Look, intelligence is an uncertain business. As I said a few minutes ago, you don't have the luxury before the fact of basing your decisions on what you may learn later. . . . . I mean stop and think about that hole in which we found Saddam Hussein hiding. He hid in a hole like that for nine months. That's a big enough hole to contain enormous lethal quantities of anthrax or other biological weapons. There could be such stashes still in Iraq. . . . .</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">(</span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F10617F638580C748DDDAA0894DD404482">World Bank Days</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">) March 17, 2005):</span><blockquote>....the importance of leadership and what it consists of: not lecturing and posturing and demanding, but demonstrating that your friends will be protected and taken care of, that your enemies will be punished, and that those who refuse to support you will regret having done so.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1161545679462444312005-02-05T12:33:00.000-08:002006-10-22T20:59:18.476-07:00Jonah Goldberg<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/goldberg.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/goldberg.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Jonah Goldberg, who needs no introduction from those who quench their thirst from swill of the </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200502081153.asp">National Review</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">, proposed this bet with Juan Cole (Informed Comment) on 5-Feb-02:</span><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn't want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it.</blockquote></div>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-9837264329913701142004-09-26T19:00:00.000-07:002007-09-15T19:16:50.730-07:00David Petraeus<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Petraeus wrote more as a cheerleader than as a reporter in the </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49283-2004Sep25.html">Washington Post</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">: Battling for Iraq (Sunday, September 26, 2004):</span><blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYKyPyRIrheZ9glIo3PvZPXT1JdFx_XNK7OfZFy1KpTHViekVtZ2z7DyudFaedmEFNfjJmvR4Kxj_BPAhQj5XzWoRJTjuEsULB0-krKfZ_AQ9b7ucGwv4vXulb6-PU6MED9Qy6-g/s1600-h/Petraeus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYKyPyRIrheZ9glIo3PvZPXT1JdFx_XNK7OfZFy1KpTHViekVtZ2z7DyudFaedmEFNfjJmvR4Kxj_BPAhQj5XzWoRJTjuEsULB0-krKfZ_AQ9b7ucGwv4vXulb6-PU6MED9Qy6-g/s200/Petraeus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110619115359427314" border="0" /></a>18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.<br /><br />...The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq.<br /><br />....there are reasons for optimism. Today approximately 164,000 Iraqi police and soldiers (of which about 100,000 are trained and equipped) and an additional 74,000 facility protection forces are performing a wide variety of security missions. Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished.<br /><br />Most important, Iraqi security forces are in the fight. . . .<br /><br />Six battalions of the Iraqi regular army and the Iraqi Intervention Force are now conducting operations. Two of these battalions, along with the Iraqi commando battalion, the counterterrorist force, two Iraqi National Guard battalions and thousands of policemen recently contributed to successful operations. . . .<br /><br />Iraqi National Guard battalions have also been active in recent months. Some 40 of the 45 existing battalions -- generally all except those in the Fallujah-Ramadi area -- are conducting operations on a daily basis, most alongside coalition forces, but many independently. Progress has also been made in police training. In the past week alone, some 1,100 graduated from the basic policing course and five specialty courses. By early spring, nine academies in Iraq and one in Jordan will be graduating a total of 5,000 police each month from the eight-week course, which stresses patrolling and investigative skills, substantive and procedural legal knowledge, and proper use of force and weaponry, as well as pride in the profession and adherence to the police code of conduct.<br /><br />. . . . despite the sensational attacks, there is no shortage of qualified recruits volunteering to join Iraqi security forces. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpovWRM753g1eWB9JTzOL9nlG6rVGAnrqFDqA68K7MH7CGuqZXHRbW3SNgJcGV2kA4gOHgleNqCr1FomVjniWG67zqbUGK1pP57dFt-EQ55TyKo_s4Jzqq3_N5fuJBKEtidT06og/s1600-h/BushDanger.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpovWRM753g1eWB9JTzOL9nlG6rVGAnrqFDqA68K7MH7CGuqZXHRbW3SNgJcGV2kA4gOHgleNqCr1FomVjniWG67zqbUGK1pP57dFt-EQ55TyKo_s4Jzqq3_N5fuJBKEtidT06og/s200/BushDanger.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110619111064460002" border="0" /></a>In the past couple of months, more than 7,500 Iraqi men have signed up for the army and are preparing to report for basic training to fill out the final nine battalions of the Iraqi regular army. Some 3,500 new police recruits just reported for training in various locations. . . .</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">That was in 2004. . .</span>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156397638929814212004-04-19T22:32:00.000-07:002006-08-27T18:56:41.036-07:00George Tenet<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Winner, Presidential Medal of Freedom.</span><br /><br /><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/tenet.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/tenet.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">As CIA Director, Tenet was responsible for gathering information on Iraq and the potential threat posted by Saddam Hussein. According to author Bob Woodward, Tenet told President Bush before the war that there was a “slam dunk case” that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. Tenet remained publicly silent while the Bush administration made pre-war statements on Iraq’s supposed nuclear program and ties to al Qaeda that were contrary to the CIA’s judgments. Tenet issued a statement in July 2003, drafted by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, taking responsibility for Bush’s false statements in his State of the Union address.</span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Tenet voluntarily resigned from the administration on June 3, 2004. He was later awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. </span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/18/woodward.book/">CNN</a>, (19 April-04):<blockquote>It’s a slam dunk case.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156394679472103952003-09-22T21:42:00.000-07:002007-02-26T20:17:02.792-08:00Richard Perle<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/perle.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/perle.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Richard Perle, A.K.A., “Prince of Darkness,” was the chairman of Defense Policy Board during the run-up to the Iraq war. He suggested Iraq had a hand in 9-11. In 1996, he authored “Clean Break,” a paper that was co-signed by Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others that argued for regime change in Iraq. </span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Shortly after the war began, Perle resigned from the Board because he came under fire for having relationships with businesses that stood to profit from the war.</span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Currently, Perle is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he specializes in national security and defense issues. He has been investigated for ethical violations concerning war profiteering and other conflicts of interest.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">In the </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2002/World-Will-Know-Truth16dec02.htm">New Statesman</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"> on December 16th, 2002 John Pilger, one of the most respected journalists in Britain, captured Perle's prophecy of Bush's grand idea:</span> <blockquote>This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq . . . this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just Let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war . . . our children will sing great songs about us years from now.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">In February 2003 when Operation Iraqi Freedom was less than a month away, he told David Rose,</span><blockquote>Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform. It won't be Westminster overnight, but the great democracies of the world didn't achieve the full, rich structure of democratic governance overnight. The Iraqis have a decent chance of succeeding.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Six months later, after Bush's 'mission' was 'accomplished', at in his address at the </span><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.aei.org/events/contentID.20031003144313426/default.asp">AEI Luncheon Keynote</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"> (Monday, September 22, 2003):</span><blockquote>And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they’ve been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Three years later, in October 2006, under the shadows of a looming Democratic election victory, Perle experienced bitter aftertaste in talking with David Rose:</span><blockquote>The levels of brutality that we've seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity . . .<br /><br />I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.'<br /><br />. . . Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156394012751141712003-07-22T21:32:00.000-07:002006-08-27T18:58:32.943-07:00Stephen Hadley<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51); font-weight: bold;">Promoted to National Security Advisor, January 26, 2005</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/Hadley.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/Hadley.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">As then-Deputy National Security Advisor, Hadley disregarded memos from the CIA and a personal phone call from Director George Tenet warning that references to Iraq’s pursuit of uranium be dropped from Bush’s speeches. The false information ended up in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"></span><br /><a style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030722-12.html">Press Briefing on Iraq WMD and SOTU Speech</a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">, 22-July-03:</span><blockquote>I should have recalled at the time of the State of the Union speech that there was controversy associated with the uranium issue. … And it is now clear to me that I failed in that responsibility in connection with the inclusion of these 16 words in the speech that he gave on the 28th of January.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-76780638980168886092003-05-30T19:55:00.000-07:002007-10-01T19:56:42.285-07:00Tom Friedman<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">On the Charlie Rose (for a whole hour)</span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">30-May-2003</span>:<blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltNwX2dEXxPqzsYSQbl5-W1_s1USbBd5SrH1RuASDAHdBXSYUx4zsKFLn_9FMtgnLipjBO12P_1y773A1waf-mq3Qk1Vc4nRKVndZbQ9L8ZESX84l8mQmE-lYPsYKgvbZCPfDLQ/s1600-h/thomasfriedman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltNwX2dEXxPqzsYSQbl5-W1_s1USbBd5SrH1RuASDAHdBXSYUx4zsKFLn_9FMtgnLipjBO12P_1y773A1waf-mq3Qk1Vc4nRKVndZbQ9L8ZESX84l8mQmE-lYPsYKgvbZCPfDLQ/s200/thomasfriedman.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5116567287013740322" border="0" /></a>I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.<br /><br />...We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big state right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.<br /><br />...What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?" You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck. On. This.<br /><br />Okay.<br /><br />That, Charlie, was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1156397145338932402003-04-23T22:23:00.000-07:002006-08-27T19:02:30.396-07:00Andrew Natsios<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/1600/natsios.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1383/527/200/natsios.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Andrew Natsios, then the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, went on Nightline and claimed that the U.S. contribution to the rebuilding of Iraq would be just $1.7 billion. When it became quickly apparent that Natsios’ prediction would fall woefully short of reality, the government came under fire for scrubbing his comments from the USAID Web site.</span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Natsios stepped down as the head of USAID in January and is currently teaching.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/02/ode-to-natsios/">Nightline</a>, (23-Apr-03):<blockquote>The American part of this will be $1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this. Any more are . . . outlandish figures I’ve seen, I have to say, there’s a little bit of hoopla involved in this.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1165905522763698252003-04-21T22:37:00.000-07:002006-12-11T22:54:13.160-08:00Eric Alterman<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Eric Alterman in the April 21, 2003, issue of the Nation:</span><blockquote>Is Wolfowitz really so ignorant of history as to believe the Iraqis would welcome us as 'their hoped-for liberators'?</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1165905390042459072003-04-17T22:34:00.000-07:002006-12-11T22:54:42.226-08:00Edward Said<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Edward Said in the April 17, 2003, London Review of Books:</span><blockquote>Al-Jazeera has had reporters inside Mosul, Baghdad and Nasiriya...and they have presented a much more detailed, more realistic account of what has befallen Baghdad and Basra, as well as showing the resistance and anger of the Iraqi population, dismissed by Western propaganda as a sullen bunch waiting to throw flowers at Clint Eastwood lookalikes. . . . The idea that Iraq's population would have welcomed American forces entering the country after a terrifying aerial bombardment was always utterly implausible.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-10258775440255528542003-04-10T07:43:00.000-07:002008-05-01T08:07:31.667-07:00Joe Scarborough<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTO7R91R1tn987iu_a4vmIbeSUtpoeS3ii4glP4ACtkVLzog9pCKAqXQozg9JmahuDg8129n7KV8hmI7IbWTq_L8B15-smNSBewPLTyYobzQhoFObWw8WKJX4vnqVW2rrWPJ_0fg/s1600-h/Mo-Joe.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTO7R91R1tn987iu_a4vmIbeSUtpoeS3ii4glP4ACtkVLzog9pCKAqXQozg9JmahuDg8129n7KV8hmI7IbWTq_L8B15-smNSBewPLTyYobzQhoFObWw8WKJX4vnqVW2rrWPJ_0fg/s200/Mo-Joe.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195425961317564386" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(102, 255, 255);">Joe Scarborough has been the host of <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/">MSNBC's Morning Joe</a> since July, 2007. He had publicly supported George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Previously, Scarborough captured the élan of those heady days so long ago when the Iraq war smelled like victory to the mightiest minds of our political discourse. On April 10, 2003, the day after the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Firdos Square, Scarborough remarked: </span><blockquote>I'm waiting to hear the words, 'I was wrong,' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types. . . . Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Tom Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-83282388901250132582003-04-09T21:05:00.000-07:002007-08-13T21:38:05.157-07:00Michael O'Hanlon<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuoKBsiMzpSiF7emYLbocceeRd1HJS2kJcVv8hpWHhG5uUY2UWanGXYBO-j745bYtd4m3FOog2gEiqYDGWau5QmIg3OLeDwWC163XYffgU1CHfzBLAYHp97_Qpf4lJ5XPV-yGtIA/s1600-h/ohanlon-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuoKBsiMzpSiF7emYLbocceeRd1HJS2kJcVv8hpWHhG5uUY2UWanGXYBO-j745bYtd4m3FOog2gEiqYDGWau5QmIg3OLeDwWC163XYffgU1CHfzBLAYHp97_Qpf4lJ5XPV-yGtIA/s200/ohanlon-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5095436569582408258" border="0" /></a><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Michael O'Hanlon is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Letter Signatory for the Project for the New American Century, Member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations and a Former Analyst for the Institute for Defense Analysis. Although frequently posing as a critic of the War in Iraq, O'Hanlon has been among its most promient rosy-eyed cheerleaders. On April 9, 2003, in an essay Hanlon wrote:</span><blockquote>Three weeks into the war, with the conflict's outcome increasingly clear, it is a good time to ask if General Myers was right. Will war colleges around the world be teaching the basic coalition strategy to their students decades from now, or will the conflict be seen as a case in which overwhelming military capability prevailed over a mediocre army from a mid-sized developing country?</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Six months after the invasion (September 2003) O'Hanlon wrote:</span><blockquote>How can we really determine if the Iraq mission is going well? . . . To convince a skeptical public about progress in Iraq, the Bush administration would do well to provide more systematic information on all of these and other measurable metrics routinely -- even when certain trends do not support the story it wants to sell.<br /><br />The administration should want to do this, because on balance the Iraq mission is going fairly well . . . But most indicators are now favorable in Iraq . . . . Around Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, and other parts of the northern "Sunni triangle," for example, former regime loyalists have been sufficiently weakened that they need reinforcements from other parts of Iraq to continue many of their efforts. Most Baathists from the famous "deck of cards" are now off the street; many second tier loyalists of the former regime are also being arrested or killed on a daily basis. . . . In these counterinsurgency operations, American troops are following much better practices than they did in Vietnam . . . . Coalition forces and other parties were slow at times to anticipate such tactics, resulting in excessive vulnerability to the kinds of truck bombings witnessed in August and the kinds of assassination attempts that just took the life of a member of the Governing Council, Akila al-Hashimi. But these mistakes are being corrected, and future such attacks are unlikely to be as devastating.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">And at <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/30/media-ohanlon-pollack/">Brookings</a>, 9/30/03]:</span><blockquote>But the Iraqis we met were nonetheless grateful for the defeat of Saddam and passionate about their country’s future. Their enthusiasm, and their desire to work together with U.S. and other coalition forces, warmed the heart of this former Peace Corps volunteer. Maybe that is why, on balance, I couldn’t help but leave the country with a real, if guarded and cautious, feeling of optimism.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">O'Hanlon testified in the House Armed Services Committee in October of 2003,</span><blockquote>In my judgment the administration is basically correct that the overall effort in Iraq is succeeding. By the standards of counterinsurgency warfare, most factors, though admittedly not all, appear to be working to our advantage. While one would be mistaken to assume rapid or easy victory, Mr. Rumsfeld's leaked memo last week probably had it about right when he described the war as a "long, hard slog" that we are nonetheless quite likely to win. . . . That said, on the prognosis of Iraq's future, the Bush administration is at least partly and perhaps even mostly right. Negative headlines need to be quickly countered with good news, of which there is an abundance. . . Most of Iraq is now generally stable . . . Things are getting gradually better even as we progress towards an exit strategy that could further diffuse extremist sentiment.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">One year after Bush's invasion, O'Hanlon on March 19, 2004:</span><blockquote>At that pace, one might think the war should be won by summer. . . .Overall, the glass in Iraq is probably about three-fifths full. Considering the growing strength of Iraqi security services and the fact that $18 billion in American money (as well as a few billion more from other foreign donors) is beginning to flow into Iraq, it is likely to get somewhat fuller soon.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Even as O'Hanlon began expressing increasing concerns about instability in Iraq, it was almost always tempered with rosy overall assessments of the occupation, such as this, from May 16, 2004:</span><blockquote>While the overall situation is disconcerting, there is still hope -- especially if the standard for success is defined realistically as an absence of civil war, a gradually improving economy, and slowly declining rates of political and criminal violence. The scheduled transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi caretaker government on June 30 may at least begin to defuse the growing anti-American anger that is helping fuel the insurgency. And most American assistance, tied up in bureaucratic red tape until now, should begin to jump-start Iraq's economy in the coming months, with a likely beneficial effect on security as well.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Fast forward to 2007: in a July 30, 2007 op-ed piece in the New York Times O'Hanlon and co-author Kenneth M. Pollack, just back from eight days in Iraq, found progress being made.</span><blockquote>As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.</blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/30/brookings/">Source</a></span></div>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1165904722075886682003-04-01T22:24:00.000-08:002006-12-11T22:56:09.856-08:00James K. Galbraith<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">James K. Galbraith on the American Prospect website, April 1, 2003:</span><blockquote>If history is a guide, you cannot subdue a large and hostile city except by destroying it completely. Short of massacre, we will not inherit a pacified Iraq. . . . To support 'the groundwork' for this effort is to support a holocaust, quite soon, against Iraqi civilians and also against the troops on both sides. That is what victory means.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1165904592196481452003-03-31T22:19:00.000-08:002006-12-11T22:56:47.026-08:00"Old Europe"<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Der Spiegel, March 31, 2003:</span><br /><br />Gruesome days for the German foreign minister: Every morning at nine, [Joschka Fischer's] staff briefs him on the situation in Iraq in the ministry's underground situation room. His worst fears are coming true: The U.S. military appears to be stuck in its tracks in the desert, and civilian casualties are multiplying. It has never been so painful to have been in the right, murmurs the foreign minister, with a worried look on his face. . . . </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">President Chirac accuses the Americans of having made both a strategic and a political mistake:</span> <blockquote>They thought they would be greeted as liberators and that the regime would collapse like a house of cards. But they underestimated Iraqi patriotism. They would have been better off listening to us.</blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1165904252079086992003-03-30T22:15:00.000-08:002006-12-11T22:58:51.223-08:00Peter Arnett<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">Peter Arnett on Iraqi state television, March 30, 2003:</span><blockquote>The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. . . . Clearly the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces. And I personally do not understand how that happened, because I've been here many times and in my commentaries on television I would tell the Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces. . . . But me, and others who felt the same way, were not listened to by the Bush administration. </blockquote>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33225041.post-1165904087251386902003-03-30T22:12:00.000-08:002006-12-11T22:59:34.483-08:00James Webb<span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">James Webb, in the New York Times, March 30, 2003, You've got your war novelist, phoning it in from his experiences in Vietnam, 30 years ago:</span><blockquote>Visions of cheering throngs welcoming them as liberators have vanished in the wake of a bloody engagement whose full casualties are still unknown. . . . Welcome to hell. Many of us lived it in another era. And don't expect it to get any better for a while.</blockquote><span style="color: rgb(51, 255, 51);">At the time of this posting, of course, it's Senator-Elect Webb.</span>Vigilantehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07640246609540057997noreply@blogger.com