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Our goal in Iraq is clear and it's unchanging. —Bush, 10/20/06
But here are just a few of his earlier statements on Iraq. "Our goal is —to defeat terror," —to have a lasting peace," —a swift transition," —to help Iraqi security forces," —to help build a more tolerant and hopeful society," and so on. More recently, he's boiled it down to "Our goal is victory." Who could argue?
And, there have been other key goals, —to eliminate the WMD, —to oust Saddam, and later, —to defeat Al Qaeda in Anbar province (it wasn't even there when the war started).
But closer analysis shows he has three goals that have not changed:
1. A unified Iraq government
2. with a western democracy
3. that is friendly to the US.
The problem now is that all three of these key goals are slipping out of reach. Losing the second goal is a tragedy for Iraq and disappointment for the US. Losing #1 and #3 could be a disaster for the US.
Bush cannot stand to lose on all three, but the problem for America is all three may now be impossible to achieve—even with the best leadership. And we are still stuck with the team that had 85% support of the Iraqis and in three years turned it into a 60% majority favoring attacks on our troops. There is no way this axis of incompetence, Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush, is going to pull this one out of the fire.
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zFact:The Iraq war was a mistake—even Bill O'Reilly has figured it out.
zFact:The new excuse for supporting Bush: "Ok, but now that we're in, we've got to finish the job."
zFact:Letting the neocons "finish the job" makes no sense.
Suppose your gardener pulls up one big weed and then wrecks your garden. He says it's a hard job, but he'll win unless you cut and run, then the garden will be ruined. What do you do? If you're Bill O'Reilly, you'd probably say "Got to stay the course, get on with it." But, let's have a look at our gardener's track record.
zFact:Mistake 1: starting the war with no WMD and no Al Qaeda in Iraq.
zFact:Mistake 2: not planning what to do after taking Baghdad.
They were so sure the Iraqi's would just thank us and form a pro-US democracy on their own that Rumsfeld would not allow such planning and threw out the State Deptartment plan.
zFact:Mistake 3: not having any extra troops in case things did not go perfectly.
It's not like they weren't told by the Military and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
zFact:Mistake 4: disbanding the entire Iraqi army.
The army took the weapons we left unguarded and fueled the insurgency. We are now trying to get them back in the army and negotiate with them.
zFact:Mistake 5: getting rid of the whole government.
It is now comprised mainly of Shi'ite extremist to their militias. Those we threw out were mainly Baathists just because they had to be. Most of them hated Saddam.
....
zFact:Our latest mistake: Sectarian elections and Maliki.
The three Shi'ite parties and Maliki all have close ties to Iran. Every time the US has taken a step against the anti-US Muqtada al Sadr, Maliki has intervened on his behalf. Basically he is using us to fight the Sunnis on behalf of the Shi'ite extremists backed by Iran.
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What is to be done? Fire Rumsfeld and Muzzle Cheney.
They are the two "gardeners" who have botched the job over and over again. It is foolish to try to specify a strategy from the outside, But we know what to do--replace those in charge. At this point there is only one way to apply pressure--vote against those who still support Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Only if they suffer a drastic loss of support will they look outside for help. There are many people, both Republicans and Democrats who are far more competent than this lot.
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Bill O'Reilly on the David Letterman Show
Letterman: We went over there because there were Weapons of Mass Destruction -
O'Reilly: That's true.
Letterman: But there were no Weapsons of Mass Destruction.
O'Reilly: That's right.
...
O'Reilly: The reason to go into Iraq was WMDS with a mad dictator, okay? That was the reason. It was wrong. If we could go back in a time machine, we wouldn't do it. Alright?
...
Letterman: It's all about oil, you just answered the question.
O'Reilly: Absolutely it's about oil. The whole world is about oil.
...
O'Reilly: We made a mistake on WMDs. That is true.
...
O'Reilly: The mistake cannot be corrected. What can happen is, and I pray it is happening, is that we stabilize that situation over there so that it becomes a functioning democracy. It might not happen. But the intent was noble - to make it a democracy, to make Afghanistan a democracy.
O'Reilly has lots of bluster, but he's the soft-headed type that thinks "noble intentions" are enough.
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http://zfacts.com/p/546.html | 01/18/12 07:19 GMT
Modified: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:13:04 GMT
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