GOP Mavericks Belittle White House For Mistakes In Iraq

[NATO AIR]

some call it hand-wringing, some call it determined analysis. what do you all think?

http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2004/0920/dailyUpdate.html?s=ent2

World > Terrorism & Security
posted September 20, 2004, updated 10:30 a.m.

Bush, Blair take hits over Iraq

Key GOP senators criticize handling of war, while leaked memos put British PM on defensive.

by Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Senior coalition partners US President George W. Bush, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair found themselves facing harsh criticism this past weekend over their handling of the situation in Iraq. Some of the toughest comments about Mr. Bush came from members of his own Republican party, including Senators John McCain of Arizona and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.
Mr. Blair, meanwhile, was facing yet another firestorm after the Daily Telegraph published a leaked memo from 2002 that showed Blair was primarily interested in regime change in Iraq, not in finding weapons of mass destruction, and that he had been warned that the US had no plan for what to do after it overthrew Saddam Hussein.

Maybe our plan wasn't the best, but that's why we'll do much better next time when we have to overturn a dangerous regime (Iran, Syria, Sudan). Arguing over the past at this point is pointless unless you're gonna point out crucial mistakes that can be corrected right now or flaws in strategy that can be adjusted right now.

Monday's International Herald Tribune reports that four Republican senators appeared on US news shows Sunday and criticized the administration performance in Iraq. Sen. Hagel of Nebraska told CBS that he "doesn't think we are winning" and that "we're in trouble, we're in deep trouble in Iraq," echoing comments he had made last week.

On ABC Sen. Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana, chairman of the foreign relations committee, likewise repeating comments he had made last week, denounced the White House's "incompetence" in its handling of reconstruction efforts. Sen. McCain on Fox and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina on CNN, while saying they still supported the president, took the administration to task for allowing insurgents to gain the upper hand, and said that many more troops were needed in Iraq if elections in January were to be held successfully in January.

Who are you, John Kerry? Hey, and if we need that many more troops, are you gonna promise the president all the money he needs to increase the army significantly without forcing him to cut other programs you have a vendetta against?

"I would never have allowed the sanctuaries [many areas controled by insurgents] to start with," McCain said on Fox. "And allowing those sanctuaries has contributed significantly to the difficulties that we're facing, which are very, very significant. We're not going to have those national elections until we get rid of the sanctuaries," he said, "or at least they're not
going to be effective."

You're not the president! Who cares what YOU would do? Oh, by the way, Sen. McCain, the military just announced an ambitious plan to take the sanctuaries in December with the Iraqi army.

But Sen. Jon Kyl (R) of Arizona, also appearing on CBS, said that "hand-wringing" would not win the war. "War is tough, and there are casualties. And just before victory, sometimes, it gets most violent," said Mr. Kyl, chairman of the subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security of the Judiciary Committee. But Mr. Hagel, who appeared on the same CBS program, disagreed that the US was "anywhere near victory."

"I don't think we're winning. In all due respect to my friend Jon Kyl, the term 'hand-wringing' is a little misplaced here," Hagel said. "The fact is, a crisp, sharp analysis of our policies are required. We didn't do that in Vietnam, and we saw 11 years of casualties mount to the point where we finally lost. The fact is, we're in trouble. We're in deep trouble in Iraq," said Hagel, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees.

Okay, I respect you guys for being mavericks, and that is good 99.9% of the time, but when you start reading straight from John Kerry's talking points, I get worried. Who do you want to win anyway?

President Bush, meanwhile, maintained an optimistic view of the situation in Iraq, saying that "he was pleased with the progress in Iraq," and downplayed a National Intelligence Estimate that painted a bleak future for Iraq. And Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who will speak to the United Nations in Tuesday, said his interim government was determined "to stick to the timetable of the elections," which are due by Jan. 31.
"January next, I think, is going to be a major blow to terrorists and insurgents," said Allawi, who spoke with reporters after a meeting with British leader Tony Blair in London. "We are adamant that democracy is going to prevail, is going to win in Iraq."
Blair, meanwhile, is dealing with a new crisis caused by leaked secret memos. The memos warned the prime minister a year before the invasion of Iraq of the risk that it could slide into post-war chaos. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw actually told Blair that post war Iraq was "liable to be the source of major problems."
"There seems to be a larger hole in this than anything," wrote Straw in the letter, one of several documents marked "secret" which the Daily Telegraph said it had seen. Straw pointed out that most US assessments were pushing for the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime as a way to eliminate Iraq's quest for weapons of mass destruction. "But no one has satisfactorily answered how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better," Straw wrote, according to the Daily Telegraph. "Iraq has no history of democracy so no one has this habit or experience."
The other document, sent to Blair by foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning after a trip to Washington in March 2002, stated: "I think there is a real risk that the (Bush) administration underestimates the difficulties. They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean they will necessarily avoid it," Mr. Manning wrote. A third memo, from the Britain's Cabinet Office's overseas and defense secretariat, said rebuilding Iraq after the overthrow of Hussein would take many years and would require "a considerable international effort."
The Daily Times of Pakistan reports the leaked papers reveal that British officials believed that the main reason President Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq was "to complete his father's [President George H.W. Bush] 'unfinished business.' "

'Even the best survey of Iraq’s WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) program will not show much advance in recent years,' the Telegraph quoted a leaked confidential memo by a senior Foreign Office official as saying in March 2002. 'Military operations need clear and compelling military objectives. For Iraq "regime change" does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge match between Bush and Saddam (Hussein).'
Other documents in the Telegraph article show that Blair was primarily interested in regime change, rather than finding weapons of mass destruction, and so the British goverment had to sell the country on the idea that Iraq needed to be invaded with a plan that "had to be clever and [for which] failure was not an option."
The Guardian reports that the British Foreign Office Sunday acknowledged that the documents were genuine, but were "only a snapshot of thinking at a particular time." Voice of America reports Blair refuted the charge that the US-led coalition did not plan properly for post-invasion Iraq, and said insurgents were responsible for post-war problems.

And Blair said Sunday that Straw didn't tell him that war could push Iraq into chaos.

"He didn't do anything of the sort. What he warned of is this: that it is important not to replace one dictator, Saddam Hussein, by another dictator," Mr Blair told reporters. "The idea that we didn't have a plan for afterwards is simply not correct. We did, but there are people in Iraq who are determined to stop us," he said on the sidelines of talks on the Northern Irish peace process at Leeds Castle, south-east England.
Finally, United Press International reported last week that conversations with five intelligence chiefs in five major European countries, each with units in Iraq, show that they also believe Iraq is headed towards civil war, and that the US and Britain need 200,000 troops at a minimum to deal with the insurgency, which they believe has increased from 5000 to more than 20,000 members and is still growing.

IMO, I am glad Blair was for regime change, regardless of WMD, he has always been the humanitarian PM, concerned for the welfare of the Iraqi people under the evil of oppression, just as he has used military action to help Kosovo, Sierra Leonne, East Timor and Afghanistan.

and hey, i'm tired of this argument over the rationale about Iraq. Even w/o WMD, we needed to make good on the terrible mistake we made back in 91. We left the Iraqi people under the control of a brutal madman, and we returned to fix our mistake by liberating them and taking care of Saddam's regime. What the hell is wrong with that? I think that's quite honorable and pretty damn smart.

 

[Flying Duck]

I call it armchair quarterbacking.

I also have my own opinions as to what could have been done differently/better. (Opinions are like.....) All of these people are entitled to their opinions. However, since it's impossible to know what the outcome of any of these different opinions is, this does not prove the President was/is right or wrong.