Bush spoke yesterday at Bragg to the soldiers stationed there and to the rest of the world. A few things caught my eye while reading through the transcript. I wish I could have seen the live video of it because he used some rather large words… as we all know he hasn’t quite mastered the spoken english language.
“The United Nations is in Iraq to help Iraqis write a constitution and conduct their next elections.”
I checked it out and this is largely true (a good thing) check out the linkage. I would hope that our only role there is to provide the security so that their country can move forward till such time they can run the whole show. We need to be making as few decisions as possible and advising when it is needed rather than trying to force them one direction or another.
“Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don’t you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever — when we are in fact working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters — the sober judgment of our military leaders.”
This whole chunk is quite a doozy. Many American commanders stationed along the border with Syria have been authorized to provide the brutal honest truth. The truth: They need more help. A realignment could be the solution to our problems but a short term influx of troops to meet the shortfall of the Iraqi forces could be a better option. We know that we want to hand over power in totality to them at some day and never have another nation like S. Korea where we are forced to provide a defense force 50 years after the last major battles. There is a break point with the number of forces in that country; if the Iraqi forces do not grow fast enough we may not be able to beat the growing insurgency. In other words, our defense needs to grow faster than their offense. Every day that we spend in that country we are providing an effective training ground for terrorists. They are becoming more proficient in urban warfare as every day passes. Short term (yes SHORT TERM) help may be needed by “coalition” (read: American) forces so that we can get out of there as quickly as possible.
Rummy tried to play with the English language yesterday and tried to warp something said by Cheney. He said that the comment “last throes” could mean as long as 6-10 years. Hmm… we’ve been there two years already and the last throes could be 3-5x as long? Sorry Dick, you don’t have the command of the english language that President Clinton did. That guy could effectively argue the definition of “is”.
Tags: Bush, Clinton, Iraq, military, rain, terror, video, war, work
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