JK: Bush’s Iraqi Assurance Is A Gigantic Blunder
John Kerry is in Iowa today. AP reporter Mike Glover reported the following comments made by JK today in response to reports about Bush’s phone call with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
<!IOWA CITY, Iowa—President Bush committed “a gigantic blunder” by giving top Iraqi officials assurances that American forces would remain indefinitely in that war-torn country, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said Tuesday.
Kerry argued that Bush should have pressured Iraqi leaders to set aside their differences and begin making progress toward assuming responsibility for security, a move that could lead to a lowering of U.S. troop levels.
“The absence of pressure I find is an enormous blunder that gives the Iraqi politicians a free pass to continue the status quo that most Americans understand is a failure, that’s not working,” Kerry said. “I’m amazed by it.”
Kerry, speaking with reporters after appearing at a campaign event with Iowa gubernatorial candidate Chet Culver, was reacting to a 15-minute telephone call Bush had Monday with the Iraqi prime minister. Bush called Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to quell rumors that the United States planned to set a deadline for Iraqis to assume security responsibilities. In his conversation, Bush said there was no deadline and that American troops would remain as long as they were needed.
Bush’s comments can be compared to his “bring it on” challenge to terrorists, Kerry said.
“I think the president committed a gigantic blunder of the proportion of ‘Bring it on,’ ” said Kerry. “When he has a conversation with the prime minister of Iraq and he climbs out and he says that he told him he doesn’t have to worry, we’re going to be there as long as it take, you’ve given a message that they can take as long as they want.”
Political infighting has slowed the Iraqi effort to establish a credible government, and the United States should begin applying pressure rather than accepting delays, said Kerry.
“His message should have been that not one American is going to be sacrificed because your politicians are unwilling to compromise,” said Kerry. “You have to resolve your differences or we will consider changing course if you are unwilling to do that, to put pressure on them.”
Kerry said even Republicans such as Sens. John Warner and Chuck Hagel are calling for a new strategy in Iraq, and Bush needs to get that message.
27 Comments
New comments for this entry are closed.
Excellent! Keep up the good work, Sen. Kerry, and especially the tough talk in the field.
Americans all know how bad a fix we’re in thanks to the second Bush administration’s adventures in foreign wars, even the ones who’d rather not admit that they know it.
So we the people—all of us, not just some of us—are not going to put up with the same old mealy-mouthed excuses and the same old worn-out platitudes from those in power any more.
You’re doing this country a true service with the no-fear, no-lies stance that you’re taking now, sir, and we encourage you to stay on the offensive in the coming weeks and months. Keep leading the charge.
full speed ahead and damn the defeatoes,
Otter
We invaded a country that didn’t pose much threat to us under false pretenses and Bush doesn’t mind keeping our boys and girls to die in an unnecessary war. We’re in Iraq just to avenge his dad, not because of wmd’s or because Saddam was a threat. I heard that even George Bush the Father was angry that his son took us into Iraq but doesn’t talk about it publicly.
How would George Bush Junior feel like it if we sent his two beer-drinking daughters to Iraq?
Andrew Sullivan heard some interesting rumors as to why Maliki would have made such an anxious call in the first place:
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/10/bush_and_maliki.html#trackback
The rumors were, apparently, about the Bush administration debating if some kind of military coup might be better able to stabilize Iraq. I cannot substantiate them but Maliki’s call to Bush obviously suggests he’s worried that the U.S. might try to pull the plug on him. There are also rumors of new contacts between Bush and Allawi. Is something afoot?
So is that freedom on the march about to walk off a cliff? I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.
So, Bush is going to keep us bogged down in Iraq for as long as ‘it’ takes, even if he doesn’t know what ‘it’ is. Incredible. Our kids are dying and we’re spending billions of dollars and North Korea is ready to test another nuke and we can’t defend ourselves from NK or Iran or whoever we tick off next, because we’re stuck in the middle of another country’s civil war.
But somehow that’s OK, because Bush is ‘staying the course’.
Man, I just don’t understand how anyone can still believe Bush is acting in the best interest of either the US or Iraq. We have GOT to take back congress and hold the administration accountable. The whole ‘stay the course’ business is insane when no one even knows what the course is. AND Bush signed the damned torture bill today. So our troops stuck for some indeterminate time in Bush’s God-forsaken war are even less safe.
Sorry, I’m ranting. Thank you, Senator Kerry. At least we have some hope as long as you’re fighting for us. If it weren’t for that, well, I really don’t know. So, just thanks.
He may be a respectable war veteran and I believed he served honorably in Vietnam but John Kerry is simply wrong on Iraq. We can’t just leave Iraq like that. It’s not that simple. War is tough. Most Americans are now against the Iraq war but it has nothing to do with morality. The public is simply against it because currently we’re not winning it. If Iraq was stabilizing and there was much less violence, then support for the war would go through the roof. We need to put even more troops in Iraq if necessary to help the Iraqi forces and defeat the insurgents. Nobody asked “When will our troops come home from Europe?” after we suffered heavy casualties on the beaches of Normandy.
Wayne, The thing is, John Kerry isn’t talking about “just leaving Iraq like that.” He’s talking about putting pressure on Iraqi leaders to get their act together. I don’t see what the point is of leaving our troops as targets in a shooting gallery while Iraqis fail to see to their own security. The war “Iraq for Sale” makes me wonder whether the point is just to allow contracting corporations to keep sucking money out of our treasury. It’s very clear that the clowns currently in charge of our so-called Iraq policy aren’t serious about winning—if they were, they’d *do* something about it. And that’s what John Kerry is advocating: with nearly 3,000 Americans dead and thousands more wounded, it’s long past time to get a serious policy.
I agree that leaving Iraq will create tremendous problems.
However, our presence in Iraq is what is driving many of the problems. The longer we are in Iraq, the more people will join or support the insurgency and the more people who will be radicalized.
The longer we are in Iraq, the stornger al Qaeda becomes. If that wasn’t bad enough, our presence also in Iraq is also strengthening Iran’s influence in the middle east.
George Bush left us with a situation where the United States is seriously harmed regardless of what we do. Every choice is bad, but the longer we postpone finding a way out the worse the situation will be. Plus, the sooner we get out, the less American lives will be lost there.
Wayne:
Iraq is not Europe and this is not WWII. We are not trying to liberate the continent of Europe from armies that total over 600,000 troops. We won the war in Iraq, remember ‘Mission Accomplished’? What we can’t do, what the military experts say we can’t do, is win a civil war for another people. History teaches us that this is not possible.
We can’t stabilize Iraq without the consent of the Iraqi people. It won’t work and we are wasting human lives in this senseless pursuit. Our presence there is generating more support for the insurgency and for the violence. We can’t win this war and I agree with Sen. Kerry that it is immoral to leave our troops in that sort of situation. The Iraqis have to solve this civil war, it can’t be decided for them. It won’t work and it never has worked in human history. It only engenders more death, suffering and needless loss of treasury.
A few points for you to ponder, Wayne:
“We can’t just leave Iraq like that.” Like what, exactly?
We can’t just wave our hands and mumble some magic words and have the whole mess go poof like it never happened, no. As Colin Powell pointed out way back when, the Pottery Barn rule applies here as elsewhere: you break it, you buy it. And we for darn sure broke it, so now we own it.
And you’re right, it’s not that simple. In fact, it’s complicated as hell. There is no way for us to withdraw now and have peace with honor. There never was. After all, we’re the ones that rushed to war without honor in the first place.
“Most Americans are now against the Iraq war but it has nothing to do with morality.” Are you saying that it’s moral to be for this war, but immoral to be against it? That’s an awful hard to case to make, Wayne, especially in light of the egregiously immoral ways in which this war was conceived and executed under so many false and fraudulent pretenses.
“The public is simply against it because currently we’re not winning it.” No, we’re not winning it. We never have been, not since day one. And there’s no way we can or ever could be winning it. Lose-lose is the best and the only choice we’ve got in Iraq now, which is no damn choice at all. And even the most toe-the-line military leaders have been coming forward to admit as much in recent months.
“If Iraq was stabilizing and there was much less violence, then support for the war would go through the roof.” And if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a bicycle. Back in the early stages of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, support for this immoral war actually was through the roof; but even back then, the situation there was rapidly destabilizing and violence was increasing exponentially. And it’s all been a long, painful downhill slide from there.
“We need to put even more troops in Iraq if necessary to help the Iraqi forces and defeat the insurgents.” Well, supposedly at least, we’ve always put as many troops in there as the generals on the ground have wanted us to put there. Which is, of course, a total crock. Even you know that, Wayne.
There simply aren’t enough troops available to do the job, thanks to Secretary Rumsfeld’s radical restructuring of the military. (And that’s if the job is even doable at all, which is a very big ‘if’ indeed.) We’ve taxed our unit strength to the absolute limit, stretched the troops’ capacity to serve to the very breaking point, and we still can’t come close to having enough soldiers to do such an impossible job.
As for the Iraqi forces, well… we’ve spent more than three years and hundreds of billions of dollars training and equipping the in-house units there, and they’re still nowhere near ready for prime time. Meanwhile, we keep sending National Guard troops with less than three month’s training and woefully inadequate equipment over there to try and take up their slack for them. Does that sound right to you? Are you volunteering to go over there and help?
Defeat the insurgents? Get real, Wayne. We’re breeding new insurgents by the hundreds every day we stay the course and continue to occupy a disintegrating country whose people despise us just for being there. This administration’s pointless, unnecessary war of aggression has done more to build up enemy troop strength and encourage the growth of worldwide terrorism than anything else our opponents could possibly have done on their own.
“Nobody asked ‘When will our troops come home from Europe?’ after we suffered heavy casualties on the beaches of Normandy.” Actually, a lot of people were asking that at the time, too. You just didn’t get to read about that in the Classics Illustrated comic book version of history they spoon-fed us back in grade school.
And an awful lot of the same people who stormed those beaches of Normandy are the same people who are asking the loudest to know just what the hell we are doing stuck in a no-win quagmire like the one we’re in now. They’re the first people to point out that they didn’t fight the Good War just so their grandchildren could have to die in such a bad one. They’re asking, Wayne, you better believe they are. But you don’t get to hear about that on Fox News, either.
And yes, it’s true; that was a very different war, at a very different time, for *very* different reasons. That was then, this is now. Iraq is not The Reich. And the “Axis of Evil” is not the Axis Powers, no matter what the President’s speech writers thought it sounded good to say in that State of the Union address what seems like so many years ago.
Yes, they’re asking. We’re asking. And you should be asking, too, Wayne. You should be asking yourself the very same things that you should be asking the armchair generals and political prostitutes who wrote out those talking points you echoed in your post:
“How do you ask someone to be the last person to die in Iraq? How do you ask someone to be the last person to die for a mistake?”
all wars are hell but this one’s the worst,
Otter
Otter,
That would be the 9th circle of Hell?
We really shouldn’t be referring to this as ‘the war’ in Iraq. It is the occupation of Iraq and the direct result of the first year of collosal mistakes by Bremer and the CPA, who created the problems. By staying there, we have nurtured them, making them worse; and the longer we stay, the worse they become. There is NO way to stabilize Iraq with our military presence. The only thing we can do is get out and cut the ongoing losses for both countries. Staged redeployment, yes. Getting out as soon as possible before more lives are lost to the biggest US foreign policy mistake in recent history, and one that will be the best known and remembered.
I know Senator Kerry must feel like he is yelling into 100 mph winds. But we can hear him. Others are starting to also. Please, Senator, keep yelling. I say that as much for the people of Iraq as our own soldiers.
Wayne,
War is not easy and when you go to war without a plan to win the peace, its a catasthrophic mistake.
That is what we are seing now and what we have been seeing since Bush declared “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended”, due to incompetence from the top down.
I just got finished watching a documentary on Frontline, its one of the main reasons we are still in Iraq, pure incompetence. Here’s the link go and watch it. Oh and by the way it will tell you who first wanted to “cut and run”.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/
While you are there watch this one too. “The Insurgency” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/insurgency/view/
Lots of books out there too: “Cobra II”, ” TheOne Percent Doctrine”, “Fiasco” just to name a few. I’ve heard your talking points before. Start educating yourself, and quit letting pundits and the likes of Fox news think for you.
After all the screw ups and with George Bush and Rumsfeld still in control, there will be no end in sight. In fact when you finish watching “The Lost Year in Iraq”, I don’t think you want any plans coming out of Rumsfeld and his chosen few at the Pentagon.
The soldiers have done their jobs , its about time George Bush did his, fire the incompetents and start listening to real solutions and bring our heroes home.
This conversation is long overdue.
Wayne
Kerry has never said we should just “leave Iraq like that.”
On the contrary, his plan is very well formulated and his insight into the fact that our presence their has increased the insurgency was months ahead of those who are finally admitting to this like Senators Warner and Hagel.
It was noted today in the news that Baker’s plan sounds a lot like the Kerry plan:
Kerry’s on the right track and finally, finally more are willing to see that. We can’t continue to stay the course - we need to change course. Changing course, Kerry said in April will:
Wayne,
War is tough, and the way these guys have fought it shows they have never been in a war. When you invade a country and you kill someones family, they dont treat you like liberators or kings, they hate you. IF someone killed your mom, dad, brother you would want to get them back. Also when you go into war, you dont want a fear fight you send as many troops as you can to win you take control and set up border security. Rummy (dummy) has made so many arrogant mistakes, I could be here for a day writing. However we are now in the middle of a civil war, we cant be there. We have to pull back, stay with in striking distance, train the Iraqs, and let them take control back.
Some of you guys are putting words in my mouth and taking my comments out of context. Iraq is not a lost cause, we just need a new strategy and setting a deadline to pull out is NOT a strategy. General Casey, our top military commander in Baghdad, knows that. Neither is “staying the course” a strategy since it’s not producing any results. My strategy would be to put even more boots on the ground in Baghdad (around 100,000 more) and anywhere else where the insurgents are active so we could root them out. We won’t be there forever because Iraqi troops, with the proper training, will eventually be capable of handling the insurgents themselves. When that happens, THEN we could pull out.
“Are you saying that it’s moral to be for this war, ut immoral to be against it? That’s an awful hard to case to make, Wayne, especially in light of the egregiously immoral ways in which this war was conceived and executed under so many false and fraudulent pretenses.” - Otter
Do you find anything in my previous post that EXPLICITLY says that? I meant that the public simply opposes the war because coalition troops keep getting killed. It has nothing to do with whether the war is moral or immoral because if we were succeeding in Iraq, there would be much more support for the war. Saddam was a serious threat who could have given his weapons to terrorists because they both share one thing in common: they’re both enemies of the United States. Even Bill Clinton in the ‘90s sincerely believed he had wmd’s. So if any of you call Bush a liar about Saddam having wmd’s, it’s only fair that you call Clinton a liar too (he was already a liar with that Lewinsky thing). Rumsfeld should have been fired a long time ago because he’s nothing but a screw-up. Therefore, I support the war and our troops. I just don’t like how it was waged.
Wayne:
The Bush plan of we stand down as they stand up is a fraud. They have hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers, yet our forces are going up not down. They have been in the midst of a civil war at least since March. Putting American soldiers in the middle of civil war will do little other than get them killed. Iraq needs to deal with their sectarian issues politically. The biggest help we can give is pushing for a regional summit. One question, if we put 100,000 troops in Bagdad, how does that leave the rest of Iraq. We don’t have the soldiers to do what you suggest.
Wayne
The problem is that Iraq is in a CIVIL WAR and that civil war is NOT our civil war.
So many have said for some time now, that we can not “win” this militarily. The issues with sectarian factions in Iraq need to be solved politically. The insurgency needs to be handled differently as well - a coalition of law enforcement. The recent plot in London was foiled through law enforcement. These are all things Kerry has stressed for months - years.
As for Clinton believing Iraq had WMD’s - lots of folks did. The weapons inspectors went in and found nothing yet Bush lied about that. Clinton had nothing to do with what Bush covered up when the weapons insprectors were there during Bush’s watch.
Pamela, I don’t care what Kerry says he’s not the president. Please show me specific proof that Bush lied, using the president’s own words. Everyone knows that he did not lie about wmd’s because that was false intelligence, not a lie.
I’m an Independent who’s dissatisfied with how the GOP has waged the war, but the Democrats don’t offer anything except withdrawing before the job is done. If that happens, then 2700 of our brave troops have died in vain. We should honor those killed by not letting Iraq become a terrorist or insurgent base or they will have sacrificed their lives for nothing.
Wayne you once called Rumsfeld a screw-up. Bush is the head screw-up. He screwed up Iraq and he screwed up our own country too. Fortunately, we’re gonna reverse it in November.
Wayne,
So since Bush is president, then to you he is right, no questions asked. Wonder if you would of said the same for Bill Clinton, I doubt it.
There are lots of links above, like I said go educate yourself, because you surely are not interested in anything that we suggest to you.
You say your an independent, but you argue against other independent ideas. This is not about democrat or republican, its war, politics should not be a part of it.
I’ll tell you one thing no matter a Democratic or Republican president when he is wrong and taking our country in the wrong direction, we have every right to question him and offer new ideas. This president is caught up in his stubborn pride. Yes 2772 brave soldiers have lost their lives but not in vain, they did their duty, now it is time for this president to do his and honor those soldiers by doing what is right, and change this disasrtrous course HE has taken in Iraq.
Last time I looked there are 300 million Americans, not 1 named Bush, our voices count too, that is what a democracy is all about.
Wayne
The Bush administration KNEW they had faulty intell info and they used it anyway to push for a case to go to war. That would be lying.
As I and others here have pointed out Kerry’s plan is not to just withdraw, so clearly you have never read it and you’d prefer to spew right wing talking points. Thank you for sharing. Your arguments don’t hold up to the truth.
Wayne,
“Please show me specific proof that Bush lied, using the president’s own words.”
It not be possible to prove 100% that he lied using his own words, but that misses the point. The Bush Administration engaged in a specific propaganda effort to mislead Congress and the American people about Iraq. At any stage, Bush left open the possibility to defend him by claiming he was misled by bad intelligence, etc, but to really believe that could only lead to the conclusion that he is totally incompetent. Much of the propaganda effort came from Cheney and others, also making it more difficult to simply use Bush’s words to prove the lies.
It was not simply “false intelligence” as there has been plenty of testimony as to how the Bush Administration cooked the intelligence to get the result the wanted. The Downing Street Memos demonstrate that Bush was seeking to go to war and was willing to twist the facts to justify it.
Bottom line is that they knew their claims of threats of WMD and a connection to al Qaeda were false.
Kerry is just a senator right now so he can’t implement public policy like Bush does. Unless the Dems take control, Kerry’s opinions won’t have much leverage.
The CIA and even Putin of Russia told Bush that no doubt Saddam had wmd’s. Relying on false info is a mistake, but it’s not lying. They didn’t know they were following false intelligence. If you believe he really did lie, then okay fine. Believe what you want.
Wayne,
Kerry’s opinions matter as it is necessary to get out the message to get voters to make a change.
Bush was only told by the CIA that there was WMD as he cooked the intelligence. We’ve had the testimony of CIA agents that the Bush Administration has distorted their reports to make the case for war.
In saying things like “Saddam had wmd’s” you are also distorting the case. The real question wasn’t simply whether Saddam had WMD. Most people, even opponents of going to war, believed Saddam had some forms of WMD.
The real question was whether Saddam had WMD which presented an imminent threat to us necessitating going to war at the time the war was started. Even the CIA reports which Bush distorted to justify war did not suggest any such threat existed.
Only biased propaganda says that the prez “distorted” intelligence to justify war. If you want to continue to buy into propaganda, fine.
This is my last post. Nice talking to you all. Say hello to John Kerry for me.
Actually, Wayne, there are books available now that demonstrate that your statement is itself false. But since you obviously haven’t taken the time to study and absorb any of the other material that others have graciously taken the time to note for you and provide cross-references for you to follow and study, it’s probably futile to point any of the rest of it out.
It’s unfortunate that you choose to cling to falsehoods but in fact, the President of the United States did mislead the American people and it has been well-documented in books, magazine articles and highly reputable newspapers. Just don’t expect to see it reported on Fox News—they’re a little scared of the truth on that channel.
dwahzon,
But all those books which show Wayne are wrong are obviously “only biased propaganda.” Of course here I mean biased in the sense that Stephen Colbert says reality has a well known liberal bias.
As we both know, and Wayne will never acknowledge, the “biased” sources include CIA agents and other who testified before the 9/11 commission, and others who have worked in national security and were unwilling to stay and spread Bush’s lies.
Well, Just for the record.
The ‘Downing Street Memo’ was pretty clear on the administration’s intent to fix the evidence or facts to support their goal.
Not sure how you could interpret a British Intel memo as propaganda when it was pointing out that Britain was on the wrong track too.