JK Responds to Bush Attack on Kerry Iraq Plan
Today, rather than bring together Americans to face the reality of the civil war in Iraq, President Bush chose to attack John Kerry’s Iraq plan, arguing: “I would cite my opponent in the 2004 campaign, when he said there needs to be a date certain from which to withdraw from Iraq. I characterize that as cut and run, because I believe it is cut and run.”
Senator Kerry responded with the following statement:
“Today we heard more hollow attacks from a president acting like campaigner in chief rather than being commander in chief.
President Bush continues to be profoundly wrong about Iraq. He wraps my strategy in slogans because he’s afraid to take responsibility for his Katrina foreign policy that kills and maims our soldiers and weakens America in the fight against terror. Every day we continue the President’s failed stay-the-course strategy is another day we play into the hands of the terrorists.
We must change course in Iraq. This is why I have proposed a deadline for Iraq and a comprehensive plan to end the civil war. We must refocus our military efforts from the failed occupation of Iraq to what we should have been doing all along: tracking down and killing members of al Qaeda.
This is the opposite of President Bush’s stand-still-and-lose strategy. It’s a clear alternative from a broken policy of “more of the same.” Every time President Bush tells the Iraqis we will “stay as long as it takes,” he is giving squabbling politicians there an excuse to take as long as they want.
At each step along the way, the Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines. So we must set another deadline to extricate our troops and get Iraq up on its own two feet—a clear deadline of July, 2007 to redeploy our combat troops.
We also desperately need something else this president disdains: diplomacy. Real diplomacy—a Dayton-like summit of Iraq and the countries bordering it, the Arab League, NATO, and the Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council. This too will only happen with a deadline to push and prod Iraqis and their neighbors to the bargaining table.
Today of all days, on the four year anniversary of the vote on the use of force in Iraq, we should be having this debate, openly, honestly, and in a way that honors America’s troops and our best traditions.”
11 Comments
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first?
20 days!
...oops. 26 days. im a little too anxious for victory!!
“President Bush’s stand-still-and-lose strategy” - John Kerry
Now THAT is a slap upside Dubyas thick skull.
Bottom line: How’s things goin’ under Dopeys “plan”?
Same as it never was…
Deliberate delusional ignorance must be addictive. Otherwise, why are so many of Spurious George’s core supporters still hooked on it?
It’s bad enough that we have such a dishonest dysfunctional figurehead still camped out in the White House. The fact that he’s got all the launch codes makes him extremely dangerous as well.
This boy-who-would-be-king must be deposed now, not two years from now. We can’t survive another 27 months of his reactionary regime.
If the current administration is left in power until the next scheduled inauguration, America won’t have even half a handbasket left to go to hell in by then.
Shrubiana delenda est.
this is *our* country,
Otter
Bush actually did Americans a favor by calling attention to the fact that, yes, Kerry DOES echo the views of the American people and has an exit strategy. That’s what people want.
He certainly did John Kerry a favor. These days, when Bush goes on the attack against his political opponents, it’s nothing but good press for them.
PolitiCalypso:
I agree! In fact, the GOP press releases do a great job of laying out how rational the Democrats’ positions are in contrast to the GOP’s clueless, confusing and hypocritical positions.
Sorry, John Kerry, but you will never get renominated, much less get elected President, no matter how many Democrats you campaign for. The American people already know your atrocious Senate record - huge cuts in intelligence spending and defense. Don’t forget you voted against funding our troops in Iraq and said that America must pass a “global test” to defend ourselves. Thank God it’s President Bush, a man with guts and a clear vision, who is leading our great nation instead of a waffling, weak-on-defense ultraliberal like you.
Geez, Paul. Change the channel once in a while, will ya? Do you guys get “Hannity points” for that?
1. BUSH WAS RELUCTANT TO INCREASE PENTAGON FUNDING IN 2001.
Despite pleas from a number of top-ranking military brass, President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided to grant only $4.5 billion of a proposed $12 billion for military improvement in 2001. (CNN, 2001.)
2. CHENEY ATTEMPTED TO GET RID OF THE M-1 TANK, THE APACHE HELICOPTER, THE F-16, AND MORE WHEN HE WAS SECRETARY OF DEFENSE.
In testimonies in front of Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee and the House Armed Services Committe in 1989 and 1990, along with internal Pentagon budgetary papers from the same period, Cheney suggested the termination of several military programs that have been vital in the War on Terror. John Kerry supported each program deemed fit for termination by the current vice president. (Source: American Truths)
3. BUSH/CHENEY SENT TROOPS INTO IRAQ WITHOUT BODY ARMOR — IN FACT, SOLDIERS HAD TO PAY FOR THE ARMOR THEMSELVES.
The Bush administration did not plan well enough ahead to provide body armor for all the troops stationed in Iraq, which has left soldiers and their families to foot the bill for such equipment equalling over $1000 in some cases. While Bush aides will point to Kerry’s “no” vote on body armor in the $87-billion bill, troops were sent to Iraq without adequate protection long before the vote.(Source: ABC News)
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/12/223633.php
Here’s some more truth for you
Regarding Sen Kerry’s military spending record
http://www.factcheck.org/article177.html
Note that the difference in the $87billion was not IF but HOW it should be funded.
And an in-context explanation of ‘global test’
“... that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you’re doing what you’re doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.”
http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html
Unless you also bought into the French stuff (he’s not), “countrymen” means us.
I think the word you were looking for to describe Mr. Bush was bile, not guts. But let’s not quibble, you’ve got a lot of reading to do.
Paul:
I don’t think Bush’s vision was clear because it sure confused the hell out of McCain, who, within a span of three days, managed to commend Bush for misleading Americans:
Paul:
the American people are on to you. Time to change the program on the Bushbots and go with something that will actually keep the nation safer from the actual terrorist threat and start to undo the mistake in Iraq.
It is sad how many people have yet to wake up to the collosal mistakes that this incompetent and deeply ignorant pResident has made. His wake up call from the American people will come in 4 weeks.
Paul must be one of the 51% to vote for the worst president ever. Half of this country is stupid because preventing gay marriage turned out to be more important than the war in Iraq (talk about getting their priorities wrong). If we could go back in time to 2004 or the 2000 election, Bush would have lost to either Kerry or Gore by a landslide.