The Administration’s Plan for Iraq - SFRC Hearing - UPDATED
After President Bush’s speech, JK stated that he strongly opposes the Bush administration’s plan for expanding the US troop presence in Iraq and urged the president to redouble his effort to find a political and international solution to the worsening civil war in Iraq. Kerry said there was little support in Congress for expanding the war in Iraq and said the president must ask lawmakers to vote on a new authorization of the war if he wants to expand the mission beyond the current one.
“This plan is neither new nor forward looking. This is more of what’s taken us backwards. There’s no military solution in Iraq. There is only a political solution, and the President has no plan to achieve it. We’re caught in a civil war in Iraq. Escalation is not the answer. The best answer is to set a deadline to bring our heroes home, force Iraqis to stand up for Iraq, and get Iraq’s neighbors to start taking more responsibility for Iraq’s security.”
Tomorrow, Senator Kerry will ask Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the war in Iraq to say how this plan differs from a similar plan proposed by President Bush in 2005.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on “The Administration’s Plan for Iraq” will start at 10 am EST.
It will be shown on C-SPAN3.
Also, JK will be on Fox News Live with John Scott at 9 am EST.
UPDATE:
Excerpt from the SFRC hearing on MSNBC featuring JK and Sec. Rice: video
JK on Fox News Live with John Scott: video
JK on NPR: audio
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Any chance we will get video/audio of these two very important events later today?
Voices of the troops on Bush’s plan.
Fort Lewis Soldiers, Community React to Iraq Plan
Listen here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6806011
Javelin, the hearing is available on internet streaming right now if you click on the link for C-SPAN3 above.
Ever the editor, the only words I would have added to preface “The best answer is to set a deadline to bring our heroes home, force Iraqis to stand up for Iraq, and get Iraq’s neighbors to start taking more responsibility for Iraq’s security.” would have been the classic: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…. ;-)
I applaud the politicians who are demanding an accountability moment re: plans for Iraq. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This you do in my name.
I listened very carefully to Pres. Bush’s speech last night and was amazed to hear his confession that things aren’t going well in Iraq. Yet, when I listened to his plans, I was amazed that these had not been implemented—not just promised, but implemented—years ago!
For instance, when Pres. Bush said he’d make sure Iraqis are given jobs there, I wondered why they hadn’t been given jobs there years ago!
When he spoke about making sure that there are enough troops to prevent the insurgents from re-entering the city after we left, I wondered what Pres. Bush thinks is happening on each main road between one city and another each and every night as soon as the troops back off.
Of course, “Some may say” (to quote Mr. Bush) that we need to send more troops to deal with each and everyone of those issues, I argue that Mr. Bush needs to stop escalating the war and stop making empty promises and instead must listen to the words of the Generals who serve on the ground there. Instead of firing them for disagreeing with him, he needs to realize that empty words and empty promises don’t bring peace to the region.
My suggestions would follow:
1. Diplomacy—every day, every hour. No matter what it takes.
2. Provide immediate improvement of living conditions there.
3. Mr. Bush is unwilling to hold himself accountable for the situation. Therefore Congress needs to stop him from escalating the war and instead must push a timetable with specific goals and strategies.
I heard lots of promises last night, but I heard lots of promises from Pres. Bush before and the troops deserve much much better than what Pres. Bush has given them or will give them.
Sen Durbin embarasses us all by kissing up to the president in his interview this morning by obeisantly saying that he told Bush yesterday, “I hope you are right, Mr. President”. Good grief. He is a traitor to his party and the American people. We should all be furious. Why he was selected to give the rebuttal instead of someone like Kennedy or Kerry is a question that must be answered.
Karl Rove still has most of the Dems on puppet strings.
And, we haven’t heard a word from Hillary Clinton. Is the DLC selling us out?
I think America saw a very different George W. Bush last night.
Gone were the smirk and the swagger. Gone were the mannerisms and mangled syntax that we’ve come to expect from him. Gone were the aggressive body language and the condescending air of superiority.
This wasn’t the macho man wearing a flight jacket and falsely proclaiming ‘Mission Accomplished’ on the deck of an aircraft carrier. This wasn’t the so-called average-guy candidate leaning over a podium in his shirtsleeves while mouthing false platitudes. This wasn’t the bully president in his bully pulpit.
No, this was a man trying his best to look and sound presidential, while knowing all along that he was failing at both. He did a little better job of that towards the end of his speech, when he was back on familiar ground with his pet platitudes about Al-Qaeda and 9/11 and the global war on terra.
But especially at the beginning of what he knew to be a critical speech proposing a desperate strategy to an unforgiving audience who didn’t want to hear a word of it, the George W. Bush we saw on our television screens last night looked more like a deer caught in the headlights of history. He was tired, he was apprehensive, and it showed in every expression on his face. He looked smaller and weaker than he’s ever looked before.
What a contrast there was behind the president we saw giving that speech on all the networks last night and the senator we saw being interviewed by MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell this morning!
The senator looked as strong as the president looked weak. He looked as tall as the president looked small. He sounded as clear-headed and sure of himself as the president sounded vague and tentative.
In other words, the senator looked and sounded totally presidential this morning, while the president himself sounded anything but presidential last night.
Which should come as no real surprise, actually, considering that the president in question was George W. Bush and the senator in question was John F. Kerry.
Posted by Otter | January 11, 2007 12:19 PM
I hadn’t heard anything about Sen. Kerry’s interview with Andrea Mitchell. Will there be a video copy of this, or can you direct me to a url that might provide that copy? (I just took a quick look on the MSNBC web site and couldn’t find anything mentioned .. )
Thank you very much Violet…...saw the video and audio links added…...I know it’s been a busy morning for all of you, we all appreciate it!
In April, 1971 Senator Kerry said,”
“someone has to give up his life so that the United States does’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon (Bush) won’t be, and these are his words, “the first President to lose a war.”
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? But we are trying to do that, and we are doing it with thousands of rationalizations, and if you read carefully the President’s last speech to the people of this country, you can see that he says and says clearly:
” victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world—a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people. A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them”
The last paragraph is from President Bush’s speech last night. But it’s deja vu all over again.
I was on the ‘ramparts’ so to speak when a young John Kerry was asked to address the Senate - I and thousands of Vietnam veterans.
Where are the ramparts thirty-five years later? We start building them! That first nail gets driven home when Senator Kerry states he will run again for President. Every thing old is new again.
A new people’s movement to change the disasterous course of an Imperial President? Why not - Richard Daley is Mayor of Chicago and Jimmy Hoffa is President of the Teamsters.
Javelin - SRFC hearings tend to show up on C-SPAN 2 at least once after the Senate adjourns for the day. I was able to catch yesterday’s hearing last night, and it was really informative. The panelists, FWIW, sounded a lot more like JK than GWB.
... and now, having posted that, I will add that I wish Senator Kyl had also taken the time to catch C-SPAN reruns last night. He is now on the Senate floor making, with great confidence, assertions that directly contradict those made by the panel yesterday.
Spend and Pretend-Spend more money and lives and Pretend there is a military solution in Iraq. This is the Bush Plan, it is now and it will always be as long as he is in office. spend and pretend
MSN has a video up of Senator Kerry questioning Ms. Rice. It is very good.
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?f=00&g=6da32f8e-8fcb-4474-aef1-c3166379fba3&p=hotvideo_m_iraq&t=c2511&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16579285/page/2/&fg;=
Thanks to everyone who provided videos & links - still trying to absorb the bizarre turn taken by this administration at this stage of the game.
Posted by wisteria | January 11, 2007 1:52 PM
For Mac users: if Wisteria’s link yields weird results for you (asking you to download useless software from the Dark Side), try this Macintosh-friendly route to that MSN video (which, by the way, is superb: thanks very much, Wisteria)
Go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16579285/, then look for “video” box, then look for “Kerry spars with Rice”. Currently it’s the 3rd title below the headlined video
There’s an audio recording of Senator Kerry speaking to NPR last night after the Bush speech:
http://www.johnkerry.com/podcast/20070110_kerrynpr.mp3
SFRC Hearing:
Dr. Frederick W. Kagan
Resident Scholar
American Enterprise Institute
Washington, DC This man is co-writer of the Surge Plan
You can watch here: http://foreign.senate.gov/index.html
Good links.
I noticed last night the it was almost impossible to find the Democratic response on any of the channels. Looks like the media is making minor adjustments during this blue-tide.
In other words, they’ll inch and show a little more about Iraq, but they’ll never really show the counter-side to the White House.
Look…I’m not asking for equal time=equal spin. What I’m asking the media to do is just show us the speeches and shut up. They don’t have to analyze; they don’t have to throw in extra adjectives.
Just show both sides. AND when one side says something that is against all supporting evidence then present the evidence and let the people decide.
Please….Senator Kerry and the whole Congress, just enforce the fairness doctrine. I’m tired of these anti-democratic games.
Oh..and speaking of the media… I believe it was Savage who referred to the liberals and liberal media as “vermin”.
Why the deafening silence by the Dems, with the exception of Wes Clarke, about the administration’s hidden agenda to now provoke war with Iran? Is it because the administration knows that the Dems would be loath to repudiate Israel, who will likely be ones to drop the first bombs on Iranian targets? With the beating of war drums reaching an undeniable crescendo and intensifying provocations by Washington in recent days, how can all the Dems stick their heads in the sand pretending they don’t know what is going on.
Rove is counting on the Dems caving in en mass like they did in 2003 and its looking more and more like a good bet. The Fox interview of Kerry turned repeatedly to Iran.
It becoming clear that the only way for America to secure the oil in Iraq is to take out Iran and the Mahdi Army. American can then take Iran’s oil as well while satisfying Israel’s demands that Iran not acquire nuclear weapons. The sudden incursion into Somalia was a test of the Dems assertiveness vis a vis continued military adventurism, and the Dems flunked miserably by not making a peep.
I fear America is still at the mercy of a frustrated and increasingly dangerous madman in the White House and a war with Iran is around the corner.
Great interviews. Thanks for all the links. Senator Kerry is reiterating the things he has said many times before. He did an excellent job holding Condi’s feet to the fire today. What I took from her response is that the Bush admin is toying with an idea that might work, except it’s simply an embellishment of the same old idea. Bush is still in denial.
Bush Sends GIs to his Private Fantasyland
http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/bush-sends-gis-to-his-private.html
Successive US plans fail to quell Iraq violence
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070111/pl_afp/usiraqbushblueprints_070111034452
In October, Senator Kerry nailed it:
The SFRC video gave me a sense of deja vu back to the 2004 presidential debates, when Bush was so uninformed and out of his league that he made a jack*** of himself (a fact that somehow escaped mainstream media).
Condi was practically incoherent. It was a Tony Snow performance - big on spin and evasion and devoid of substance. Kerry asked what the administration will do if the Iraqi government does not deliver and she wouldn’t answer, which means that “its not open ended” is code for “we don’t know what to do if they don’t.”
Meanwhile, the BBC reports on her bellicose threats to Syria and Iran. She is as incompetent as Bush.
Another misguided attempt to control the rebellion. What I believe President Bush fails to understand is that, even though there are people fighting against the new instilled Iraq government, that it is their land, too. By taking away their influence and right to power gives them a loss of purpose; a loss of meaning. When people lose their loss of meaning, they want it back, at all costs.
Unfortunately, Bush, and many of his lackeys fail to realize is the Middle Eastern cultures are truly ones of peace and prosper. They do not wish for military conflict, yet, continue to defend those very beliefs. Quick to judge a proper solution, Bush ran in, like dear old dad, with guns head first.
It’s my belief the only solution to conflicts in Iraq, nay, the entire Middle East, is to work with the governments that are there by initiating educational systems that are catered to their culture. Simply imposing Western ideals on people as the way to govern won’t do; you can’t alter an entire culture so quickly. These are people’s lives; they’ve grown this way, they live this way, the change must take time. Running in with tanks, toppling leaders and threatening that “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” is obviously not the solution. Eastern cultures are ones built upon honor; and Bush is a very dishonorable person.