NYT: Kerry Says Iraq War Raises Questions on Bush's Judgment

[Beetwasher]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sen. John Kerry said Monday that mistakes by President Bush in invading Iraq could lead to unending war and that no responsible commander in chief would have waged the war knowing Saddam Hussein didn't possess weapons of mass destruction and wasn't an imminent threat to the United States.

``Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious?'' Kerry said at New York University.

--snip--

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Kerry.html?hp

BAM!

[BootinUp]

1. thermonuclear baby!

:nuke:

[Doosh]

2. well said, but his words will get twisted

if only Kerry didn't say that he'd still give bush the authority knowing all we know today, he's walking a fine line here between "authority" and "for the war"

[demoman123]

15. At least he didn't go to the right.

This speech was being in advance touted as a big deal. But the only new thing I see in it is the comment about getting some troops out by "next summer."

After Biden's comments the other day, I was a little concerned that Kerry might say "We need to do it better, and better = harder & more."

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

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[papau]

39. I thought a great speech- but he left out why he thought 1000 had NOT died

for nothing.

And Stay as long as it takes folks need to be thinking "when do we leave" before Nov 04.

Indeed, the "if the whole war is a mistake, shouldn't we stop fighting tomorrow?" and the "What do you say to the last man to die for a "profound diversion"?" crowd will be all over the talk shows tonight.

Indeed, we can only hope Bush stays on his "Kerry wants the "stability of a dictatorship."


As Krugman said: "If there ever was a chance to turn Iraq into a pro-American beacon of democracy, that chance perished a long time ago."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/opinion/21krugman.html

OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Last Deception
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It's Ayad Allawi week. President Bush, starting with his address at the U.N. today, will try to present Mr. Allawi - a former Baathist who the BBC reports was chosen as prime minister because he was "equally mistrusted by everyone" - as the leader of a sovereign nation on the path to democracy. If the media play along, Mr. Bush may be able to keep the Iraq disaster under wraps for a few more weeks.

It may well work. In June, when the United States formally transferred sovereignty to Mr. Allawi's government, the media acted as if this empty gesture marked the end of the war. Even though American casualties continued to rise, stories about Iraq dropped off the evening news and the front pages. This gave the public the impression that things were improving and helped Mr. Bush recover in the polls.

Now Mr. Bush hopes that by pretending that Mr. Allawi is a real leader of a real government, he can conceal the fact that he has led America into a major strategic defeat.

That's a stark statement, but it's a view shared by almost all independent military and intelligence experts. Put it this way: it's hard to identify any major urban areas outside Kurdistan where the U.S. and its allies exercise effective control. Insurgents operate freely, even in the heart of Baghdad, while coalition forces, however many battles they win, rule only whatever ground they happen to stand on. And efforts to put an Iraqi face on the occupation are self-defeating: as the example of Mr. Allawi shows, any leader who is too closely associated with America becomes tainted in the eyes of the Iraqi public.

Mr. Bush's insistence that he is nonetheless "pleased with the progress" in Iraq - when his own National Intelligence Estimate echoes the grim views of independent experts - would be funny if the reality weren't so grim. Unfortunately, this is no joke: to the delight of Al Qaeda, America's overstretched armed forces are gradually getting chewed up in a losing struggle.<snip>

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. How can he possibly be serious?<<

Puppets rarely question the tugging and pulling of their strings. It wouldn't be prudent at any juncture.... asking this man to second guess his yeehah foreign policy, either arrived at by himself,

(or more correctly directed by civilians in the Pentagon) is like asking Leonardo DaVinci if he shouldn't have painted the Mona Lisa driving a Humvee. It just doesn't apply.

He will not accept responsibility for minor mistakes such as dumping stock in energy companies and sticking shareholders... or wrongly giving nobid contracts to Hallibacon... or going into Iraq and ignoring countries who do actually have nuclear capability... so how in the world is he going to admit he has done anything wrong at all.

<sarcasm off>

[NewYorkerfromMass]

4. And one can easily imagine Bush's (all too) predictable reply:

"No responsible commander in chief would have let Saddam Hussein remain in power." (and in fact he's basically saying this now).
He has to say that and either go down in flames or convince the sheeple he is right. My take on it has always been that Saddam was supposedly a "tin horn" dictator who was elevated to bin Laden like status thanks to Bush and the other fear mongers.

[BootinUp]

6. Kerry's main thrust is the imminent failure of winning the peace

due to poor leadership. He is not going to engage in a discussion of about ordering the invasion except to say the decision was rushed before the inspectors finished their job.

[heidler1]

8. I agree, however Kerry should clear up what his current view is.

If Kerry can make it stick that only Bush had access to the truth about WMD at the time of the vote to authorize war and Bush lied to Congress in order to get the authority. Then Kerry still comes off clean in the bad judgment area. When the vote on the 87 billion came up Kerry can and should push the fact that he (Kerry) knew by then that he'd been lied too. While Bush refuses to even conceder the stupidity of what he put in motion.

I wish we had a national scientific poll to show support levels for when to withdraw if things do not improve in Iraq. This might give Kerry the insight as to when to pack it in.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

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[RedEarth]

5. Bush's judgment is the issue...not all the other crap

about what is Kerry's plan.....

[Kimber Scott]

7. CNN: Kerry didn't say anything.

I watched the speech on CNN and then they had an American Enterprise Institute whiner on afterward saying Kerry didn't say anything and what he said what his tenth position on Iraq. What were the first nine positions, I wanted to know. But... Darren Keagan (sp?) didn't bother to ask that question. Then the AEI lady said Kerry wished Saddam was still in power. Did Kerry say that? Another question Darren forgot to ask, I guess, because NO he didn't.

Funny how somebody can speak, not say anything, but say all kinds of things he didn't say all in one breath.

[Jacobin]

9. Did Daryn have PigBoy on the line to help her with her questioning?

[Kimber Scott]

10. No questioning. That's the point. Just free reign to the AEI's

interpretation of Kerry's speech.

[demoman123]

13. Well, he didn't say much. His "four-point" plan is the same old same old.

-- Get more help from other nations.

-- Provide better training for Iraqi security forces.

-- Provide benefits to the Iraqi people.

-- Ensure that democratic elections can be held next year as promised.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

11. This also appears on Yahoo

Rate it a 5

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040920/ap_on_el_pr/kerry

[demoman123]

12. Kerry's 'four-point plan' for Iraq quoted in this post.

From the article:

"He offered his own four-point plan starting with pressing other nations for help.

-- Get more help from other nations.

-- Provide better training for Iraqi security forces.

-- Provide benefits to the Iraqi people.

-- Ensure that democratic elections can be held next year as promised.

'If the president would move in this direction ... we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years,' Kerry said."

The last sentence about "next summer" is the only thing that is new.

[Nashyra]

14. That is not the only thing that is new

In this speech he pointed to how this should be implemented and why that the * would have such a hard time doing and why new leadership would make these goals easier. I don't think we were watching the same speech.

[demoman123]

16. Here's a link to the whole speech.

"In this speech he pointed to how this should be implemented."

Okay, I read the whole speech here.

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0920.html

There is nothing new. He wants to call an international conference to implement UN Resolution 1546 calling for UN troops to "train" Iraqi forces, and he wants to share the oil with other countries who want to get involved. He wants to get reconstruction contracts out to other companies besides Halliburton. And he wants to hold free elections next year.

Ho-hum.

[BootinUp]

17. Much of the attack rhetoric was new and more damning

Kerry cannot profess to an exact detailed plan months before he would be president, besides the fact it would give the repukes more things to counter-attack. Do you think there exists a plan that would make everyone happy if only Kerry would expound on it? I do not believe there is such a plan. There could be a difference in leadership that would bring more people together to work on the problems though.

[demoman123]

18. Click on this link.

This might interest you. It's probably disinfo, but I like the idea mentioned here as a "plan" for getting out of Iraq.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak20.html

[BootinUp]

19. I read that, it is the cut and run plan, lol

Like I said, there is no plan that will make everyone happy.

[demoman123]

20. Right. We can do it now or we can do it later. LOL.

Let's do it now, before more people get killed. This plan may not make everyone happy, but that's not always the point, is it?

[BootinUp]

21. So when do we go back in?

I mean basically what you're saying is there is no assisitance we can provide to help it become a stable country with some form of civil rights.

So when it does start exporting terror then what, nuke it?

[demoman123]

23. Never.

We should get out and never go back in. We should write a check for reparations to whoever wins the civil war and forms a government. That's it.

[BootinUp]

24. You don't believe that

espousing that plan right now will win the election, or do you?

[demoman123]

25. Yeppers.

Gotta dress it up a little. Talk about "phased withdrawal," etc. Events in Iraq will worsen and help justify this position. Coming out strongly on this will energize Kerry's base. It would sure energize me.

[BootinUp]

28. I don't think America would accept

a civil war at this stage. Neither the right nor the left wants it to come to that. I still believe with the right diplomacy and reasonably secure borders, we can leave the country in a much more stable condition than that. I do believe it will require a vastly different diplomatic effort, with less direct control by the US.

[demoman123]

29. America will accept whatever gets properly spun.

The alternative to unilateral withdrawal is escalating slaughter in Iraq.

[BootinUp]

30. So slaughter, ethnic cleansing, civil war is ok

even though we precipitated it?

[demoman123]

32. No. That's why we should leave. We are DOING it.

We are causing far more damage than the Iraqis could possibly cause each other. Besides, if we leave, slaughter is a possibility, even a probability. But if we stay, it is a certainty.

So we should make like a tree and leave. Then diplomatic efforts, cash grants, humanitarian aid, etc. are our obligation. In addition to the war, we have 12 years of sanctions to make up for.

[BootinUp]

33. Well, the only difference between your

position and mine is perhaps the speed of withdrawal and whether we attempt to phase in a new coalition force before withdrawing. In both scenarios it is a phased withdrawal during which time chaos may continue at the same level, it may decrease, it may increase. My belief is that we can bring in muslim countries and others that can change the appearance of it being a US occupation and that could remove the steam from the insurgency.

It is not just the fact that we are there, it is the appearance of it as a US occupation, and it is the desire for certain militant factions to have total control. In the vacuum that would exist in your scenario, the strongest militant faction wins. The future government of Iraq should not be elected with guns, it should be done in a peaceful election run by Iraqis. We should make the effort that George never made.

[demoman123]

34. I guess it's a key difference.

I just don't think that other nations, particularly Moslem nations, are going to want to get involved. By attacking the Jordanian embassy, the UN headquarters (twice), the Italian, Spanish, Korean, and other troops, the insurgents have shown that they want foreigners out of their country.

Of course it's okay to try to get other nations to help, but the US has to be prepared to withdraw even if such help is not forthcoming. Otherwise, this is Vietnam.

[0007]

22. The Kerry speech will be on c-span at 8:00pm est. tonight

'Tis a great inspiring speech. Don't miss it!

Even tells us that cheney thinks the world is still flat!

[Disturbed]

31. Civil War in Iraq.

It is happening right now. How long would that US Puppet Govt. last after US troops pull out. I give it 2 weeks at best. Alwai is a dead man walking. Iraq is a lost cause. How much more blood is required to notice that?

Yeah, I wish Dean and Clarke were the candidates.

They are not so ABB is in play.

Iraq is now the lynch pin in this election. Kerry better figure this out and forget about pleasing swing voters and indies. If 85% Dems and lefties vote for Kerry/Edwards it can be pulled off. I suggest that Kerry should appeal to his base and stop trying to appeal to everybody.

[JoFerret]

35. This was an EXCELLENT speech

.

[trueblew]

36. Bush - President Pathological

There is a significant percentage of the American people who were for the Iraq war when it was about a wide variety of WMDs capable of being launched within 45 minutes.

Now those same Americans are against the war when it turns out there were never any WMDs, there were never any terror ties, and there are now over 1000 families in mourning.

Is Bush calling these American's "flip-floppers" as well?

[wsswss]

37. December 16, 2003

"Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president."

John Kerry
Drake University
December 16, 2003


Is it possible to reconcile this quote with today's statement?

[trueblew]

38. Yep

We got Saddam, but the neo-cons didn't want "old Europe" to profit from Iraq, so we do not have as many allies with us as we could have.

Plus, Rumsfeld was stuck on the idea of a limited military force as light and lean as possible. Didn't work.