quote:
Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Ha !
So true...


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I've already used that one before.

By the way Dave, here's a transcript from the 9th of Sept. (mistakenly posted as 10/09/03)

Congress grills Bush administration over Iraq

quote:
Just when, for example, would more international troops arrive in Iraq?

MARC GROSSMAN, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE: Senator, it depends on how quickly we pass this UN Security Council resolution and our objective is to -.

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: That's true.

One month, six months, two months, five years?

NORMAN HERMANT: There weren't a lot of answers.

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: I would repeat -- do you have any idea as to when we could expect the first international troops to arrive in Iraq?

MARC GROSSMAN: No, sir -.

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: You have no idea?

MARC GROSSMAN: Well, sir, I -.

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: Thank you.

NORMAN HERMANT: And more than four months after George Bush boasted of prevailing in Iraq, there was plenty of criticism for the American strategy -- or lack of one -- since the toppling of Saddam's regime.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, US DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY: You say we didn't plan for when the war was over.

The problem is that the war isn't over.

The problem is that the Ba'athist regime -.

SENATOR TED KENNEDY, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: You mean in spite of the President's statement out of that aircraft carrier, when he made his statement.

You're saying now the war is -?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Go back and read the statement, Senator.

SENATOR TED KENNEDY: I listened to it.

I heard the statement.

I saw that banner that was there.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: He said it was the end of major combat operations, which indeed it was.

SENATOR TED KENNEDY: Now you distinguish between the end of major combat and the war isn't over -- that is very interesting for service men and women that are out there, very interesting.

NORMAN HERMANT: Many of those service men and women were reacting today to news that tours of duty for reservists have been extended.

Most will now be here for one year.

US SOLDIER: Well, morale was pretty high, but now it's at the bottom.

It's very disappointing.
Y'know, you can't always paint the non-rosy news as being "liberal" attacks, sir. I guess John McCain and Chuck Hagel are also part of this liberal conspiracy of yours.

quote:
administration officials had criticized former White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey for estimating the Iraq war would cost $100 billion to $200 billion. With the $87 billion request following $79 billion already approved by Congress, "we're already in the upper reaches of that estimate for the first two years of a long commitment," he said.

"And, Mr. Wolfowitz, you told Congress in March that 'We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.' Talk about rosy scenarios," he said.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. said Iraq was "the wrong war at the wrong time."

"It was a go-it-alone policy. And we had a policy in order to win the war, but it's quite clear we didn't have a policy to protect our troops after the war is over," he said.

Not all criticism came from Democrats. Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said Tuesday on the CBS News Early Show that the administration "did a miserable job of planning the post-Saddam Iraq."

At the hearing, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said "we underestimated the size of the challenge that we would face after the military operations were completed."

Noting estimates by Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, that reconstruction would cost tens of billions of dollars, McCain said "That was not anticipated before we went in." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/09/politics/main572278.shtml