Well, spin away please.

I'm sure it's not as bad as "the liberal media" is portraying it.

U.S.-Led Troops Battle Rebels in Iraqi Towns

Just Trust Rummy. This was all planned, you see.

Luckily, even partisanship is giving way to common sense now, even among a growing number of Republicans and Military. Bush's poll numbers also are falling dramatically. Thanks Richard Clarke. At last we're having an actual debate rather than the "shut up traitor" brand that we've had since 9/11.


Quote:

Growing GOP Dissent on Iraq

President Bush is facing increasing dissent among leading conservative politicians and pundits in the face of mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq.

The war has become the long slog that some Republicans feared. Since Sunday, 32 Americans have been killed in fighting across Iraq. American body bags are on the front page of major U.S. newspapers.

The Washington Post and The New York Times brandished images of charred U.S. civilian remains last week. The networks are leading their nightly news broadcasts with stories of dead Americans.

"If we have two or three more weeks of this you are going to start to see Republican members of Congress who have never been critical of President Bush and the Iraq policy starting to get that way," said Charles Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Republican Party ranks are beginning to break and the White House is worried. Longtime GOP critics on Iraq are growing progressively more vocal in their condemnation.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, has strongly suggested that the Bush administration reconsider its June 30 deadline to transfer sovereignty from the interim government to Iraqis.

"How do you know, come June 30, that a civil war will not occur?" Lugar said on Voice of America radio. "After all, the coalition has not disarmed all of these militia that these religious groups have in various places. They still are armed and apparently ready to fight."

Usually loyal pundits are speaking out, too. Conservative columnist George Will wrote in The Washington Post on Wednesday, "U.S. forces in Iraq are insufficient."

There are currently 135,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq – along with 24,000 international troops – and pressure is rising on the Bush administration to increase troop deployment. But the Department of Defense says it plans to decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq by tens of thousands around the June 30 deadline.

The White House continues to claim that most Iraqis support the American presence. But even some ardent conservative backers of the president are voicing skepticism.

"I'm not buying this 'Iraqis are on the American side' right now," Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly said on the Tuesday night broadcast of "The O’Reilly Factor." The leading conservative commentator repeatedly called the current conflict a "second war in Iraq."



O'Reilly added, "I think Rumsfeld has got a lot of explaining to do here. There's a lot of mistakes that are now killing American soldiers."

Fellow conservative pundit and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough of MSNBC was even more critical in his broadcast Tuesday.

Scarborough: "Do we need more troops in Iraq? Hell, yes, we do. ... Should June 30 handover date to the Iraqis be extended? You can bet your life on it ... because creating this false deadline in time for a presidential election is no way to win a war."

"Now that things aren't going so well, Republican critics are more open in their criticism," Cook said. "When there was a limit in how critical they could be of their own president before, even though they thoroughly disagreed."

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska told CNN Tuesday that the Bush administration has "few good options" left regarding Iraq. The implication: the White House has dug a ditch that it possibly cannot get out of without getting its hands dirty.



Rumsfeld Faulted For Troop Dilution
Military Officers: Forces in Iraq Are Inadequate

Others who have fallen out of favor over Iraq include former economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki.

Quote:

All voiced concerns about either the expense or number of troops needed to occupy Iraq. All were treated dismissively by the White House. All are gone, but their estimates proved accurate.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0328hardball28.html






Quote:

Bush1:

"Trying to eliminate Saddam ... would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible ... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ... there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."



Scowcroft followed with:

Quote:

"Don't Attack Saddam: Given Saddam's aggressive regional ambitions, as well as his ruthlessness and unpredictability, it may at some point be wise to remove him from power. Whether and when that point should come ought to depend on overall U.S. national security priorities. Our pre-eminent security priority -- underscored repeatedly by the president -- is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken."



Yet contrary to the advice of his own father and a man who had served 29 years in the military, then served two presidents as a National Security Advisor, Bush2 knew better than both of them that we HAD to invade Iraq... PNAC told him so!

Funny that Clinton would listen closely to Bush1 and his best military expert and Bush2 wouldn't.

In fact the neo-cons accused General Scowcroft of being a terrorist sympathizer and a "Saddam-lover" when he spoke up against going to war!



http://www.kaicurry.com/gwbush/remindus.swf

Last edited by whomod; 2004-04-08 11:49 AM.