CBS: (State Dept) Official: Time Running Out In Iraq

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/24/iraq/main541815.shtml

As violence explodes in Iraq — with 65 tortured bodies found today as well as a spate of car bombing and mortar fire that killed at least 39 people — a U.S. official warns that time is running out.

“If sectarian violence cannot be demonstrably, tangibly reduced … (then) over the next several months an Iraqi government that represents all of its people, is a partner against terror and is at peace both at home and with its neighbors, will be difficult if not impossible to achieve,” David Satterfield, a senior State Department advisor for Iraq said Wednesday on Capitol Hill, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.

“Failure means the possibility that Iraq would become a permanent haven for terrorists, a satellite of Iranian influence, or both,” Satterfield said.

Part of the problem is that the predominantly Shiite police force working alongside U.S. troops, is accused of being behind many of the execution-style-murders, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Time has already run out, in case you haven't noticed.

Do these people live under rocks? Running out, my ass. The time has come and gone.

[ckramer]

2. Is this going to happen again?

[colinmom71]

12. No...

Because the way Iraq is heading, unlike in Vietnam, the helicopter would get blown up before it could manage to evacuate anybody....

[truthisfreedom]

3. they won't admit that it's civil war until there are 10,000 dead per day.

ridiculous morons.

[mom cat]

4. Or after the elections, and then only to try to get more money for the

Pentagon.

[Viking12]

21. They're denying civil war by ridiculous re-definitions

There is no civil war, they say, because there's no organized political body opposing Iraq's puppet government.

[Ilsa]

5. They'll tell the currently GOP congress that they need more $$

for larger military operation there before the Dems take their oaths and tell Bush, "Hell NO!"

[Amonester]

17. And then, after having been told "Hell NO!" by the Dems...

... the lil' king george will just follow his puppeteer's movement ("sign here") and will 'just' issue 'another' unconstitutional 'signing statment' saying the pResident will obey their new "Hell NO!" law as he sees fit...

Et voila.

Who's to stop his lil' majesty from doin' what he wants (for his puppeteer$)??

[LynnTheDem]

6. Gee. Who could possibly have predicted this. Aside from most the world.

James Webb, former Sec. of Navy under Ronald Reagan, Decorated Marine Veteran

"Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years? …In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets…. Nations such as China can only view the prospect of an American military consumed for the next generation by the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall."
http://www.sftt.org/article09302002a.html

Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for U.S.

"It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another…We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started."

Hawks in the Bush administration may be making deadly miscalculations on Iraq, says Gen. Anthony Zinni, Bush's Middle East envoy.

"I'm not sure which planet they live on"
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/10/17/zinni

General William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency

"Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends…. I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defense and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaeda. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml

Col. Mike Turner (ret), Schwarzkopf's personal briefing officer during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm

“The uniformed Joint Staff in the Pentagon strongly opposed this plan early on...The uniformed Joint Staff was overridden, yet in so many horrifying ways this operation resembles Somalia, not Desert Storm...Perhaps we can pull this off, but here's a far worse scenario that's at least as likely...Photos of American soldiers amid landscapes of Iraqi civilian bodies blanket the world press which aligns unanimously against the US. The US is condemned by NATO and the UN...The war ends within a few weeks, but the crisis deepens...”
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/transcripts/2003/mar/030311.turner.html

US Army; Strategic Implications of Intercommunal Warfare in Iraq

The scope of this monograph is confined to the Middle East, which is where Iraqi ethnic and sectarian strife will almost certainly have the greatest implications for regional stability and U.S. foreign and military policy. If Iraqi violence erupts along religious/sectarian and ethnic lines, this conflict will have thunderous echoes throughout the area."
http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume3/march_2005/3_05_2.html

Dick Cheney in April 1991, then Defense Secretary:

If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein,you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists?

How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2072479

President GHW Bush, 1998;

"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."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush

Brent Scowcroft, one of the Republican Party’s most respected foreign policy advisors, and national security adviser under President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush:

Don't Attack Saddam It would undermine our antiterror efforts. "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."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133

Norman Schwarzkopf - Four Star General:

"The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now. He thinks U.N. inspections are still the proper course to follow. He's worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq….(And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld)"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52450-2003Jan27?language=printer

Col. David Hackworth

"Should the president decide to stay the war course, hopefully at least a few of our serving top-uniformed leaders - those who are now covertly leaking that war with Iraq will be an unparalleled disaster - will do what many Vietnam-era generals wish they would have done: stand tall and publicly tell the America people the truth about another bad war that could well lead to another died-in-vain black wall. Or even worse."

Republican Dissent on Iraq
Full page ad in Wall Street Journal by major GOP contributors:

"Mr. President, …The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions. That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back…. A Billion Bitter enemies will rise out of this war."
- Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2003
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/001444.html

General Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command:

"The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml

Nope, no one could have known.

:sarcasm:

[Divine Discontent]

9. Webb needs to keep repeating that line....

it's powerful.



www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<<--- check it out! antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[davekriss]

10. Super post!

Thank you for that. I tucked it away for future use. :)

[bvar22]

18. Good Compilation!

:patriot:

[Jacobin]

19. Once, just ONCE

I would like to see a "meet the press" or Tweety Show, or Paula Zahn show, or whatever, do an hour long segment interviewing the people you quote above, or even discussing those articles and statements to show that MANY PEOPLE WERE AGAINST THE INVASION FROM THE BEGINNING.

I'm so so so tired of the MSM pretending that EVERYONE thought it was great to invade Iraq, but its just been bungled.....oops.

Thank you for an excellent compilation.

I'm emailing to some of my 'libertarian' friends.

:thumbsup:

[frylock]

7. if they're admitting this publicly, then it's already too late..

but we knew that.

[TexasLawyer]

8. kick

[radfringe]

11. not sure

I'm not sure Murtha's plan for rapid re-deployment will work - might be too late for that.

However - I am sure the stupid 'stay the course" non-plan alone isn't working. You can't glean the hearts and minds of people when they are too busy dodging bullets and bombs - no matter which side is doing the shooting.

Seems to me the bushies "plan" is to stay the course and dump the problem on "someone else". Forget the bull in a china shop - this is an elephant in the pottery barn.

[NOLADEM]

13. It makes me insane that they keep blaming the Iraqi police

They have NO tools to take on such a task. They are poorly trained, poorly motivated, poorly equiped.

They have NO CHANCE of holding down the insurgency for one simple reason, most don't want to.

This is scapegoating on the way out of Iraq, pure and simple. They will try to lay the civil war at the feet of the Iraqi security forces instead of the Imperial Chimperor's Army's fault for destroying the military and government bureaucracy.

[bklyncowgirl]

14. OK Bush--what are you going to do now? ( A rant.)

You thought you could do this war thing on the cheap and lied to the American people about it's costs and consequences, not to mention the reason why we were going to war in the first place.

You ignored history--the U.S. in Vietnam--the Russians in Afganistan.

You ignored and ridiculed those who opposed this madness.

You ignored those who warned you about the deep ethnic & religious divisions in Iraqi society.

You ignored your generals who told you that if you were determined to invade Iraq that you needed more troops and a plan to occupy and rebuild the country.

Your only response has been "stay the course".

STAY THE COURSE IS NOT WORKING.

We either redeploy our troops the hell out of there and try to salvage something in Afganistan--a country which is also quickly going to hell in a handbasket, or you, President Bush, have to convince the American people that this indeed is the clash of civilizations and that the only course is all out War.

I'm talking World War II here, Mr. Bush.

Total mobilization of society to defeat terrorism.

Call up the draft. No exemptions for cowardly frat boys like you and Five Deferments Dick. Anyone who's able to serve, serves, No excuses.

Screw tax cuts, the nation needs money. Those that can pay will pay--through the nose.

Rationing of fuel, food and other commodities.

Factories to be given over to war production--oh wait a minute--we don't have factories--they all went to China--Whoops.

War profiteers to be imprisoned, tried and if guilty executed--sorry Mr. Cheney, will that be firing squad or gas chamber.

IF THIS IS INDEED THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS THEN ALL OF THESE STEPS WOULD BE ESSENTIAL AND NECESSARY.

You're not going to do that though, Mr. Bush, because your priority is in getting and keeping yourself and your party in power.

Besides, who's going to believe you. All your blathering on about this being the greatest challange since World War II is not going to cut it with at least 60% of the American people. You know why, Mr. Bush, it's because you're a liar, your Vice President is a crook and your Secretary of Defense is a delusional fool.

End of rant.

[tblue37]

15. What is this? Another six months?

They all keep saying that if we don't get it under control in the next six months . . . or that the next six months will be crucial. . . .

This reminds me of Cheney and his "last throes." These six months go on forever, just like those last throes.

[gratuitous]

16. Yep, things will turn around in the next Friedman

1 Friedman = 6 months

Named for the New York Times columnist, war cheerleader and Bush administration apologist, whose stock in trade since the middle of 2003 has been relentlessly optimistic predictions for Iraq "in the next six months" or that "the next six months" would show definitively how great things were going to turn out once the present unplesantness (whatever it is today) passes.

[Jacobin]

20. "Just Give War A Chance"

:evilgrin:

I wish I could find that NYT column with that title he did a couple of months before the invasion whoring for the war.

Now, he's all, like, ooooh, we really did a bad job of this great idea of an invasion.

[City Lights]

22. My sister (DUer, borlis) actually saw a bumper sticker that said

GIVE WAR A CHANCE :wtf: It was a few weeks ago.

[Jacobin]

24. I'm old enough to remember the Viet Nam peace marches

"All we are saying, is Give Peace A Chance"

What a cynical, idiotic and in the end, ironic turn Friedman made of that phrase.

[The Stranger]

23. ". . . a partner against terror . . . "

Removed from the mass media onslaught and the endless programming and daily Two Minutes Hate, what a fucking bizarre phrase.

[Supersedeas]

25. nothing to see here - the NeoCon elected officials demand media silence

It is the media's patriotic duty...after all!!

[AntiFascist]

26. Somehow this all fits in with our own criminal government....

time for a change!!