Kerry speech on Senate floor re: Rumsfeld

[welshTerrier2]

all quotes are "my best recording" ... you want precision, go find a transcript

"if bush hadn't outsourced the job to Afghan mercenaries we could have surrounded Tora Bora"

"more terrorists today want to kill Americans than on September 11 ... is that a policy that is working?"

"we're not talking about leaving Iraq before they can provide their own security" (Note: Mr. Kerry has returned to CONDITIONAL withdrawal)

"if there's no military solution, what is the solution?"

"the only way to resolve Iraq is through diplomacy and political effort"

"there's a total absence of the kind of effort that can help to resolve Iraq"

"if they are 85% trained, why aren't we able to withdraw a few troops?"

"each month keeps on being the worst month than the month before"

"our plan is that we have to set a date by which the Iraqis will assume responsibility ... there is nothing precipitous about that"

"we allow the president to keep special forces there"

"we allow the president to keep sufficient forces there to protect American facilities (Note: does this include corporate-owned oil fields and corporate-owned oil pipelines?)"

"Rumsfeld's speech smeared those who dissent and accused them of moral confusion"

"it's immoral to use 9/11 as a political pawn"

"they were not killed by Saddam but by Osama Bin Laden"

"we have a better strategy for winning"

"Karl Rove has acknowledged that to win, republicans need to exploit security"

"in the place of accountability, we have vicious partisan attacks"

"we've watched Iraq sliding further and further into a bloody civil war"

"i've heard republicans privately acknowledge their concerns about this secretary and about this policy"

"on issue after issue Secretary Rumsfeld made the wrong decision"

"wrong when he could have followed reconstruction plan but didn't"

"wrong when he could have guarded the ammo dumps"

"when he could have imposed immediate order in Baghdad, he didn't"

Kerry then provided a long list of Rumsfeld's failures ...

"Mr. Rumsfeld was wrong again and again and again and the troops had to pay for that ... the Americans taxpayers had to pay and many troops paid with their lives"

"his stubbornness is our weakness"

"the current course is not leading to that success"

[karynnj]

1. I think he's still talking of K/F here - the point being that

in the time in the plan, the Iraqis could and would if this was the official policy.

You did way better than me in getting stuff, here's all I got.
Attacks earlier Republicans whose comments were insulting and who are conflating 911 and Iraq. Spoke of not getting OBL. Kerry blowing the cahrges out of the water. Making point that leaving one year from now is not "precipitous".

Iraq was not the center of the War on Terror. Kerry says that the Iraqis will kick out Al Qaeda. Kerry attacked comment Croyn made by saying that they did give plans. Kerry listed the people -UN, leaders Jordan, Eqypt that we need the summit he proposed. Need a political solution.

Less safe today

[welshTerrier2]

2. i agree ... it sounds like K/F

he keeps referring to getting out in a year which the Levin-Reid bill did not contain ...

[Sparkly]

3. "A Katrina foreign policy"

:thumbsup:

[pbartch]

4. he was WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is he talking about the Chimp or Rumsfeld

Both are wrong and BOTH SHOULD BE IMPEACHED AND PUT IN PRISION FOR TREASON.

[welshTerrier2]

5. he's focussing on Rumsfeld ...

his comments, of course, also reflect bush's failures ... the point he keeps making is that failures in the bush administration keep getting rewarded and that there is no accountability ...

[karynnj]

7. Great summary above and here - thanks

[karynnj]

6. Though speaking of Rumsfeld

it means Bush - who could have changed the plan or fired Rumsfeld - is wrong too.

[ginnyinWI]

15. they're both at fault, but for different reasons.

Bush is in charge of strategy, Rumsfeld in charge of operations--how you carry out the strategy.

[Sparkly]

8. VERY good!!!

:applause:

Now here come the rightwing knuckleheads to try to knock it down...

[welshTerrier2]

9. Gregg's arguments are pathetic

he uses the "monday morning quarterback" line of argument ...

the problem is that rumsfeld was in charge, not Kerry and rumsfeld was wrong ... and it's not about Monday morning, it's about tomorrow morning ... Rumsfeld has shown no inclination to revise his failed strategies ... that's the point!!

[Sparkly]

10. Yes -- and tried again to say how the Iraqi army has "stood up"

Well in that case, as Kerry said, why aren't we "standing down?" They can't have it both ways, as Kerry said, calling for a stop to that GAME.

[QShok]

13. Iraq stood up then shot down by al Sadr's militia.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/29/news/web.0828iraq.php

...Yet Sadr and the Mahdi Army have remained an operational blind spot. Prime Minister Maliki has not confronted Sadr publicly. Sadr City, a Mahdi bastion, has not been searched or raided in an thorough manner, even though it is one of the capital's most violent areas. The Americans have maintained some distance: even as the fighting raged in Diwaniya on Monday, General Caldwell told reporters he had not been briefed on the battle and could not comment....

If you ask me this is proof enough that the war is 'mismanaged'.

Q

[newyawker99]

20. Hi QShok!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[karynnj]

11. He's now gone over the deep end

with a very strange "strawman" that the Democrats should amend the amendment with "and replace him with Howard Dean." So, now he's attacking Lamont's and Dean's military experience. Is Gregg another chicken hawk?

[Sparkly]

12. "They're grounded in Birkenstocks."

:wtf:

[karynnj]

14. He's lost his mind

I hope that NH becomes sufficiently red to throw him out. His personal attack on John Kerry was completely against Senate rules.

[ginnyinWI]

16. it's about holding someone accountable

Just like any other working stiff who screws up on the job--and keeps on doing it. They get fired.

Surely there must be someone else who could do this job better, even if they are a Repub.

[blm]

17. Bring back William Cohen if they want another Republican.

.

[_dynamicdems]

18. Gregg is such an IDIOT. His voting record really makes me ashamed

to be from NH (the only consolation being that we did turn blue, if a pale blue, in 2004).

I've got enough letters from this creep from all the times I contacted him and he's voted with Shrub every step of the way. BAAAAAD senator.

[TayTay]

19. That was a great speech.

The conditional withdrawal was what was in that resolution that didn't pass in June. It's what the Dem Caucus would allow to be proposed on the floor.

This is what Kerry said last Dec when he was on conditional withdrawal before the elections. (Which did nothing and he amended his views in light of that and the Bombing of the Grand Mosque in Samarra in Feb of this year.) This is from a speech of Dec 8, 2005, in the Q&A section: http://www.cfr.org/publication/9390/real_security_in_a_post911_world.html

MODERATOR: So just to try to quantify it, 160,000 now; this time next year, if you were in charge —

KERRY: I believe you could get at least 100,000 out over that period of time, bring it down to somewhere in the vicinity of 30(,000) to 40,000, and then, you know, you’re going to have to see where you are. But the — that would be my goal. And I would not do it on a fixed automatic table; it has to be results-coordinated. And that’s the way I would do it.

-- John Kerry 12/8/05

I wish we had the troop deployments down to that level. I also wish we had someone in there who had promised no permanent bases in Iraq and thse goals:

So this is the long-range mission in the war on terror. One, make sure the right side wins the war of ideas within the Islamic world; two, build up diversified economies and civil society and bring the region into the global economy; and, three, end the empire of oil. These three challenges make it abundantly clear that this is not a war the United States should or can fight alone. And that’s the basic insight the president and his administration have yet to fully grasp and translate into policies that Americans can fully understand and embrace. Nothing makes that clearer, my friends, than their policy in Iraq, where our mismanaged occupation has inadvertently created a new front in the war on terror.

-- ibid

Ahm, Kerry has changed his mind on he widthdrawal. He still wanted it as soon as logistically possible and sooner rather than later, but the rest of the caucus won't go for that or allow it on the floor. Today's action is a step forward for the Dems. They are getting closer to a concensus on withdrawal. (Maybe, I also read a story in the WaPo recently that said that a lot of Dem challengers are not running on withdrawal, sigh.)

[snowbear]

21. He's on Tweety right now.. DAYUM the Senator looks good these days!

Very well rested.. very handsome.. and very ON THE BALL with his responses to Tweedle-dee-Tweedle-DUMB Matthews.

Great job Senator Kerry!

[blm]

22. There's a handful of Dems who figured out the new media reality and keep

their chops maintained and ready.