Novak: GOP Senators concerned a depleted U.S. military will be blamed for the Iraq fiasco.

[sabra]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/460312,CST-EDT-NOVAK09.article

White House ignoring Iraq signs

July 9, 2007
BY ROBERT NOVAK Sun-Times Columnist

National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley visited Capitol Hill just before Congress adjourned for the Fourth of July. Meetings with a half-dozen senior Republican senators were clearly intended to extinguish fires set by Sen. Richard Lugar's unexpected break from President Bush's Iraq policy. They failed.

Hadley called his expedition a "scouting trip," leading one senator to ask what he was seeking. It was not advice on how to escape from Iraq. Hadley appeared interested in how previous supporters had drifted from Bush's course. In the process, he planted seeds of concern. Some senators were left with the impression the White House still does not recognize the scope of the Iraq dilemma. Worse yet, they see Bush running out the clock until April, when a depleted U.S. military will be blamed for the fiasco.

...

Always deferential, Hadley took copious notes. But he did more than listen. Based on what Hadley said, one senator concluded "they just do not recognize the depth of the difficulty they are in." That difficulty entails running out of troops in nine months. Hadley increased latent fears of the U.S. military being made the fall guy -- a concern shared by many retired and some active senior officers, including a current infantry division commander.

During his scouting expedition, Hadley was asked why Bush named a serving Army officer -- Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute -- as a deputy national security adviser and "czar" of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Isn't that Hadley's job? Freshman Democratic Sen. Jim Webb, a lawmaker who has worn the nation's uniform in combat, was one of four senators who voted against Lute's confirmation. He told the Senate that Lute's return to the Army after serving in the administration would threaten the military's status as a "non-political organization."

[Captain Hilts]

1. The navy has been whittled down to six expensive ships and that's it.

It's the smallest it's been since before the First World War.

Sailors trained expensively to be submarine sailors are being given three days of firearm training at Ft. Bragg then sent to Iraq on security details.

It's wrong.

[CottonBear]

2. They're concerned that they'll be blamed for the Iraq disaster.

The military has done its best with what BushCo and the GOP controlled house and senate gave them to work with.

:grr: Hey GOP senators: you're to blame, you idiots.

[tridim]

3. Exactly, and in the mean time they're wasting no time blaming the military..

while writing articles claiming they don't want to blame the military.

By the time this CYA operation is over the disaster in Iraq will be 100% Bill Clinton's fault. Fortunately I think the people know better this time.

[CottonBear]

4. So many retired military men and women have spoken out against * & the war

but the general public hasn't been listening (Remember the 12 officers who wrote the letter about * & the war prior to the 2004 election?)

Maybe people will know better by now. I hope that we get our troops out of harms way in Iraq ASAP.
We need to rebuild our military, resupply the National Guards with new equipment, bring our Guard troops home and fund veterans care. We need to resupply and reinforce our troops in Afghanistan.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. They just need more troops, money, and..patience. Just like they said they did in Vietnam.

The usual B.S. when faced with an obvious defeat.

[KharmaTrain]

6. Passing The Buck...

I hope the Prince of Darkness is offering some good old "GOOP" insight into things. If so, the Repugnicans will implode next year as the knives will be out bigger and deeper than they are now. I'd long predicted the end-result of the booosh "legacy" will be the implosion of the Repugnicans and the destruction of many of the long-time myths. No myth was bigger and further from the truth than their real support for our military.

Try as they might...this is a Repugnican war and the destruction of the military has (R)s attached at all the critical breaking points. For the past year, the charade has been to paper over the depletion of the military with all sorts of distortions and a "surge"...which looks to have been a total failure on the verge of a disaster.

Sadly, the legacy of booosh and Iraq will be with us the rest of our lives...the demoralized military, a force at all time lows in manpower, readiness and equipment and the large albatross of Iraq hanging on them like Scott Norwood's missed field goal to win the Super Bowl. And how will our "Repugnican friends" act???

Of course, they'll say it was all the "Democrats" fault. We somehow forced boooshie to invade, to let Rummy mismanage this thing into a real clusterfuck and then our fault for keeping it going. Hopefully a majority of the voters won't buy any of this bullshit...and with it, another GOOP pilar comes crashing down as they'll be relegated to minority status for years to come.

My hopes are the "Who Lost Iraq" game will stay where it should be...within the Repugnican tent. I'm sure that once booosh is gone (and more and more Repugnicans look toward that day than we do), there's gonna be a blood-letting and soul searching in that party. If not, it's dead.

[NewJeffCT]

7. Of course they will be blamed!!

And, when the next generation of neocons take office and want to invade somebody, they will justify using an all-mercenary army because the regular army "failed" in Iraq.

This army of paramilitaries will not be bound by quaint things like "the Geneva Conventions" or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or our judicial system.

[sallyseven]

8. Well what about the 125,000

mercenary's that we hired to do jobs in Iraq. Hope they don't come home and bite us on the butt.

[Zywiec]

9. Everyone knows

Republicans are much better than the Democrats on defense...

:sarcasm:

[Hubert Flottz]

10. What else would you blame it on?

Halliburton and companies like them?

The Clenis?

[Blackhatjack]

11. Once again Novak is late crawling out of his coffin to report this one....

The plan all along is to blame the military for becoming depleted and lacking the will and resources to fight, and Dems will be blamed for making it impossible for the US to win the war by infusing in the soldiers the belief that we cannot win, the war is lost.

There... now you understand that the Repubs were ambushed by traitorous Dems, and short-circuited by troops who whimped out. Certainly not the Repubs fault ... oh no no no..... not at all.