California Conservative

It appears as though the Las Vegas Journal-Review is reporting on Harry Reid’s spat with President Bush:

“The president and his enablers in Congress are so afraid of being held accountable for this disastrous war policy that they would rather leave our men and women in uniform empty-handed than work to change course in Iraq,” he said after the votes.

Let’s examine what’s happening in Iraq:

• The Anbar Awakening has eliminated that province as a AQI sanctuary. It’s eliminated Anbar from being where AQI planned their attacks.
• According to this article, attacks have dropped 90 percent in Basra.
• According to Liz Sly’s article, life is returning to normal in Baghdad

Here’s an example that Liz Sly cites:

No longer do the streets empty at dusk. Liquor stores and cinemas have reopened for business. Some shops stay open until late into the evening. Children play in parks, young women stay out after dark, restaurants are filled with families and old men sit at sidewalk cafes playing backgammon and smoking shisha pipes.

As I mentioned here, Harry Reid keeps trying to say that the surge strategy isn’t working. What isn’t working are his attempts to mischaracterize what’s happening in Iraq.

Ever since the ‘Grand Bargain’ switchboard meltdown, I’ve occasionally talked with friends that a new paradigm has emerged for activism. Thanks to “Al Gore’s internet”, activists now have a tool for holding politicians accountable. In this instance, we’re using that tool to hold Harry Reid accountable for his statements. Here’s another irresponsible statement by Reid:

“The president was offered the money,” Reid said. “There were very minimal accountability provisions in this bill. And even then he sneered and said no.”

The “very minimal accountability provisions” that Reid’s refering to are already being met. What Sen. Reid isn’t talking about is the fact that he’s holding up the war supplemental is causing an accounting nightmare at the Pentagon. John Ensign and Jon Kyl are all over Reid for not getting a clean Iraq supplemental passed. Here’s what Sen. Ensign said:

“The American people would rather have General (David) Petraeus running the war
than members of Congress,” Ensign said. “We cannot, the 535 of us, set timelines. We cannot put strategy on the ground. That is what (Democrats) are trying to do by putting strings on the funding.”

Here’s what Sen. Kyl said:

“It has now been over 280 days since the president asked for the emergency troop funding,” Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said in a Republican news conference. “They still don’t have it.”

He added, “You would think that on the verge of a Thanksgiving recess when members of Congress are going home to their constituencies, we would have some progress. Instead, it’s the same broken Congress.”

Harry Reid has been the most inept Senate Majority Leader in my lifetime. That’s why this Senate is the most inept Senate in my lifetime. I wonder what it’d be like if Harry Reid didn’t dance to the tune of his Nutroots puppeteers. I suspect it’d dramatically change this discussion.

I didn’t talk about some other things in Liz Sly’s story. Now’s the right time to talk about that:

“[Al] Qaeda has been defeated completely. And soon they will cease operating completely,” Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said in an interview in his office. “We expect them to have some attacks, they will make huge efforts and maybe they will succeed in one or two instances. But now they’re shifting their operations outside Iraq. They will not have a safe home here anymore.”

U.S. officials are more cautious. Al Qaeda has rebounded from past setbacks, and it almost certainly is trying to regroup, they say. “Al Qaeda, though on the ropes, is not finished by any means,” Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, the U.S. commander in Baghdad, said in a Nov. 6 briefing in the capital. “They could come back swinging if they’re allowed to.”

I suspect that Gen. Khalaf is on the verge of being right. Until the time that he’s right, though, I hope they maintain the mindset that Gen. Fil is operating from.

With Reid making these types of statements, it’s a shame Nevadans have to wait until 2010 to hold Sen. Reid accountable at the ballot box. The good news is that Nevadans know Reid’s time is heading to a screaching halt the next time he’s up for re-election. I suspect that even Sen. Reid knos that that’s inevitable.

Technorati Tags: Harry Reid, Iraq War, Iraq Supplemental, President Bush, Jon Kyl, John Ensign, Accountability, Elections

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 8:17 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Elections, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Military, W. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.