Stay the Course, Continue the Presence, Increase Our Forces
That’s part of a quote from Rep. Jim Oberstar in this WC Trib article. It’s also inaccurate. Here’s the full quote:
Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., said the public wants a change in Iraq and Congress has attempted to alter the Iraq strategy, but both have fallen on “deaf ears.”
“So whatever message the Congress crafts, whatever message the American people send in the election is clearly offset by the Bush administration’s insistence that United States will stay the course, continue the presence, increase our forces,” Oberstar said.
Let’s be clear about one thing…one very important thing: Gen. Petraeus’ and Amb. Crocker’s testimony this week have changed the nation’s mood towards the war. I’m not saying that there’s suddenly a ‘give em hell Harry’ mood in the country. I am saying that there’s suddenly a ‘let’s give them a chance’ mood in the country because they’ve listened to Gen. Petraeus’ testimony. In listening to his testimony, they’ve concluded that he’s a straight shooter. They’ve concluded that he knows what he’s doing, something I don’t think ever happened with other commanders.
Let’s also admit that it’s dishonest for Rep. Oberstar to say that the Bush administration insists on increasing the forces, especially after Thursday night’s announcement that he’s calling for a near-immediate withdrawal of 5,700 troops before Christmas and a possible withdrawal of more than 30,000 troops overall before this time next fall.
Rep. Oberstar might get the loons to believe him but thinking people will reject his characterization as partisan spin.
Here’s another collection of misleading statements:
Dorgan said the Bush administration is using the troop surge drawdown as a “public relations approach. They are describing this as a major change of course, and it’s not,” he said. “At the end of that, we’ll be at where we were six months ago.”
Dorgan said efforts should be made to focus the U.S. military strategy on training Iraqi security forces and on dismantling terrorist operations. “The mission should not be the type of mission that requires the number of forces that Gen. Petraeus is talking about,” he said.
Sen. Dorgan is piling it on thick when he says that the surge isn’t a major change of course. When he says that “we’ll be at where we were six months ago”, he’s right from the standpoint that we’ll return to the same troop levels. He couldn’t be more wrong, though, from a security standpoint. The Iraqi security situation has improved dramatically since the surge began.
Democrats are attempting to spin the situation in Iraq because it’s their only hope of winning the White House in 2008. The bad news for them is that the average citizen thought that Petraeus’ testimony was credible and detailed.
Credible and detailed defeats spin every time.
Technorati Tags: James Oberstar, Byron Dorgan, Iraq War, David Petraeus, Election 2008
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
September 15th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
[...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: Military, Iraq, Election 2008, Defeatocrats | [...]
September 16th, 2007 at 12:40 am
Did you link to the right article? I didn’t see anything about the country’s mood towards the war changing, at least not in the direction that your wishful thinking indicates. Drawing down to the same or higher level of troops we were at in December 2006 is not a decrease in troop levels.
Bush himself said that he was just trying to get the situation in Iraq to a place where he could coerce the republican candidate for president into accepting the responsibility for the war (despite that fact that the likelihood of the next president being a republican is shrinking on a daily basis).
Meanwhile, the insurgents are pissed off that the Shiites in Anbar were siding with the Americans and allowing our ’surge’ to come into the province and Bush claim credit for making it less violent. Yes, that’s right: the progress in Anbar was happening before the surge:
So, now we have a dead Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha thanks, in large part, to Bush interjecting himself into what little progress made, despite the increased troop levels.
On the other side of the country, Moqtada al-Sadr, smart enough to gauge what his enemies are doing, put a hold on his private army’s activities for six months… coincidentally, the length of time before we are forced to withdraw troops due to a stretched — and stressed — military. I was thrilled when Bush took credit for this, too, so that he will get the blame for what happens when al-Sadr reactivates his fighters (especially now that al-Sadr has withdrawn from al-Maliki’s government).
So, in the end, Sen. Dorgan may not be far off, as this
administrationcabal treats everything like a PR campaign (to whit, the constant flow of press releases from the WH this week). Our troops bought the Iraqi so-called government their “breathing room” and what progress was made ? We paid for the past ninth months with 798 American lives and $billions in treasure, the Iraqis went on vacation for a month, and our ally, so close the presnit stopped by for tea, was assassinated.So how, exactly, is this not a worse position than we were in nine months ago, and how is what we’re going to do next not exactly like what we’ve already done?
September 16th, 2007 at 6:27 am
So let me get this straight. When BushCheneyHalliburton strategy was keeping the troops in the FOBs, small foot print, training the Iraqi forces, the strategy was wrong, there were not enough troops, I raqis were not doing their part and we needed a new direction.
He replaces the SecDef, the MNF-I commander, changes strategies from light foot print to immersion in the mulhallas (neighborhoods) and increases the troop levels. Now the direction is wrong, nothing has changed and Iraqi allies dieing is BushMchitlers fault. OK, I get it, the only correct direction is retreat.
September 16th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Here’s what has fallen on deaf ears:
See, Americans don’t WANT Congress “to alter the Iraq strategy.” They want the Military to call the shots.
http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
September 16th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Get ready for it…
Tom Delay
September 17th, 2007 at 10:27 am
No it wasn’t. According to Gen. Petraeus’ testimony, US Marines were needed to kill off enough AQI terrorists before the sheikhs were willing to turn on AQI.
The sheikhs had wanted to turn but they didn’t until they stood a fighting chance.
Sen. Dorgan is off by a country mile. He’s a $hit-for-brains idiot on foreign policy.