Thread: Bush speaks to Troops about Iraq

"To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your commander-in-chief."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/...raq/index.html

Bring 'em home alive Mr. President

Best he gets a bomb suit on and goes and deals with the said devices himself then!!!!!!!

Has anyone seen the strategy document?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4484330.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...05_us_iraq.pdf

Why doesn't it list the Shia militia as one of the enemy groups???

Tricam.

National strategy for Victory in Iraq.

Fmobb , that's the mindset that is creating the problem. So it wasn't 'Mission accomplished' then. To win a Victory , we have to be fighting a war. But we're told it's not a war, simply insurrection by certain elements. How are we going to achieve 'Victory' if we don't know, or refuse to acknowledge who the real enemy is?

“The United States has no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq’s new
government. That choice belongs to the Iraqi people. Yet, we will ensure that one
brutal dictator is not replaced by another.

B*lls*it.

Victory in Iraq is a Vital U.S. Interest
• Iraq is the central front in the global war on terror. Failure in Iraq will embolden terrorists and
expand their reach; success in Iraq will deal them a decisive and crippling blow.
The fate of the greater Middle East – which will have a profound and lasting impact on American
security – hangs in the balance.

The Enemy Is Diffuse and Sophisticated
• The enemy is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists affiliated with or inspired by
Al Qaida. Distinct but integrated strategies are required to defeat each element.

No mention of Militant Shia or Ultra-Nationalists or even dare it be said - Patriots , no matter how 'misguided'

Yet many challenges remain: Iraq is overcoming decades of a vicious tyranny, where
governmental authority stemmed solely from fear, terror, and brutality.
9 It is not realistic to expect a fully functioning democracy, able to defeat its enemies and
peacefully reconcile generational grievances, to be in place less than three years after Saddam
was finally removed from power.

It is not realistic? So why was this sold initally as being realistic? Why were we told we were going to be greeted with the locals throwing garlands of flowers?

Our Victory Strategy Is (and Must Be) Conditions Based
• With resolve, victory will be achieved, although not by a date certain.
9 No war has ever been won on a timetable and neither will this one.

What the bloody hell does this statement mean? Meaningless hyperbole.

Our mission in Iraq is to win the war. Our troops will return home when that mission is complete.

VICTORY IN IRAQ DEFINED
As the central front in the global war on terror, success in Iraq is an essential element
in the long war against the ideology that breeds international terrorism. Unlike past
wars, however, victory in Iraq will not come in the form of an enemy’s surrender, or
be signaled by a single particular event – there will be no Battleship Missouri, no
Appomattox.

Then how do you know if you won the war? I don't remember the Iraqi Army formally surrendering either. Is there a chance that these 'Saddamists' may not all be supporters, but in fact are doing what I hope any of us in our respective country's armed forces would think we should do if invaded by a foreign military. Fight until told to surrender by a recognised Military authority?

Bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared Iraq to be “the place for the greatest
battle,� where he hopes to “expel the Americans� and then spread “the jihad wave to the
secular countries neighboring Iraq.�

Which includes Syria, but you're doing his job for him there.

9

As the terrorists themselves recognize, the outcome in Iraq – success or failure – is
critical to the outcome in the broader war on terrorism.

No they bloody well do not. They are fighting for a twisted idealogy. The foreign fighters coming into Iraq couldn't care less about a "New improved Iraq". They are there to kill "Foreign troops" . Something impersonal, which the new Iraqi Government also referred to us as last week. As was previously stated, if there is no formal or recognised surrender , what will stop them continuing the fight? Money will still come in from sympathisers, young idiots will still be brainwashed, and as long as one person still continues to fight against us in Iraq and elsewhere that we've ignored to concentrate on this clusterf*ck, there will always be support for the 'terrorists'. More blasted rhetoric. this is just a continuation of that other nebulous statement "Fighting them there so we don't do it here" . Which is boll*x.

Safer…
- by removing Saddam Hussein, a destabilizing force in a vital region, a ruthless dictator
who had a history of pursuing and even using weapons of mass destruction, was a state
sponsor of terror, had invaded his neighbors, and who was violently opposed to America;
- - - • • •

Good grief. I can't believe this is trotted out again.

by depriving terrorists of a safe haven from which they could plan and launch attacks
against the United States and American interests;

Oh FFS. To plan an attack against America or American interests you have to be based in Iraq do you? Iraq was not a "safe haven" for terrorists, Saddam had a real bee in his beret about fundamentalists. Why is this statement still being foisted about, especially in the wake of Sec. Powell's words on the matter?

Weakened the growing democratic impulses in the region. Middle East reformers would
never again fully trust American assurances of support for democracy and pluralism in the
region – a historic opportunity, central to America’s long-term security, forever lost.

What Middle East reformers are these? The Coca-Cola Company? Let's face it, they've had more success in re-shaping the Middle East than this administration.

The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists affiliated with or
inspired by Al Qaida. These three groups share a common opposition to the elected Iraqi
government and to the presence of Coalition forces, but otherwise have separate and to some
extent incompatible goals.

Gosh that's neat. I can't see the Elephant , because my fingers are in my ears and my head is in the sand.

Arrrrrrrgh fugg it. I can't be arrsed to comment on the rest of it, it's full of paradox , confusion, hyperbole ,contradiction , rah-rah bulls*it and self-defeating argument, and my p*ss is red-lining.

He didn't by chance deliver this in front of yet another 'safe' audience did he?

Well I think PTP, despite a hemorrhage, has just about got it right.

Originally Posted by tricam

Has anyone seen the strategy document?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4484330.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...05_us_iraq.pdf

Why doesn't it list the Shia militia as one of the enemy groups???

Tricam.

Because Abdul Aziz Hakim the leader of SCIRI and de-facto leader of many of the Shiite Militia is going to win big, come the December elections. The Americans and the British cannot afford to alienate the Shiites, especially if the Americans want to withdraw come 2006. The aim of the Cairo conference seems to have been trying to bring enough Sunnis on board to allow for some kind normalisation in relationships beween the civilian Sunni leaders (and *cough* the 'nationalist' insurgents), the Shiite leadership and the Americans.

Bugger.... yes, didn't think of that....

I hate being outwitted by the Shaved Chimp.

Tricam.

Originally Posted by tricam

I hate being outwitted by the Shaved Chimp.

Tricam.

Stupid is as stupid does

Well, it seemed a suitable thread to air this one in :



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It good to see he's a man of conviction and all about staying the course though isn't it

rewind the clock 6 years and change the conflict to Kosovo

George W. Bush, 9/4/99:

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.�


George W. Bush, 5/6/99

“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.�

seriously you could dress a dog turd in a suit and it wouldn't stink as much as that duplicitous f****r...

I really don't know where to begin with what so far appears to be an unmitigated abortion of galactic proportions. I'm in the middle of reading the document and have had to stop because its 0310 here, I'm knackered and I have just run out of antacids.

Hmmm.....bothersome analysis.....in the ever-needful interests of balance, this from the current Economist magazine:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis..._ID=E1_VNTQTTR

Why America must stay

Nov 24th 2005
From The Economist print edition

America should keep its troops in Iraq until Iraqis ask them to go
AFP


WARS waged abroad are often lost at home; and that may be starting to happen with Iraq. Calls for American troops to withdraw are familiar in the Arab world and Europe, but in the United States itself such talk has remained on the fringes of political debate. Now, with surprising suddenness, it has landed at the centre of American politics.

On November 17th John Murtha, a hawkish Democratic congressman, suggested pulling the troops out of Iraq in six months, prompting an unseemly spat between the former marine colonel and the White House. Moves to set a timetable have been voted down, but the Republican-controlled Senate has voted 79-19 for 2006 to be “a period of significant transition to full Iraq sovereignty� and the Pentagon is mumbling about troop reductions. Meanwhile, some hundred Iraqi leaders at a reconciliation conference in Cairo backed by the Arab League talked about setting a timetable for withdrawal.

There is some politicking in this. In Cairo, the Shias and Kurds, who dominate Iraq's new order, were offering an olive branch to the sullen Sunnis, who used to run the show under Saddam Hussein. In America, Republicans are looking nervously at the 2006 elections. Democrats sense that George Bush is vulnerable—and that Iraq presents the best way to hurt him now that most Americans regret invading the country. Yet there is plainly principle too: Mr Murtha and millions of others maintain that America is doing more harm than good in Iraq, and that the troops should therefore come home.

This newspaper strongly disagrees. In our opinion it would be disastrous for America to retreat hastily from Iraq. Yet it is also well past time for George Bush to spell out to the American people much more clearly and honestly than he has hitherto done why their sons and daughters fighting in Iraq should remain in harm's way.

The cost of failure
Every reasonable person should be able to agree on two things about America's presence in Iraq. First, if the Iraqi government formally asks the troops to leave, they should do so. Second, the argument about whether America should quit Iraq is not the same as the one about whether it should have gone there in the first place. It must be about the future.

That said, the catalogue of failures thus far does raise serious questions about the administration's ability to make Iraq work—ever. Mr Bush's team mis-sold the war, neglected post-invasion planning, has never committed enough troops to the task and has taken a cavalier attitude to human rights. Abu Ghraib, a place of unspeakable suffering under Mr Hussein, will go into the history books as a symbol of American shame. The awful irony is that the specious link which the administration claimed existed between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to justify going to war now exists.
Two-and-a-half years after Mr Bush stood beneath a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished�, the insurgency is as strong as ever. More than 2,000 Americans, some 3,600 Iraqi troops, perhaps 30,000 Iraqi civilians and an unknown number of Iraqi insurgents have lost their lives, and conditions of life for the “liberated� remain woeful. All this makes Mr Bush's refusal to sack the people responsible for this mess, especially his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, alarming.

But disappointment, even on this scale, does not justify a precipitate withdrawal. There are strong positive and negative reasons for America to see through what it started.

Flickers of hope
Iraq is not Vietnam. Most Iraqis share America's aims: the Shia Arabs and Kurds make up some 80% of the population, while the insurgents operate mainly in four of Iraq's 18 provinces. After boycotting the first general election in January, more Sunni Arabs are taking part in peaceful politics. Many voted in last month's referendum that endorsed a new constitution; more should be drawn into next month's election, enabling a more representative government to emerge. That will not stop the insurgency, but may lessen its intensity. It seems, too, that the Arab world may be turning against the more extreme part of the insurgency—the jihadists led by al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who blow up mosques around Baghdad and Palestinian wedding parties in Jordan (see article). Though few Arabs publicly admit it, Mr Bush's efforts to spread democracy in the region are starting to bear fruit.

So America does have something to defend in Iraq. Which, for Mr Bush's critics, leads into the most tempting part of Mr Murtha's argument: that American troops are now a barrier to further progress; that if they left, Mr Zarqawi would lose the one thing that unites the Sunnis and jihadists; and that, in consequence, Iraqis would have to look after their own security. This has a seductive logic, but flies in the face of the evidence. Most of the insurgents' victims are Iraqis, not American soldiers. There are still too few American troops, not too many. And the Iraqi forces that America is training are not yet ready to stand on their own feet. By all means, hand over more duties to them, letting American and other coalition troops withdraw from the cities where they are most conspicuous and offensive to patriotic Iraqis. Over time, American numbers should fall. But that should happen because the Iraqis are getting stronger, not because the Americans are feeling weaker. Nor should a fixed timetable be set, for that would embolden the insurgents.

The cost to America of staying in Iraq may be high, but the cost of retreat would be higher. By fleeing, America would not buy itself peace. Mr Zarqawi and his fellow fanatics have promised to hound America around the globe. Driving America out of Iraq would grant militant Islam a huge victory. Arabs who want to modernise their region would know that they could not count on America to stand by its friends.

If such reasoning sounds negative—America must stay because the consequences of leaving would be too awful—treat that as a sad reflection of how Mr Bush's vision for the Middle East has soured. The road ahead looks bloody and costly. But this is not the time to retreat.

All very well for the magisterial and dispassionate editorial teams in London and New York... - it ain't likely to be their sons and daughters inside those black bags....

Le Chevre

The Troops should be told how great is mr.Bush

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...icle331611.ece

Bracing for war, yet praying for peace
Using his power so evil will cease
...
Going forward and knowing he's right
Even when doubted for why he would fight
...
Easy in manner, solid as steel
Strong in his faith, refreshingly real

Anyone else noticed that Bush and Cheney will now only speak to highly controlled audiences? Nearly all of Bush's speeches these days seem to be in front of troops who can act as props for the cameras and can't ask him hard questions.

when the shrub said 'Mission accomplished' he was talking about his re-election