Posted on 09/29/2004 10:07:32 AM PDT by Former Military Chick
WASHINGTON - Just the other day, Rush Limbaugh chided Sen. Chuck Hagel for saying that the United States is in "deep trouble" in Iraq.
"I know he served a stint in Vietnam," the widely known conservative said on his radio show, "but . . . does it qualify him for expertise everywhere around the world?"
Other Republicans piled on. Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, is a "traitor" and a "hand-wringer" who is undermining President Bush, they have said.
Meanwhile, the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, praised Hagel last week on "Late Night with David Letterman."
Hagel has been on the hot seat since the summer of 2002, when the administration first raised the prospect of invading Iraq. He is one of a few Republicans who publicly have challenged the Bush team's optimistic predictions before and during the war.
And Hagel has been a thorn again lately, arguing against the administration's stay-the-course mantra. Hagel says U.S. policy needs significant changes.
U.S. success in the war is not ensured, Hagel said in an interview Friday, adding that the Bush team appears to have finally grasped what is needed to win.
That's a key reason, Hagel said, that he strongly supports Bush's re-election in November.
In fact, despite his very public criticisms about Iraq, Hagel has had more two-way interaction with White House policy-makers in recent months than he ever has had.
Friday morning, he and Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, talked for an hour about a four-page memo he had sent to the administration proposing policy shifts for Iraq.
"I've been trying to help. I know some people don't think that," Hagel said in his Capitol Hill office. "I've been doing this because I care about the future of this country."
It's not a new role for Hagel. When Bill Clinton was president, Hagel once told him at a White House meeting not to send a treaty banning certain nuclear tests to the Senate because it would be rejected. Clinton ignored him, and the Senate did as Hagel had predicted.
Hagel said he doesn't intend to change now. But it frustrates him, he said, that by doing what any member of Congress should do under the Constitution - speak his mind - he has become embroiled in presidential politics.
The United States, he said, must find a way to win in Iraq because the consequences of losing would be severe for the United States, the Middle East and the world.
"If Iraq goes down, the world will become far more dangerous," he said.
Among the ideas in his memo:
• The United States should broaden efforts to help Iraqis take control of their country. Young Iraqi men, in particular, need jobs, education, resources and hope for a better life, he said.
• Arab leaders are eager to do more to help. Arab nations could convene a summit on Iraq's economic future, with no U.S. participation. Those nations also could set up camps in Jordan, Kuwait or Egypt to train more Iraqis as soldiers or police officers.
• The dozens of Arab military officers who were trained in the United States over the years might be tapped to work alongside U.S. troops in Iraq. Those officers understand the area's culture and could work as liaisons to Iraqis.
• The large U.S. Embassy now in the protected Green Zone in Baghdad could be separated from the nearby interim government's headquarters, a symbolic gesture to help Iraqis feel that their government is truly theirs.
• The United Nations and NATO could become more involved in security and humanitarian reconstruction efforts.
Hagel said the overriding goal is to "get the bull's-eye" off the 135,000 American troops in Iraq.
He said the administration already has quietly altered its thinking on how to wage the war against terrorists that began with the 9/11 attacks.
When the United States stormed into Afghanistan in late 2001 to smash the Taliban and the al-Qaida terrorists, the Bush team stiff-armed allies willing to help fight terrorism, Hagel said.
Then leading up to the Iraq war, the Bush team was "arrogant" and "hell-bent" on war, arguing that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein posed an imminent menace to the United States, Hagel said.
When traditional U.S. allies such as France and Germany raised doubts about whether Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and hesitated to join a coalition preparing for war, Hagel recalled, Bush laid down a marker: You are with us or against us.
The result was a go-it-alone stance that caused many allies to stay out of Iraq and has continued to complicate efforts to stabilize the country, Hagel said.
But with the continuing insurgency and the rising numbers of deaths and injuries of American soldiers, Hagel said, the Bush team recently changed its tack. It aggressively moved to send senior officials overseas to meet with allies, attend international conferences and try to pull more partners into Iraq.
"We're seeing a responsible shift now in the administration toward a more realistic understanding that it's going to require our allies and institutions, like the U.N. and NATO, to accomplish what we must in Iraq."
Jack Spencer, a foreign policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the United States has already won its main objectives in Iraq and now is engaged in the long-expected struggle to help Iraqis create a stable, secure nation.
To view the situation differently, he said, seems like "trying to define our victory as a defeat."
But Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said he is surprised that many of the people he has talked with on Capitol Hill and in the Bush administration, including conservatives, don't view Hagel as a problem but rather as a constructive voice.
"The worst you can accuse him of is forcing realism into the process at a time we desperately need it," he said.
While I may not agree with Hagel he does have the right to act on his beliefs and those who he serves.
If everyone agreed in Congress, well it would be boring.
he needs to get a clue...many things are already being done...he has to stop reading the dems talking points.
Traitor.
He's a liberal media suckup.
Sen. Chuck Hagel is neither a Dissenter or Realist. Hagel is simply being a politician. And he is lying when he expresses his "concern" for the future of the country. He is only concerned with his own political future. As a Nebraskan I now think I made a big mistake voting to elect him in 1996. We all thought he was someone he wasn't.
Hagel is a loose cannon with the personality of a doorknob!
Thank you for your illuminating post. As he is not my rep it is nice to hear from those he does serve.
Hagel is nothing more than McCrazy's puppet.
I like to think of him more as McCain's Butt Boy.
That's a key reason, Hagel said, that he strongly supports Bush's re-election in November.
Ohhhh I get it. He's had Kerry DNA infused in him...as long as the Bush Administration listens to him, after all, he's a Vietnam Vet and knows about these things, he'll be supportive. Never mind that he's gone on every talk show that will have him as long as he vociferously disagrees with the President. And never mind that every RAT that can find a camera or a microphone uses Hagel as one of their "Republican voices who dissent."
If Hagel wants to disagree, fine. Let him do so privately. Let him do so as a responsible Senator and leave the grandstanding to the RATS. He has truly diminished any credibility he had in Nebraska, and has propelled his ambitions on the sacrifices of our men and women in harm's way. He is disgusting and I regret the vote I cast for him.
I feel the same... and was thinking that it is the common denominator much too often, these days! Sad, isn't it?
"Maybe Richard Perle should lead the first company of U.S. soldiers into Iraq."
Waaaaaaah. He provided ammunition for John Kerry to use against Bush. Are we supposed to feel sorry for him that he's getting some heat about that?
"When traditional U.S. allies such as France and Germany raised doubts about whether Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and hesitated to join a coalition preparing for war, Hagel recalled, Bush laid down a marker: You are with us or against us.
The result was a go-it-alone stance that caused many allies to stay out of Iraq and has continued to complicate efforts to stabilize the country, Hagel said."
Just a RINO.
That statement merely proves he is juvenile. Which falls in line with the way a pol has to behave to recieve good treatment from the elites in NY.
He is transparent in his claim to want the best for the troops and country, for if he really did, he would take his complaints, worries, fears, hangringing, to the Pres and Sec of Def, in private, rather than comforting enimies within and abroad.
He is a US Senator, he should start acting like one.
I agree. Hagel is a constructive voice whom I do not always agree with.
Quite sad.
I prefer backstabbing, showboating, media suck up. A Republican who publicly and harsly criticizes the president's foreign policy in the middle of an election campaign against a commie like John Kerry is beneath contempt.
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