NYT Baghdad bureau chief: The White House lied for years about what bad shape Iraq was in

Via Ace, something to keep in mind tonight while The One is doing his johnny-on-the-spot shtick about fighting jihadism in Iraq. “Lie” is my word, not Tim Arango’s, but read his comment and tell me what’s more likely. That the vast American intelligence community was “ignorant” of how bad things were in a country where we’d spent eight years developing assets? Or that the White House had every reason to know how dangerous Iraq was becoming but chose to suppress that information because the truth was problematic?

“We used to restrain Maliki all the time,” Lieutenant General Michael Barbero, the deputy commander in Iraq until January, 2011, told me. “If Maliki was getting ready to send tanks to confront the Kurds, we would tell him and his officials, ‘We will physically block you from moving if you try to do that.’ ” Barbero was angry at the White House for not pushing harder for [a Status of Forces] agreement. “You just had this policy vacuum and this apathy,” he said. “Now we have no leverage in Iraq. Without any troops there, we’re just another group of guys.” There is no longer anyone who can serve as a referee, he said, adding, “Everything that has happened there was not just predictable—we predicted it.”

Not to you Hojczyk...

You know, it’s obvious Obama is lying. His lips are moving.

When they aren’t moving, it’s because he’s hiding something he would by lying about if his lips were moving.

He has no character. He’s a willing traitor to his own nation. He arms our enemies. He provides funding to our enemies. Then when it’s evident he needs to take action to undo what he has done, he procrastinates and takes months to even consider coming up with a plan. And then the plan is revealed by have been crafted by children with a first to third grade gasp of global dynamics.

Occasionally I pop onto threads like this, where some person has wandered in from parts unknown to lament the destabilization of Iraq.

I don’t honestly remember a time when Iraq was “stabalized”. Saddam Hussein rules the nation with his rabid sons. Mass graves existed all over the nation. Chemical weapons were present. They had been used on the Kurds, citizens of Iraq. Hussein had invaded Iran and Kuwait. He had sent Skuds into Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Hussein was put on notice after we extricated him from Kuwait. Don’t fly in the North around the Kurds. Don’t fly South near Saudi Arabia or where you can stage attacks against Israel.

Other than that, he was allowed to stay in power. And when he stayed in power, his sons rounded up good looking married women for their pleasure, and killed their husbands.

Hussein also targeted U.S. aircraft monitoring his compliance with sanctions. This was against agreements that kept him in power.

During his last months in power, he moved his armed forces near to Kuwait again, and then down near Saudi Arabia.

Does this sound stabilized to anyone? Seriously?

Hussein was paying the families of Suicide Bombers against Israel $25,000 a pop. Sound stabilized?

Hussein would make public statements supporting terrorism against the United States and Europe. He was suspect of having a nuclear weapons program and or other WMDs. He wouldn’t let the inspectors have good access. Even the stooge the U.N. had trying to execute the inspections stated publicly he thought Hussein had them.

Europe thought he had them. The Left in our Congress thought he had them.

Many of the citizens of Iraq wanted Hussein gone. We wanted him gone. Europe wanted him gone. The U.N. signed on. Israel was glad to see him go.

The next person that thinks about writing that Iraq was stable, please remind the family members of the folks in those mass graves in Iraq. Please notify the wives raped and or killed by Hussein’s sons.

Please remind the citizen of Iraq, that were as sick of him as we were.

You might also want to ask the families of the over one million people who died as a direct result of his actions, his invasion of Iran, Kuwait, and his wars with the U.S.

Iraq was not stable.

Something had to be done. We did it.

Just because Obama’s, McCain’s, and Graham’s brains didn’t have enough active brain cells firing to let them know you don’t give weapons to al Qaeda or give them operational funding, please don’t join them by thinking Bush and the U.S. pre Obama caused what is taking place now.

Bush and the U.S. didn’t.

A terrorist sympathizer operating from the White House, and two very ignorant men operating from the Senate of the United States did.

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