Posted on 04/15/2004 2:47:02 PM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON, April 15 (Reuters) - Congressional Democrats urged President George W. Bush on Thursday to acknowledge his mistakes that they said have brought Iraq to the brink of disaster, and said he could begin by seeking greater role for U.S. allies.In separate speeches, several Democrats said Bush must change course to prevent Iraq from becoming a quagmire that spreads violence throughout the Middle East and drains U.S. lives and resources for years to come.
"I fear the administration is far more worried about conceding mistakes than it is concerned about sticking to a failed policy," said Joseph Biden of Delaware, top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"I don't know whether 'stay the course' is the way we should go when we don't know how we got involved in this course, or where it's going to take us," Charles Rangel of New York, top Democrat on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, said at the National Press Club.
Bush at a news conference on Tuesday said he would "stay the course" in Iraq, and could not think of a mistake he had made since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The Republican president also said he would stake his re-election this November on a successful outcome in Iraq
But Democrats ticked off a series of blunders that they said have alienated allies and left the United States burdened with trying to stabilize Iraq amid spiraling violence, including kidnappings of dozens of foreigners by insurgents enraged by the U.S. siege of Falluja.
Rangel and Biden said they felt there was time to shift from Bush's strategy that has left the United States as the major occupying force in Iraq, and get more support from allies. "We can't go it alone," Rangel said.
Biden, in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Bush should quickly convene a summit of key allies and form an international board of directors for Iraq, with a top member who would replace U.S. administrator Paul Bremer as Iraq's primary partner.
Since Lakhdar Brahimi, adviser on Iraq to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is beginning to take on that role informally, Biden recommended giving him the job to help form a caretaker government, mediate disputes before next year's elections and help Iraqis decide on a new government.
Biden said there were some in the administration pushing this idea -- "almost literally what I have outlined" -- that also would include seeking a new U.N. resolution to put the international community on record behind the arrangement.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, in a speech in his home state of Vermont, said the United States needed a "broader, multilateral strategy that has the support of a majority of the American people, the Iraqi people, and the international community, including as many Arab and other Muslim nations as possible."
He said the administration's "heavy-handed" tactics have made many Muslims feel the United States is "at war with Islam itself." Iraq may splinter or become a theocracy modeled on Iran, he said, if the administration persists "in an approach that is perceived by the Iraqi people and by the wider Muslim world as being imposed from the outside."
Biden said the Iraq endeavor still could succeed, but said the situation teetered "somewhere between an insurgency and widespread insurrection." Bush, he said, must "do more than describe a vision for Iraq that is increasingly divorced from reality."
A two pronged attack, set up by the arm of the DNC, laughingly known as the "free press".
April 14, 2004
Bush Admits Mistakes, Apologizes
(2004-04-14) -- In response to increasing pressure from White House reporters and Democrats, President George Bush today released a written statement admitting he has "made mistakes" and apologizing to the American people and the people of Iraq.
During last night's nationally-televised presidential news conference, Mr. Bush said he was unprepared for questions about his mistakes in office. He steadfastly refused to apologize for the 9/11 terror attacks. Instead, he again advanced the now-discredited theory that terrorists, not U.S. government officials, were to blame for the terrorism.
However, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that "after much soul searching" last night, the president wrote the following confession and apology:
"I have made mistakes during my time in the White House. I frittered away months trying to convince the United Nations that it should free the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator who never fulfilled the terms of surrender from the Gulf War and who continued to fire upon Coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone.
"It was an error in judgment to think that the U.N. Security Council would ever do anything more than talk in moralistic platitudes. My desire to build an international coalition from nations like France and Germany only served to delay the inevitable liberation of Iraq. I apologize to the people of Iraq and others in the Arab world, yearning to breathe free, who have placed their hopes in the only superpower that has the will and the way to set them free.
"This confession is good for the soul, so I would also like to admit that it was a mistake for me to keep Bill Clinton's counter-terrorism chief on my staff. I know now that Richard Clarke's presence in the White House was a knife hovering behind the shoulder blades of not only my staff, but of the American people who would later be betrayed by Mr. Clarke's desire for self-aggrandizement. I'm sorry for that.
"I'd also like to admit that it was a mistake to think that I could make friends with the Democrats by pouring funding into their top political agency, the National Education Association, or by creating a huge new medicare prescription drug entitlement. I can see now that no matter how often and how much you feed an alligator, he's always looking past the food in your hand and hankering for your arm, your heart, your head. My mistake...and I'm truly sorry.
"One last thing: In hindsight, it appears that I was premature in declaring an end to major combat operations in Iraq. I thought we had toppled the dictator. But as long as vermin like al-Sadr seek to glorify themselves, using false religion to oppress the people, the dictator lives on. He lives on in the hearts of the radical clerics who killed and then mutilated the bodies of Americans as surely as if their own hands were stained black from the charred flesh. I'm sorry that my statement caused some to believe that the war in Iraq had ended. It has continued for more than a decade and will not end until evil men like al-Sadr are purged and the cowl of fear is lifted from the face of the Iraqi people."
http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001670.html
Well, you scumsucking congress critters, when are we gonna have an investigation to those who created the d@mn problem to begin with. OH, Oh, and what about Frank Church and the Church commission that tore down the intelligence community so badly and stripped it of it's ability to do its job??? Oh that's right, he was a democRAT. And democRATS can do no wrong can they Mr. Biden. We all know that democRATS have GOOD intentions so therefore they are GOOD people huh?
May the people of the US finally see the democRATS for what they are. ANTI-AMERICANS to the core, with a few, very few exceptions such as Zell Miller.
Pound Sand!
Bite the Wall!
Take a Flying Leap!
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