Reid: 'This place is devastated' (Reid blames Saddam and U.S. Military!)

Las Vegas Sun ^ | 3/23/05

[areafiftyone]

WASHINGTON -- The United States needs to focus on four goals in Iraq -- security, reconstruction and political and economic stability, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after spending Tuesday in the war-torn capital of Baghdad.

Reid said he was shaken by the destruction of the country caused by by former leader Saddam Hussein's policies and by the U.S. military.

"The place is devastated," Reid said in a telephone interview with Nevada reporters Tuesday, speaking from Georgia in the former Soviet Union, mid-way through an eight-day overseas congressional trip. "It is going to take years to reconstruct Iraq."

Each of the four goals poses massive challenges for the United States, Reid said. Rebuilding the economy is a daunting task given the violence, demolished infrastructure and rampant unemployment, he said.

"It (economy) is a mess, to say the least," Reid said.

Reid is leading a delegation of five Democrats and two Republican senators on a trip to examine security and issues in developing democracies that took them to Israel for a meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, then to Kuwait via Jordan, Iraq, and Georgia, Reid said. The senators are scheduled to meet Thursday with newly elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko in Kiev before a brief stop in France to meet with military officials and a scheduled Saturday return.

In Iraq, the senators met with U.S. military officials as well as Kurdish and Sunni leaders.

Reid also met with Nevada reservists from the Henderson-based Nevada National Guard 1864th Transportation unit, including a junior high school teacher from Elko. Reid described them as mostly lonely young men who want to get home. A few asked Reid to contact their loved ones.

"I've got several phone calls to make to wives and mothers," Reid said.

The soldiers appear well-trained and generally well-supplied, Reid said, although it was noted to Reid that some vehicle armor was not scheduled to arrive for four months. For soldiers awaiting that armor in a unit that trucks supplies to fellow soldiers, "every day is an eternity," Reid said.

The Nevada senator reiterated a call for a clearer U.S. plan for an eventual exit in Iraq. But he also said U.S. military forces could not begin a withdrawal until more stability has taken hold.

Security measures in Iraq are extreme, Reid said. Drivers routinely weave their cars to avoid being an easy target, he said. Reid attended a press conference in Iraq where 15 to 20 members of the media asked questions while about 50 law enforcement officers stood watch "guns at the ready."

Reid said it seemed nearly everyone -- people of all ages -- were armed.

"Every place you went there were people with guns," Reid said.

[ozzymandus]

Harry Reid is one stupid, annoying, little jerk. His only good point is that he illustrates the RATs total cluelessness on a daily basis.

[Polyxene]

"The place is devastated." "Every place you went there were people with guns," Reid said."

YA THINK, Squint? Gee, let's see -- there was a war. In war, there are guns, shooting, killing, and things get broken. What a marroon!!

[cinives]

I would think it's more correlated with anything targeted to youth - video games and music more than movies.

[winchester73]

I bet the Iraqis's were laughing at seeing and hearing Reid. Not exactly John Wayne.

[John Lenin]

You bet it is. We had riots at our HS in the 70's, I don't think there was a single shooting just a few people got knifed from what I remember. It's the media that has changed, the times were actually worse in those days but people didn't have the notion that you use a gun to solve all of your problems. So where are they getting the idea ?

[cinives]

Rap music, video games - where anyone who plays them is encouraged to think that a gun, explosives or a knife is the way to solve problems - thereby racking up points.

How many hours do kids spend watching movies versus the time kids spend listening to music(audio and MTV) and playing video games. Orders of magnitude tilted to music and games, obviously.

[injin]

Reid and Boxer both in Iraq ? and the Jihadi's missed !?
just goes to show how far they've been pounded down ....

[em2vn]

Say Harry did you notice the schools and hospitals that were opened by our troops? Don't forget the nation wide electrical transmission system that is being finished.
How about those paved roads Harry? Yes it was our guys who built them. Now they don't just run a few miles into the desert and end. Did you smell the human waste? Of course not. That is because we have gotten the sewer systems running, sometimes built from scratch. Don't forget the water systems we have repair or built from nothing.
Damn Harry I feel so comfortabe that you were able to notice guns in a war zone. What a man! or should it be?

[somniferum]

I think, respectfully, that you are both wrong. While blaming TV,Movies,Videogames, etc. is certainly easy, I believe the real reason for the explosion of violent crime (And one the media will never utter a peep about) is the destruction of the family (particularly the black family) brought about by LBJs great society.

We are witnessing what happens when a generation of boys are brought up with no fathers, and the cycle repeats.

You reap what you sow, and now we are reaping the whirlwind.

[John Lenin]

I say, all of the above.

[cinives]

I have to disagree. There are enough boys and girls, for that matter, with two parents, who kill. There were plenty of boys brought up without fathers during and after WW I, WW II etc who did not go out and cause mayhem.

I think the difference was, as you state, the strength of the family. A strong family does not let their boys or girls engage in destructive behavior. A single parent can be strong and raise good kids - the real problem is more that our generation is morally bankrupt and wants to be friends with their kids rather than parents.

[somniferum]

While I think we are quibbling over a minor point, I have some statistics that will probably shock you if you haven't seen them before.

69% of all black births are out of wedlock.
23% of all white births are out of wedlock.

Nationwide, 1 out every 3 children born are illegitimate.

When Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University tracked a sample of 6000 males aged 14 to 22 from 1979 to 1993, they found that boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being incarcerated. This was true even when other factors, such as race, income, parents' education, and urban residence, were held constant. Indeed, family structure was more important than income. Each year spent without a father in the home increases the odds of future incarceration by 5 percent, so that a child born to an unwed mother was 2.5 times more likely to end up imprisoned, versus 1.5 times for a boy whose parents split up when he was a teenager.

This is a national disgrace.

[Libloather]

"It (economy) is a mess, to say the least," Reid said."

Where was this numbnut two years ago - or do I really have to ask...

[Jorge]

I thought Dashole was bad.
Harry Reid is nothing but a whiney, negative, depressing excuse for a minority leader.

And he looks like funeral director from a Clint Eastwood movie.

[HitmanLV]

Mr. Limpett strikes again!

[Prophet in the wilderness]

And RUSH made a comment on that, RUSH said, that is Reid went to a bakery that he would complain that there are bread loaves all around.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

If anything, his liberal propaganda vacation over in IRAQ is nothing but to use this for political hay by the dems.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Not only L.B.J's Great Society, but, by the feminist also.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

And Rap music glorifies that.

[armymarinemom]

This guy is beginning to really dazzle me with his brilliance. I bet he could take a drive in New England right now and expound on the unsightly mess of dirty snow.