Posted on 06/25/2005 8:08:08 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
With Democrats and even a few Republicans escalating their criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq, and with polls indicating shrinking public support, a top terrorism strategist Friday said the president should "stop talking down" to Congress and the American people.
Anthony Cordesman, a strategist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, blamed the Bush administration for "major strategic mistakes in preparing to deal with Iraq once Saddam Hussein was overthrown.
Cordesman, who traveled to Iraq earlier this month, said he "did not see progress in aid. I did not see progress in economics. I did not see that the U.S. has a plan for using the aid they are providing."
On Tuesday night, President Bush will deliver a nationally televised speech on the situation in Iraq, at a time when at least one poll indicates nearly two-thirds of Americans feel it would be wise to bring the American troops home in the next year, rather than waiting for Iraq to stabilize.
The latest Harris Interactive survey showed that 63 percent of Americans want the troops brought home in the next year, up from only 47 percent who felt that way on Election Day last November.
Still, as he hosted Iraq's prime minister at the White House Friday, the president assured the new Iraqi leader that "there are not going to be any timetables," for the departure of U.S. troops from Iraq.
"There's no question there's an enemy that still wants to shake our will and get us to leave," the president told reporters. "They try to kill and they do kill innocent Iraqi people - women and children - because they know that the carnage that they reap will be on TV and they know that it bothers people to see death."
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari added that "this is not the time to fall back."
Cordesman said the U.S. demonstrated "that it could fight the war it planned to fight -- a conventional regional war with remarkable efficiency, at low cost, and very quickly." But, he added, "the problem was that the U.S. chose a strategy, whose post-conflict goals were unrealistic and impossible to achieve and only planned for the war it wanted to fight and not for the 'peace' that was certain to follow."
The lack of adequate planning will result in an Iraqi insurgency that will last at least several more years, Cordesman said. Thousands of additional coalition forces and tens of thousands of Iraqis will die, he added. "Iraq is five to ten years of instability regardless of military outcome."
On Thursday White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said President Bush agrees with the earlier remarks of Vice President Dick Cheney, who said the Iraqi insurgency will end "in the months immediately ahead."
And Friday, Bush said American forces retain a clear goal in Iraq: "a democratic and peaceful Iraq that represents all Iraqis.
"Our troops will continue to train Iraqi security forces so these forces can defend their country and to protect their people from terror. And as Iraqis become more capable in defending their nation, our troops will eventually return home with the honor they have earned." Bush said.
Bush added, "There aren't going to be any timetables" because that would be "conceding too much to the enemy."
Cordesman agreed with President Bush that it would be unwise to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. "Anyone who calls for a timetable is part of the problem, not the solution," Cordesman said. "We cannot force them into readiness. An exit strategy, rather than a success strategy is not going to produce anything but serious issues."
Many of us have said the same thing. This is going to take years, not a few months. However, my conclusion is that the U.S. must see it through.
Did he really say that? Wow. I hope they're not actually operating as if that's true..
"Center for Strategic and International Studies"
Isn't that a liberal think tank?
No mention of Cordesman's expert strategic recommendations to fix President Bush's "flawed" strategy to stay on mission. I wonder why?
This should be the headline, not Cordesman's perrenially dour predictions.
It's bipartisan. The trustees include Sam Nunn, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Woolsey, and Brent Scowcroft.
I thought CNS was a conservative news site. Why are they printing a guy who slams President Bush's strategy? And is this Cordesman guy a leftist? It seems like the whole world has gone wobbly.
I served here as a soldier, and returning as a writer in part explains the change in perspective. This trip, my job is assessment and analysis, not action. Even with a fast-paced itinerary that takes us to Fallujah, Tal Afar and Kirkuk, there is more time to reflect.
Today, the summer heat is just as hard as it was a year ago, the sand haze in the air just as thick. But the Baghdad of June 2005 is not the Baghdad I left in September 2004.
"Metrics" is the military buzzword — how do we measure progress or regress in Iraq? The piles of bricks around Iraqi homes is a positive. Downtown cranes sprout over city-block-sized construction projects. The negatives are all too familiar — terror bombs and the slaughter of Iraqi citizens.
Last year — on July 2, I recall — I saw six Iraqi guardsmen manning a position beneath a freeway overpass. It was the first time I saw independently deployed Iraqi forces.
Now I see senior Iraqi officers in the hallways of Faw Palace, conducting operational liaison with U.S. and coalition forces. I hear reports of the Iraqi army conducting independent street-clearing and neighborhood-search operations. Brig. Gen. Karl Horst of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division told me about an Iraqi battalion's success on perennially challenging Haifa Street.
In February, under the direction of an Iraqi colonel who is rapidly earning a reputation as Iraq's Rudy Giuliani, the battalion drove terrorists from this key Baghdad drag. Last year, Haifa Street was a combat zone where U.S. and Iraqi security forces showed up in Robo-Cop garb — helmets, armor, Bradleys, armored Humvees. Horst told me that he and his Iraqi counterpart now have tea in a sidewalk cafe along the once-notorious boulevard. Of course, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's suicide bombers haunt this fragile calm
Thank you. Haven't James Woolsey and Brent Scowcroft been against the Iraq war all along?
It may just be me, but I don't see this as analysis. It seems like just another Bush-whacking attack.
To say the "lack of adequate planning will result in an Iraqi insurgency that will last at least several more years" is a way of blaming Bush, not an honest attempt to predict the future.
If Bush erred at all in this war, it's in the P.R. department. They've allowed so many outright lies to stand, and others have been only weakly countered. They did well during the "shock and awe" phase--they need to keep up the pace. Even Fox, these days, concentrates on all the bad news. The victories over there are scarcely covered.
It will take years the kid glove way the military is going about smashing the insurgency. We are fighting with hands tied behind our backs because of our own crippling policital correctness. If we fought WWII like this, the axis would be victorious..
James Woolsey was advocating war against Iraq even on 9/11.. I know Brent Scowcroft was critical during the lead up (as of August 2002) but I can't recall what he was criticizing.
Bingo! I have to wonder if we'd still be seeing that, if Karen Hughes had stayed on board at the White House. I don't blame her for leaving, to go raise her kids in Texas, but she left a hole that has simply not been filled.
Sorta like taking an etiquette book to a gunfight....
They toppled the saddam regime all right, the aftermath was a mess, too much winning the hearts and minds nonsense going on. Why can't the Iraquis in the military stand up to the ragtag Iraquis in the insurgency? Does the other side have the superiour human beings? If not, its a lack of leadership...
His negative statements are getting a lot of mileage, naturally. It's a good way to get your name in the papers:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-43,GGLD:en&q=Anthony+Cordesman
I have heard the name, but I'm not sure where he usually stands. He appears to be known as a "security analyst," but I can't find any other positions he has held.
CSIS President and CEO; John J. Hamre
Before joining CSIS, he served as U.S. deputy secretary of defense (1997-1999) and under secretary of defense (comptroller) (1993-1997).Distinguished Alumni
Madeleine Albright - We know about her
William L. Allen - He currently serves on the boards of the National Geographic Society, National Geographic Educational Foundation, National Space Biomedical Research Institute, Institute on Nautical Archeology, and World Wildlife Fund.
Stephen R. Sestanovich - Dr. Sestanovich was sworn in as ambassador at large and special adviser to the secretary of state for the Newly Independent States (NIS) on September 19, 1997 ~~ He has also been a member of the State Department's policy planning staff, worked as senior legislative assistant for foreign policy to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
There's some token conservatives too, like Al Haig, but I found mostly Democrats, One World Globalists and Ivory Tower professor types. Wait... that's all the same thing.
Bush runs the show.
Cordesman would do well to follow his own advice and stop "talking down" to his Commander-in-Chief.
But: Let's cut the crap.
Cordesman is just a spokes-monkey for the utterly clueless Democrat party.
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