White House calls Democrats irresponsible on Iraq

Reuters ^ | Thu Dec 1, 2005 4:46 PM ET | Steve Holland

[Jean S]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House called irresponsible on Thursday those Democrats who said that President George W. Bush lacked a strategy on Iraq, as Sen. John Kerry said a policy shift was needed to reflect realities on the ground.

Some partisan squabbling was heard the day after Bush laid out his "plan for victory," although Democrats were not as uniformly dismissive of Bush as they had been.

The president, seeking to bolster Americans' support for war in the face of rising casualties and to restore confidence in his leadership, said in his speech on Wednesday that time and patience were needed for training Iraqi forces.

He held out the possibility of a reduction in U.S. troop levels eventually, once Iraqis are able to fight the insurgency on their own and if progress is made on the political front looking ahead to Iraq's December 15 elections.

"Those Democratic congressional leaders who try to suggest that we don't have a plan are deeply irresponsible," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who reiterated it was possible to bring some troops home next year.

A snap poll by CNN/Gallup/USA Today after Bush's speech said 55 percent of respondents believed Bush did not have a plan to "achieve victory for the United States in Iraq."

Polls in recent months have shown waning public support for the 2 1/2-year war. Concern over the war has also been a factor pushing Bush's popularity ratings to the lowest of his presidency.

Kerry, who lost the presidential race to Bush a year ago, said Democrats, "are all in agreement that there has to be a profound shift of admitting the reality on the ground and beginning to establish a schedule that we can understand on behalf of the American people about transfer of authority."

The Massachusetts senator described a scaled-down role for U.S. troops, to help guard oil pipelines and guard people working on construction projects.

"You don't need 160,000 people to be doing what we're doing in Iraq today, this is not World War Two, this is not Korea, this is not Vietnam. The principal enemy are IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and suicide bombers," Kerry said.

Kerry was at the White House for a ceremony honoring the late civil rights activist Rosa Parks, but quickly dove into the Iraq topic in talking to reporters on the White House driveway.

MISTAKES ADMITTED

A sharp Bush critic, Delaware Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, told CNN he did not hear a solid plan from Bush but that he appreciated that the president "leveled with the American people" by admitting mistakes had been made in Iraq and that much remained to be done.

"He laid out the goals, said it's going to be hard, said give him time, but he didn't tell us how he was going to change the game plan to accomplish that," Biden said.

Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech military leaders had not adequately explained progress in that country to Americans worried about the rising cost in casualties and money.

"Guys like me have not articulated well enough what is happening in Iraq and in Afghanistan," Pace said. "Every place I look in the (Iraqi) political and economic realm I see progress. And clearly inside the security realm I see enormous progress."

The State Department's Iraq coordinator, James Jeffreys, declined to be drawn out on when U.S. forces would be able to hand over to Iraqi troops and return home.

Asked whether Iraq was in the throes of a civil war, he said Bosnia had been a civil war and Iraq was not at this stage, adding that an early U.S. withdrawal raised this possibility.

(Additional reporting by Sue Pleming and Charles Aldinger)

[A CA Guy]

Do most Democrats have to do anything else to truly convince us all that they are for losing all wars.

They act almost autistic on this topic.

[irons_player]

Google McClellan.

[Uncle Miltie]

"Polls in recent months have shown waning public support for the 2 1/2-year war. Concern over the war has also been a factor pushing Bush's popularity ratings to the lowest of his presidency."

Heck, its not really even a war. It is a policing of terrorists and a low grade insurgency. It's going quite well, casualties are very limited, success on the ground is outstanding, the local politics are execllent, etc.

We're winning and we will win, so long as the Dems don't surrender first.

[Logical me]

What mistakes? I have yet to hear anyone from the communist RAT party give me one. Everything the President spelled out is exactly what happened and is still happening. He always said from the beginning, it will be a hard long fight to protect America.

[luvbach1]

As soon as polls show the public believes Bush has a plan in Iraq the Demonrat weather vanes will acknowledge he does, but not a moment before.

[luvbach1]

A much as I like Mary Matalin, I think she has had her conservative edges rubbed off by cohabiting with the Snakehead.

[Democratshavenobrains]

Are countries like France and Germany offering to train troops like Biden says?

[jw777]

John Kerry is a Viet Nam veteran. He told me so.

[mainepatsfan]

I miss the days when losing Presidential candidates just went away.

[Milhous]

EVERYONE needs to look at this page. It was posted a few days ago, and is TERRIFFIC!!!

The Most Successful Propaganda Techniques http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20051129.aspx

Agreed - a most excellent link. :) Getting back to this thread...

A snap poll by CNN /Gallup/USA Today after Bush's speech said 55 percent of respondents believed Bush did not have a plan to "achieve victory for the United States in Iraq."

IMHO Olds Media made up this poll as propaganda to hard sell their Iraq as Vietnam metaphor to try to defeat America in Iraq.

VICTORY IN IRAQ IS A VITAL U.S. INTEREST

• The war on terrorism is the defining challenge of our generation, just as the struggle against communism and fascism were challenges of the generations before. As with those earlier struggles, the United States is fully committed to meeting this challenge. We will do everything it takes to win.
• Prevailing in Iraq will help us win the war on terror.
  • The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror.
    • Osama Bin Laden has declared that the "third world war...is raging" in Iraq, and it will end there, in "either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation."
    • Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared Iraq to be "the place for the greatest battle," where he hopes to "expel the Americans" and then spread "the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq."
    • Al Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has openly declared that "we fight today in Iraq, and tomorrow in the Land of the Two Holy Places, and after there the west."
      • As the terrorists themselves recognize, the outcome in Iraq -- success or failure -- is critical to the outcome in the broader war on terrorism.
• What happens in Iraq will influence the fate of the Middle East for generations to come, with a profound impact on our own national security.
  • Ceding ground to terrorists in one of the world's most strategic regions will threaten the world's economy and America's security, growth, and prosperity, for decades to come.
  • An emerging democracy in Iraq will change the regional status quo that for decades has bred alienation and spawned the transnational terrorism that targets us today.
  • The terrorists' perverse ideology is countered by the advance of freedom and the recognition that all people have the right to live under democracy and the rule of law, free from oppression and fear, with hope and optimism for the future.

[doug from upland]

The Dems need to hear from the soldiers telling them to STFU.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"When former Attorney General Ramsey Clark isn’t defending Saddam Hussein, or giving speeches for the crypto-Stalinist International ANSWER, he’s acting as counsel for the Palestine Liberation Organization, trying to prevent families of murdered Jews from collecting on judgments against the PLO."
Little Green Footballs ^ | November 28, 2005 | Charles Johnson

From Kerry's "The New Soldier":

Al Hubbard Sgt., 22 Troop Carrier Squadron Aug. ’65-June ’66
Emotions: Walking down the flight line at Saigon past stacks of aluminum cases containing American bodies and past stacks of aluminum luggage containing American currency. Seeing the tight, sad face of an Airman loading the bodies aboard a dirty Air Force Transport and the wide smiling face of a stewardess greeting the passengers aboard a clean Pan American Clipper Jet. Hearing a Vietnamese beg you to leave his country and an American colonel tells you to bomb his country. Hearing a Vietnamese invite you to live in his home, after the war and an American explain why you can’t live in his block, after the war. Flying over barren, brown, safe American held terrain and over lush, green unsafe enemy terrain. Feeling happy to be leaving a country in which you do not belong and sad to be returning to a country in which you are not allowed to belong. Sacrificing a portion of your consciousness so you won’t have to deal with being there and building mental blocks so you won’t have to deal with having been there.

- Al Hubbard, proven fraud who never set foot in Viet Nam. The only Vietnamese he ever met was when he was collaborating with the North Vietnamese in Paris on the American Communist Party's nickel.

John Kerry's explanation: "He (Hubbard) simply exaggarated his particular position. But nobody knew it at the time.
And those things happen."

Free online version of
hanoi kerry's playbook "The New Soldier"
You can read it online right now.

[wally-balls]

McClellan is a BIG part of the problem. The White House press think they can walk all over this guy, and they do. He's a doormat, and his calm, peaceful countenance conveys, IMO, more timidity than control. We need someone who is brilliant and quick-witted and who wants to play a game of one-upsmanship with these miserable SOB's and revels in making these a-holes look like idiots.

Do you think Mark Levin would take the position? He would grind these press pigs into a pulp in miliseconds

[CedarDave]

The White House called irresponsible on Thursday those Democrats who said that President George W. Bush lacked a strategy on Iraq, as Sen. John Kerry said a policy shift was needed to reflect realities on the ground.

Finally!! But the WH needs to SHOUT louder than the Rats to be heard above the din of them and their MSM toadies.

[Mo1]

A snap poll by CNN/Gallup/USA Today after Bush's speech said 55 percent of respondents believed Bush did not have a plan to "achieve victory for the United States in Iraq."

Hey CNN/Gallup/USA ... Here is a SNAP poll you can ask

How many have actually READ this plan the President presented ??

[Pimpmygop]

The WH needs to keep pounding the airwaves everyday. Make the rats stay on the defensive. Come out everyday with press releases, news confs, and GW should address the nation in a prime time slot just before christmas. Keeping pounding the message over and over and over again until we beat the rats into submission. Then, as a bonus the rats will be completely impotent and off message when it comes to Alito because they were fighting so hard on Iraq.

FRAME THE DEBATE!!

[Soul Seeker]

The W.H. is on the right track.

The Dems are certainly irresponsible.

I'd add unprincipled, immoral, and treasonous but I fully expect the Democrats to keep sinking lower and we'll get to this proper designation in time.

[highlander_UW]

Just today I heard a snip of a speech given by Kerry in which he said this was not WW2, it was not Korea and it was not Vietnam. Didn't he already say this WAS Vietnam?

I sure would love to see someone put on a ad showing him saying it was Vietnam and then him saying it was not. Flip Flop, Flip Flop.

[Soul Seeker]

The interesting fact, if I'm correct, is that it's noted of those that heard or watched the speech the good majority believed he had a stretgy.

the ones that didn't, influenced that result.

So, yeah, give a primetime speech the nets are forces to carry and the Dems are toast. They are toast anyway, it'll just take a few weeks for our medium to bang the drum in getting the speech out. Always factor in 2-4 weeks for our medium's effect to be felt in opinion polls. We do have an impact, we're powerful, just not instaneous lacking the free medium of ABC/NBC/CBS