Posted on 08/22/2006 10:22:28 AM PDT by areafiftyone
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain, who has been a staunch defender of the war in Iraq, said Tuesday that the sacrifices required were underestimated and Americans were misled into believing the conflict would be "some kind of day at the beach."
McCain, who has said the U.S. military should have gone into Iraq despite questions raised later about intelligence, said Americans feel frustrated because they had no idea of the toll the war would take.
"I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required. Stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes...," McCain said during a campaign stop on behalf of fellow Republican Sen. Mike DeWine.
"We had not told the American people how tough and difficult this could be. It has contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking."
McCain, considered a possible 2008 presidential contender, campaigned in a state expected to be crucial again to the presidential race, having given President Bush the electoral votes he needed to win in 2004.
McCain has supported the American presence in Iraq. He said Monday in an appearance in suburban Cleveland that if American troops announce a specific date to leave Iraq, insurgents will bide their time until they have an opportunity without interference from the U.S. troops.
"The chaos that would ensue would have direct implications for our national security," McCain said.
Other Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, have been more vocal in their criticism of the war.
I will never vote for that jerk.
I don't hear any promises about a day at the beach here. Do you?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
****Snip
Associating with a backstabbing traitor is not helpful at all so perhaps Sen. DeWine might want to rethink his association with McCain.
From day one the administration said that the oil revenues of Iraq belonged to Iraq and that any claim that we were going to war in order to secure oil revenues or resources for the US was false.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
(House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03)
____________________
“I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
(Senate Appropriations Hearing, 3/27/03)
I'm sorry. I know he's a hero and everything,
A hero??? How do you figure he is a hero? A hero is someone who does something brave. What did he ever do that was brave. He did get shot down and was a POW, but he did not do anything brave. In fact he did just the opposite, he gave the cong all the information he knew and they wanted.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: “There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld:If you worry about just the cost, the money, Iraq is a very different situation from Afghanistan…Iraq has oil. They have financial resources.” [Source: Fortune Magazine, Fall 2002]
State Department Official Alan Larson: “On the resource side, Iraq itself will rightly shoulder much of the responsibilities. Among the sources of revenue available are $1.7 billion in invested Iraqi assets, the found assets in Iraq…and unallocated oil-for-food money that will be deposited in the development fund.” [Source: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Iraq Stabilization, 06/04/03]
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it. [Source: Senate Appropriations Hearing, 3/27/03]
I thought we were told that this was the next Viet Nam.
That this war would drag on for 25 years with no sign of a victory in sight.
That there would be 200,000 American casualties.
That Islamic countries would never succumb to Western armies no matter how technologically sophisticated.
Just like Afghanistan.
While I am hardly a fan of McCain, I admit thought we would be much further along after 3-1/2 years. Like most people, I didn't know enough about Islam.
“There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]
this is the quote. I would have to link you to lexis nexis to get a source, but plop the quote into google and you will see.
MeCain/Lieberman 08 -- Republicrat Party?
YOu are reading my mind. That's the scenario for putting the Dems back into power. McCain & Lieberman launch a 3rd party action because neither of them will get the Dem or Repub nomination. So, they pull votes much like Perot did in 1992. The Dems win the Presidency by garnering only 33.5% of the popular vote in the 11 largest states and hence win all the Electoral college votes they need to sail into victory!
I work with a couple of Iraqi guys and they say the same as you.
Sad to hear it, but they believe it to be true.
Prostitute
" the sacrifices required were underestimated and Americans were misled into believing the conflict would be "some kind of day at the beach."
Hardly. Every war requires sacrifices. How many men have we lost in the Iraqi War? How important are the consequences of NOT winning? The Romans lost 50,000 men at Cannae - JUST ONE BATTLE - but recognized the consequnces of a Carthaginian victory. They raised more troops and fought on. How many men did we loose in WW2 or the Civil War?
The difference here appears to be people like McCain who try to use politics to fight a war - example his actions on the treatment of terrorist prisoners.
McCain would never have made a Roman and he is hardly an American patriot.
He's a self-serving ambitious politician on the make who will say or do anything to get himself in office.
The solution with Iraq is not to devise a "graceful" exit, but to contrive a mechanism for victory and execute it.
By controlling Iraq and Afghanistan we outflank Iran and Syria - the two major terror states in the Middle East. Did Mr. McCain expect them to capitulate and resign themselves to the reality of the situation?
I certainly didn't and nobody else should have. We should have moved on to attack them too. By just sitting there and NOT takinig offensive action against the people working on a nuclear bomb, supplying Hezbollah and killing American soldiers pulling police duty, we are falling into a trap THEY have devised.
Our war is not with the "insurgents" in Iraq or Hezbollah. These are mere battles in a REAL major war - with Islam - that is being fought world-wide from Nigeria to the Phillippines and even in the backyards of America and western Europe.
Uh, excuse me? I don't recall EVER being told ANY war was a day at the beach. What's McCain been smokin'? I detest that lunatic! Wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.
If idiots like this egg sucking moron would shut their suck and get behind our troops and the war effort, then this would not even be a question.
But I also blame the administration for not aggressively getting the entire country involved in this.
Our own complacency is going to be our downfall.
Like I've said a few times before that I truly believe Saddam is giving orders to the insurgents from his jail cell and paying them money. I believe that once Saddam is dead we will get a better grip on this.
>>>Feinstien said the same thing this morning; I do not recall the "day at the beach" or "they will welcome us with open arms" ever being mentioned by this administation.
Not open arms, but as "greeted as liberators"
Vice President Cheney: Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. And the president's made it very clear that our purpose there is, if we are forced to do this, will in fact be to stand up a government that's representative of the Iraqi people, hopefully democratic due respect for human rights, and it, obviously, involves a major commitment by the United States, but we think it's a commitment worth making. And we don't have the option anymore of simply laying back and hoping that events in Iraq will not constitute a threat to the U.S. Clearly, 12 years after the Gulf War, we're back in a situation where he does constitute a threat.
Mr. Russert: If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?
Vice President Cheney: Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. And like Kanan Makiya who's a professor at Brandeis, but an Iraqi, he's written great books about the subject, knows the country intimately, and is a part of the democratic opposition and resistance. The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.
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