Posted on 12/07/2006 3:51:25 AM PST by BigSkyFreeper
WASHINGTON - Although the Iraq Study Group's report will not magically solve the problems in Iraq, the "hell of a good try" proves that politicians of opposite parties can work together on major issues, former Sen. Alan Simpson said Wednesday.
Iraq has become "one of the most vexatious problems of our lives," said Simpson, a Republican from Wyoming.
"This one is a tough one," he said. "We don't have a silver bullet."
Simpson and the other commission members presented their report to President Bush at 7 a.m. at the White House. An engaged Bush spent an hour with them, asked questions and took notes, Simpson said.
"He went around the room and asked each of us on the study group our thoughts," he said. "Each of us gave him very complete, candid assessments of our report."
Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and spokesman Tony Snow also attended the meeting, Simpson said.
Nothing in the report likely surprised Bush or Cheney, Simpson said, since the group kept in touch with the administration. But some things in it will "cause a difference of opinion," including the recommendation that the U.S. talk with Iran and Syria.
"Iran hates us," Simpson said. "They may not even want to come to the table... They may hate our guts, but there's something they hate more. That's anarchy in Iraq."
Simpson said during his turn to speak at the White House, he talked about the critical importance of bipartisanship and his sadness that the American people feel the federal government is "dysfunctional."
He said the group's work is an example of how politicians on both sides can come together on big issues.
"If it doesn't work, it was a hell of a good try," he said. "And if it doesn't work and people say the Republicans and the Democrats could get together and do something, well here it is."
He said the commission deliberately avoided "flash words" like "cut and run" or "stay the course."
Instead, he said, "We just threw out 79 recommendations."
At the group's press conference releasing their report to the public, Simpson used his trademark humor to bring the only moments of levity.
Simpson predicted that the report would draw criticism from people he termed "100 percenters."
"A 100 percenter is a person you don't want to be around," he said. "They have gas, ulcers, heartburn and they seethe. They're not seekers, they're seethers. There's a lot of them out there. And we're going to get it from the far right, we're going to get it from the far left. We're going to get, bombs away."
He added that many people will predict their recommendations can't work.
"But we're just sincere enough to believe that it will," he said. "... Maybe we can do something. That's what we're here for. People of goodwill and good faith. Maybe it's corny, maybe it won't work, but it's sure as hell better than sitting there where we are right now."
I'm sorry. It's too early in the morning for bu11sh1te...
Yes. Just think how much better off we'd be if we had only listened to Carter and unilaterally disarmed once it was obvious that we could never defeat the Soviet Union.
We need more patriots like Carter and Simpson who understand the true value and power of strategic retreat, surrender, and compromise in the face of pure evil.
We stop fighting a war:
If we lose more than one thousand troops, or if the war lasts more than 3 months, or if the war costs more than 50 billion dollars, which ever comes first.
If the Left can have their way, we will have such an amendment.
Here's the long awaited deathrace2000 ISG report. Here's how to fight and win a War. It's the same, long forgotten strategy that served the USA well in WWI and WWII:
Recommended Strategy:
1). Send in the Troops, kill the bad guys, and move on.
2). Send in the Troops, kill or imprison the leaders of the bad guys(e.g., Al Sadr), and move on.
3). Send in the Troops, kill anybody opposed to us imprisoning the leaders of the bad guys (e.g., Al Sadr), and move on.
4). Send in the Troops, kill anybody opposed to us at all and move the F@@k on!
Key Findings:
We don't need Gitmo if we take NO prisoners.
We don't need to stay around for years like Vietnam and Iraq if we just kill all the bad guys.
Conclusion:
1). The US gets mired down when we try to limit collateral damage and appease the PC Liberal crowd! That's what went the F@@k wrong!
2). Israel has a right to exist!
3). Jimmy Carter started this mess with his pathetic response to the Iranian revolution.
4). I've lost faith in the American public. How could that many Americans vote in favor of the Liberal Democrats to solve our problems?
This Iraq Study Group absolutely deserves to be mocked and more importantly defeated.
After sleeping on it overnight, I think that one theme of the report is that the bureaucracy has stiffed Iraq and refused to do its part leaving it up to the military alone.
I knew that the AID people had refused to go, but this suggests that the arabists at state, the intel community, and justice have also. That's why we have seen soldiers painting schools.
Simpson is merely pointing out how the system works and not how it should work.
No it doesn't. To my way of thinking it proves 2 things:
1. That only retired politicians from opposite parties can work together, and
2. The policy recommendations produced by such commissions prove the old saw about "the camel being a horse designed by committee."
Excellent Post cover!
Yeah. The Simpson-Mazzoli bill was a hell of a good try at eliminating illegal aliens too. Compromise with evil is not virtuous. It is spineless.
It was actually a pretty funny rant. BTW there were only so many job opportunities at Lenin's tomb, so many Dems were disappointed. And I walk out of my cave, it's a big one.
One of the reasons we beat the Russian in the cold war is our relationship with China. They had to expend a lot of resources on the Chinese border after Nixon. They also had several armed clashes with the Chinese army during the 1970s.
LWe need more patriots like Carter and Simpson who understand the true value and power of strategic retreat, surrender, and compromise in the face of pure evil.
And let me be the first to welcome you to the real world were sometime you have to work with evil to fight eviler. Politics is a game. Lrn2play.
L
BFLR
Sounds like simpson is becoming more democrat with old age creeping in. Yep, this report is a wonderful piece of work done by a bunch of out of government, former government workers, who spent a lot of our tax money, meeting, flying around, meeting then got together and followed the democrat line of surrender. Too hell with the troops and their effort to free a nation of a sadistic family and bring the peace and their form of democracy.
What utter nonsense! Iran is DIRECTLY F**king responsible for the anarchy in Iraq.
Somebody forgot the "Barf Alert!"
Yes, but you cannot spare blame for Bush, Rumsfeld and the Pentagon Pussies, who failed to bring massive, ruthless power to bear in Iraq from the very beginning. In May 1945 we killed 100,000 civilians in Tokyo in a single evening. In Fallujah we sent our boys door to door like Avon ladies so we wouldn't have any bad press from "collateal damage". After the war ended in Germany, any uniformed "SS" officer was shot on sight without trial. MacArthur had nearly 1,000 Japanese executed, many of whom were merely Communist agitators. In Iraq we wouldn't even kill Al Sadr.
We have become completely and utterly soft in the West, and ripe for conquest by Islam. Unfortunately, to make things worse we have traitorous bastards like James Baker III, who is actively working towards that goal on behalf of his Saudi masters.
Simpson is "stuck on stupid." Homer Simpson has more insight on Iraq than this guy.
If my thoughts make me a "100 percenter" then so be it.
The epitome of our loss of sovereign constitutional government is the farce of a "study group" deciding how to execute the Iraq war.
Why are Americans just placidly accepting the corporatist fascist concept of a study group instead of citizen through constitutional government affecting our national policy?
Instead of arguing over their report, citizens should be firing all the politicians who put together and support the breakdown of our government like this.
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