Posted on 01/13/2007 11:15:33 AM PST by West Coast Conservative
The president concedes that his decisions have led to more instability in Iraq. President Bush made the admission in an exclusive interview with Scott Pelley at Camp David yesterday (12), his first interview since addressing the nation about Iraq. It will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Jan. 14 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
The president says the current sectarian violence in Iraq, is a destabilizing factor that "could lead to attacks here in America" and must be controlled. He defended his decision to invade Iraq in the same way, saying Saddam was competing with Iran to get a nuclear weapon and making the region unstable. But when pressed by Pelley, Bush concedes that conditions in Iraq are much worse now.
Pelley: But wasn't it your administration that created the instability in Iraq? Bush: "Our administration took care of a source of instability in Iraq. Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was rushing for a nuclear weapon to compete against Iran... He was a significant source of instability. Pelley: It's much more unstable now, Mr. President. Bush: Well, no question, decisions have made things unstable.
"I think history is going to look back and see a lot of ways we could have done things better. No question about it," says Bush.
Toppling Saddam was not a mistake, however. "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct decision in my judgment. We didn't find the weapons we thought we would find or the weapons everybody thought he had. But he was a significant source of instability," Bush tells Pelley. "We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude and I believe most Iraqi's express that."
The execution of Saddam was mishandled, says the president, who saw only parts of it on the Internet because he didn't want to watch the dictator fall through the trap door. "I thought it was discouraging... It's important that that chapter of Iraqi history be closed. [But] They could have handled it a lot better."
You must be talking about ONE battle in WWII called Normandy. Oh wait, we lost more than that in that one battle, especially if you count the 700+ lost in a training exercise just getting ready for that invasion. I guess we should have had an apology from Roosevelt for that one, eh? As wars stack up, Iraq has one of the lowest, if not the lowest, casualty rate of any war we have been involved with in history, so that must not be what you're talking about. Your comment is typical banal liberal blather.
As for deficit spending, Congress primarily controls the purse strings, but overall the economy is doing very very well and even the deficit is showing some recent improvements. It is the President's tax cuts that are to a great extent responsible for the great economy and now the lowering deficit, but if the Communists Democrats have there way, things will soon be on a reverse course, then you can really celebrate!
Is your point still that Bush should not apologize for anything?
GW should not apologize to troops that volunteered for the military and were sent to Iraq to remove a brutal dictator that was mass murdering his own people, was a threat to us in the US and the region there. The people that are responsible for and the only ones that should apologize are the terrorists and insurgents that killed them. If you can not see that, you are a troll peiod.
Is your point that you still can't/won't respond to Polybius's #142 post to you?
And you still can't answer why you're whining about the deficit when people who know what they're talking about, which you clearly don't, aren't worried at all.
No, I was not.
The president should not apologize for the deaths of volunteer troops that died doing their duty period.
Damn. The first mistake was agreeing to an interview with Scott Pelley...
I sent Drudge an email earlier (see post above). Drudge has NOW CHANGED the headline to read the following:
BUSH CANDOR: DECISIONS HAVE MADE IRAQ MORE UNSTABLE
Can you change the title of this thread to reflect Drudge's correction? Thanks.
No, that's not my point.
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Excellent! Great job, thank you!
And his poll numbers are lousy because hardly anybody like the "make our guys targets" war. The right wants to bomb them into oblivion (I'm part of that group)... and the left wants to love them to death. And our thoughtful president has made both sides unhappy with his handling of the war.
That's reasonable.
Still dodging. LOL
How would we have captured and killed Saddam, his sons, Zarqawi from the air alone? You can't. You need boots on the ground to root them out.
A-men.
Iraq is going to be solved in a few months. They just need to make a deal on oil revenues, then this tussle will go away for a while.
Then its on to Iran.
Excellent rant, Christian. We have turned into "Oprah nation."
Bush concedes U.S. decisions made Iraq unstable
Sat 13 Jan 2007 3:21 PM ET
WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush acknowledged on Saturday that some of his administration's decisions during the Iraq war had contributed to instability there but he still believed he was right to topple Saddam Hussein.
Insisting it was crucial to U.S. interests to get the sectarian violence in Iraq under control, Bush told CBS in an interview that the strife there was a destabilizing force in the Middle East that "could lead to attacks here in America."
Pressed on whether actions by his administration had created further instability in Iraq, Bush said, "Well, no question, decisions have made things unstable."
But he added, "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct decision in my judgment."
Bush gave the interview to Scott Pelley of CBS's "60 Minutes" news program, which will air on Sunday, after announcing a plan to send 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq's most violent areas.
In the speech announcing his revised Iraq strategy, Bush acknowledged mistakes, saying he should have increased troop levels earlier.
"I think history is going to look back and see a lot of ways we could have done things better. No question about it," Bush told "60 Minutes."
Bush launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 promising to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction, but none were found. He said in the CBS interview that had Saddam been allowed to remain in power, the Iraqi leader would have been competing with Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.
CBS said that Bush had said he watched parts of the Internet video of Saddam Hussein's hanging but not all of it because he did not want to watch Saddam fall through the trap door.
The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been heavily criticized for the manner in which the Dec. 30 execution was handled, which many said was done in haste and inappropriately carried out on the first day of a religious holiday.
The taunting of Saddam by Shi'ite officials while he was on the gallows angered many Sunni Arabs in Iraq. The execution was illicitly video-recorded and put on the Internet.
"I thought it was discouraging," Bush said of the video. "It's important that that chapter of Iraqi history be closed. [But] They could have handled it a lot better."
http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=N13407235
No- the qestion is- do you actually think President Bush SHOULD apologize for those who have died in service tho their country?
I have friends who have (family) soldiers who have been KIA in Iraq. Not ONE of them expects, wants or is demanding an apology from the president.
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