Posted on 12/06/2008 8:16:34 AM PST by GonzoII
Dr. Henry Kissinger, who served as the National Security Advisor and later the Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, told CNSNews.com Tuesday that “great progress has been made” in Iraq during the last year and the country can participate again in the “international system” on a “better basis” than before the war....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Friday, December 05, 2008
By Nicholas Ballasy
(CNSNews.com) - Dr. Henry Kissinger, who served as the National Security Advisor and later the Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, told CNSNews.com Tuesday that “great progress has been made” in Iraq during the last year and the country can participate again in the “international system” on a “better basis” than before the war.
Dr. Kissinger was honored Tuesday by the National Defense University as the recipient of its prestigious “Patriot Award.” Past recipients include Gen. Colin Powell and former President George H. W. Bush.
In November 2006, Kissinger presented a bleak picture of the Iraq War in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible,” said Kissinger then.
In May 2007, at the beginning of the troop “surge” in Iraq, the U.S. Congress defined 18 “benchmarks” the Iraqis would have to meet to assess whether the United States and Iraq were succeeding in the war. In July 2008, The White House provided a new assessment to Congress showing that the Iraqis’ efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks were "satisfactory.” This is roughly double what the White House had determined a year before.
Given that the surge has apparently succeeded in quelling much of the violence in Iraq and most benchmarks have been met, Kissinger was asked if he thinks the United States has won the war in Iraq.
“I think the United States is achieving the evolution of a stable or relatively stable situation in Iraq, and for Iraq to participate again in the international system on a better basis than it did before,” he said. “So, I think great progress has been made in the last year.”
Even so, Iraq has cost a fortune. It’s money that could have been better spent or saved in our own country.
“in our own country.”
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It has to be defended.
You do know that it’s been revealed who DT was right?
Maybe, but when do we get payback? I hope this wasn’t “charity”.
Yes, I know what was said but I don’t necessarily believe it.
How much money and lives would it have cost if Saddam, or even more his successor sons had been allowed to remain in power and wage war against our interests in future?
MSM on this issue: “Damn that Obama is good.”
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I understand your point, but we have been truly charitable (not monetarily speaking)to ourselves by waging this war on terrorism IMHO, we still have our freedom.
Obama fulfills campaign promise of troop withdrawal from Iraq.
“or even more his successor sons had been allowed to remain in power and wage war against our interests in future?”
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You know, I don’t understand why some people can’t see that.
We had Iraq under partial siege. We should have maintained that strategy, while using more overwhelming power in Afghanistan and capturing Bin Laden.
If Americans actually understood how politically correct the Army has become they would be outraged. The Army spends FAR more training on sexual harrassment than on combatives. Equal Opportunity and environmental impact training are more common than marksmanship.
At the advent of WWII a huge % of field officers were either fired or forced into retirement. The entire Army was recreated for the sole purpose of winning the new war. Between Vietnam and 911 we had a quarter century of garrison/"Cold War". Everyone in the upper echelon is either 1st or 2nd generation garrison leaders. They care more about appearance than effectiveness, not entirely out of fault but its just been that way for so long. Just now things are slowly beginning to change. We are starting to get the first round of Sr.NCOs and Maj/LtCols who were born and bred on WoT, but their power to change is still minimal. Not to mention even with their WoT experience, they were all trained by garrison leaders.
Don't get me wrong, we have a kickass Army. But to think the leadership infallible is moronic at best. And the operating tempo of the entire war has been influenced by the far left.
I, like pretty much everyone on FR, would have predicted the problems our own media would cause and would have set up a special missions unit whose sole purpose was controlling the information coming out of Iraq by CNN and other insurgent support groups. I would have extended the ass kicking phase further before beginning the winning hearts and minds stage. In other words, AlSadr should have been hung alongside Saddam.
I sometimes joke with the guys that we should wear flourescent orange storm trooper uniforms. Its a bit silly, but there is an underlying truth. All Iraqis should see us and KNOW we are there and KNOW what the consequences are for attacking us. The retribution for attacks against US troops should have been public and extreme. I'm not saying we should have acted like animals, that is not American. But we had a formula for success with both Japan and Germany both of which were death cults.
There's no way that I will ever believe that we could destroy and reform the two industrial giants Japan and Germany but we cant do it in Iraq.
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