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.
Maybe, but when do we get payback? I hope this wasn’t “charity”.
MSM on this issue: “Damn that Obama is good.”