Posted on 07/10/2003 3:32:23 PM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON (AP) - American troops could still be in Iraq four years from now, the war's former commander told members of Congress concerned about persistent, deadly attacks.
The number of U.S. troops in Iraq probably won't decline significantly from the current 148,000 until sometime next year, Gen. Tommy Franks said Thursday. The kinds of hit-and-run attacks that killed two American soldiers Wednesday will continue, he warned.
"We need to not develop an expectation that all of these difficulties will go away in one month or two months or three months," Franks told the House Armed Services Committee.
"I anticipate we'll be involved in Iraq in the future," Franks added later. "Whether that means two years or four years, I don't know."
President Bush also asked for patience Thursday, saying the United States would "have to remain tough" in Iraq despite the attacks that Franks said were coming at a rate of 10 to 25 per day.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in remarks taped for CNN's "Larry King Live," said: "I regret that we are still losing troops and young men and women are being wounded, but they're being wounded by people who don't want to see the Iraqi people free."
In Washington, congressional critics kept up their questioning of the administration's justifications for going to war and its characterizations of the current outlook in Iraq.
"I'm deeply disturbed by the kind of happy face we're trying to put on this situation," Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., said during a sharp exchange with Franks, who stepped down Monday as head of the military command overseeing Iraq and Afghanistan.
Franks said he was confident that his successor, Gen. John Abizaid, and the civilian administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, would succeed in bringing stability and representative government to Iraq.
"We must be there for the entire journey (to democracy), and we will not fail," Franks said.
The House panel's top Democrat, Ike Skelton of Missouri, said he worried "we may find ourselves in the throes of guerrilla warfare for years." And Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., spoke up to Franks and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about what she said was a reluctance to talk about guerrilla warfare.
"Why are we playing word games when our troops are facing a trained and determined enemy every day in Iraq?" Sanchez challenged Franks.
"It does not bother me if someone refers to this as guerrilla or insurgency warfare," the general replied. Franks said he wouldn't use those terms because the attackers in Iraq don't have broad public support or signs of nationwide coordination.
Bush, responding to concern about the rising casualty toll, said, "There's no question we have a security issue in Iraq, and we've just got to deal with it person to person. We're going to have to remain tough." The president spoke in Botswana during his tour of Africa.
More than 70 American soldiers have died since Bush declared major combat over May 1. "It's going take more than 90 to 100 days for people to recognize the great joys of freedom and the responsibilities that come with freedom," he said. "It's very important for us to stay the course, and we will stay the course."
Much of the criticism has focused on Bush's main justification for the war - that Saddam Hussein's government had chemical and biological weapons and was working to build more of them and develop nuclear bombs. No such weapons have been found in Iraq. The White House admitted this week that Bush's State of the Union reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa was based on intelligence that turned out to be false.
Franks said he didn't think Bush overstated the threat and said he was confident "we will either find the weapons or find the evidence of the weapons of mass destruction."
At one point during the war, Franks said, the United States intercepted Iraqi military communications suggesting a chemical attack was imminent. An Iraqi commander issued orders that included saying, "Blood! Blood!" - which U.S. intelligence analysts thought was a reference to chemical weapons called blood agents, Franks said.
Blood agents are chemicals containing cyanide compounds that are carried through the blood to cut off oxygen to the body's tissues.
Franks said he did not know why Iraq didn't use chemical weapons or why U.S. forces hadn't found any.
The Senate voted 97-0 Thursday urging Bush to consider requesting a NATO force and calling for United Nations help in rounding up troops for stability and security work in Iraq. Several NATO nations already have troops in Iraq and the alliance is helping Poland organize a division of several nations' troops.
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, a Democratic presidential candidate, said the United States should do more to bring international troops into Iraq.
"We now know that the administration went to war without a thorough plan to win the peace," Kerry said. "It is time to face that truth and change course, to share the postwar burden internationally for the sake of our country."
Besides the 19 countries with forces in Iraq, another 19 are preparing to send troops and 11 are discussing it, Franks said. The United States hopes to have two divisions of about 20,000 international troops in the next few months, one led by the British and one by the Poles.
"The United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain, Italy, others are making their contribution now," Powell said.
Come on now. We've been at war with Iraq since 1990. The question is- how could we have legitimately ended that war without toppling Saddam and how could he have realistically toppled Saddam without going in like we have done?
Saudi would have been much better, as they have created more terror on the US than anyone in history. BTW have you read something that shows Iraq was a key player in US terrorism? Give me a link, I need to read up.
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This is absolutely crazy.
OK so we gave life and blood, we'll wind up spending a few hundred billion and are keeping 150,000 troops over there (indefinitely now) to end Iraq's violations of the no fly zone?
Is that the reason we were given for starting this in the first place.... to "end the war with Iraq"?
You come on now.
Seriously, how would you have ended our war with Saddam? We had a considerable amount of assets tied up in that conflict for quite a long time. Assets that are needed elsewhere and for other things if we are to continue the war on terror. What would you suggest- we simply retreat from the Iraqi front after 9/11 and let Saddam go?
Why is it crazy? We've had assets committed to Saddam for over 12 years. How would you propose we get out of this situation without ending it?
Actually I didn't do that at all in my post. I was there for the first war with Iraq, and some of the guys I knew personally never came back.... that was a "war". As far as I know we didn't lose any pilots in the no-fly zones.
We had a considerable amount of assets tied up in that conflict for quite a long time. Assets that are needed elsewhere and for other things if we are to continue the war on terror.
You're not saying this freed up any assets that we had in Iraq are you? Because I've got news for you; We have a ton more assets over there now than we did and we're being told that there's no end in site. So if the mission was to free up "assets that are needed elsewhere" we've failed miserably, as we have way more un-freed up assets in the exact place where you contend we needed to free them up from.
In any case, were you told that this whole operation "Iraqi Freedom" was to solve our problems with the no-fly zone? I missed that one. As a matter of fact I never heard that mentioned even once.
Let me ask you a question. Is it only war if we lose someone?
One more quick question, if Germany set up a no fly zone over California and another over Florida and regularly patrolled those two airspaces would that be an act of war to you or not? If Germany regularly targeted communications hubs or other targets of military significance in those zones, would that be an act of war in your mind or not? If Germany infiltrated its Special Forces soldiers into those zones to help insurgents would that be an act of war or not? If these missions regularly killed American soldiers would it be an act of war or not? If they did that over a period of ten years or more consistenly, when during that period, would you have honestly thought that your country was not at a state of war with Germany?
You're not saying this freed up any assets that we had in Iraq are you?
Not yet no. But we were never going to get shut of Iraq as an ongoing problem without getting shut of Saddam. This was as plain as day to everybody back in 1991. Leaving without taking down Saddam means having to take down Saddam at a later date. That's what's happened.
That fifty-plus years includes two periods. The first is post-war occupation(cleaning out the last vetiges of resisitance, reinstating a functioning infrastructure, standing up a new government, police, etc) which lasted only a few years and the second period was the stationing of troops as an ally to protect those countries from hostile neighbors. May need to follow the same pattern in Iraq given Iran & Syria; or possibly even based on a threat to the Kurdish areas of Iraq from Turkey.
To anyone who has studied the continuing war of Marxism against humanity, this statement literally jumps off the page. It is one of the many mantras of "progressive world socialism".
Kerry, like virtually every other member of the Democratic Party, is a mouthpiece for, and a pawn of, the ongoing Marxist "revolution". The end of that road is a mass grave.
They have to say that. They said it about Vietnam. Iraq, though? 40 years, two generations.
The purpose of this action is to turn a dangerous enemy into a valuable ally and establish a viable presence in the Middle East. That presence, in turn, is needed to wage an effective war against the terrorists who will be detonating a nuke at "Ground Zero" in NY if we don't move to exterminate them first.
The long-term bases we build in Iraq are where the next phase of the War on Terrorism will be fought. Make no mistake about it: our soldiers, sailors and airmen in Iraq are fighting not only for "Iraqi Freedom", but for the survival of the United States. And this war is only beginning, so this isn't the time to be wimping out or undercutting our people.
I think our warriors deserve a little credit for fighting this very necessary war in defense of our nation. Don't you?
First of all, I think you are right. I think this is part of a calculated setting of the stage for the next phase of the war on terrorism.
That said, let me state for the record that I don't think it will succeed, nor do I think it is the most efficient route to take to achieve that objective.
It will not succeed because, we will not ever make an ally out of Iraq. As we speak, Middle Eastern nations that call themselves our allies, are not. They are, in fact, liars. They hate us because of the example of Western Civilization that we are. They hate Western Civilization. They hate the success that it is. And they will not come around to accepting it because everything that it is, is in direct conflict with how they believe (religiously) a society/the world should be.....And because of that, our 'presence' there only exacerbates their hatred.
Do I have a better plan? No. I've put my trust in my President. If I could make one suggestion to him, it would be to make a part of his effort, putting in place increased technology, and committing funding to the development of key advances in technology - that would serve not only as a tool to use in this fight but would help to revive that sector of the economy.
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