Maybe he never actually said so, in so many words, but when we were getting ready to invade Iraq back in February 2003, Bush gave us the definite impression that Iraq would be a stable democracy not long after our victory.
No? Cecil’s info suggests
“*Despite the changes, Nielsen reports TV viewership as it always has, in terms of rating and share. The rating for a given show is the percentage of households with TVs that tuned in; the share is the percentage of households with their TVs switched on that tune in. *”
I understand your nitpick, but it seems a small perversion of the usual way ratings are discussed. If a story says that Fox is leading in the ratings, it means just that. I’m not sure that Liberal was trying to say that CNN had more overall viewers or that they simply had more viewers per minute. I think he simply meant that they were ahead in the ratings. As is commonly meant by Fox is number 1.
You have a different way of measuring news stations. That’s cool. But it is disengenuous to suggest that there is not common way to measure such things.
No one thought the task would be finished this soon? The Bush administration and the military believed that most of our troops would be coming home by summer of 2003 (cite), with only a relatively small force left in Iraq to finish the transition. Instead, besides extending the time spent for forces who started the invasion, we’ve also had to call up reserves who never expected to be sent at all. Timetables for the new government, economic reform, and virtually everything else have been pushed back multiple times, though it rarely makes the news here in the US.
As for “meeting the challenges”, that’s a matter of how you choose to view it. Six months ago the uprising in Fallujah started. Now according to the recent CSCI report, coalition troops have given up on trying to control Fallujah and the surrounding areas. Al Jarqawi strikes at will and retreats to this insurgent controlled zone, and we can’t do anything more than try to lob bombs at him. Every day, insurgent forces attack coalition troops, Iraqi security forces, civilians, oil pipelines, etc… With more than a hundred attacks every day, I find it doubtful that we’re pursuing every single attacker when there’s that many out there. So I’d say we aren’t meeting every challenge, in fact we’re retreating when the situation gets too tough and repeatedly accepting more and more violence.
The challenges in my book are to prepare an Iraqi police and self defense force that can protect that country. That is essential for any kind of meaningful election I think. And an Iraqi elected government strong enough to stand alone is key to our getting the hell out. If an election can only be held with US troops guarding polling places I don’t see how Iraqis will accept it as untainted.
I’m also afraid that I don’t see our current administration holding still for an Iraq government that doesn’t fit our specification. And I think that’s a fact no matter how much the Iraqis might want such a government.
Although there are inumerable differences there also seems to be one outstanding similarity between Iraq and South Vietnam. Every one who is familiar with Iraq that I hear from says that the Iraqis have to be able to stand alone. That was the same story in Viet Nam. However, as McNamara’s book made clear Viet Nam forces couldn’t do it so they needed our help “for the time being.” Then again it was agreed that Viet Nam forces had to stand alone, but they couldn’t do it yet so then needed our help “for the time being.” We went around that loop for years and that seems to be a disturbing similarity to Iraq.
There are several areas where our troops don’t enter. Laughter and sneering greeted Kerry’s remark about a more “sensitive” war, but we don’t enter Faloujah because of sensitivity to the effect on Muslims in the Middle East. We do everything we can to make it appear that the Iraqi temporary government is free to act as it chooses because of sensitivity to the effect on Iraqis of the appearance of our being the puppet master. GW early on after 9/11 said we were on a “crusade” and people fell all over themselves distancing us from that blunder because of Middle East sensitivity to the word. Anyone who thinks that we don’t need to be sensitive to the external effects of our actions is a damned fool. And we have a president who seems to have a tin ear.
Come on! You have to allow me an occasional out burst of polemic.
A serious policy thinker who publicly says that the US is making steady progress toward a stable, democratic, Western friendly Iraq? Isn’t that the clear import of what our President is saying? Does that square with the apparent thrust of the NIC’s NIC?
Can’t read it because it’s classified. Maybe. But an anonymous government official – a slender fiction for somebody on top of the pile talking to reporters in a press briefing – has said enough to conclude that the report is not good news and that the prospects for a stable, democratic, Western friendly Iraq are not good. I haven’t heard any Administration official stand up on his hind legs and say that the news reports of the NIC NIC are inaccurate in any way and they have had since Wednesday or Thursday to do just that. There is every reason to accept the news reports as an accurate report of what the publicity shy government official did say about the NIE. Just why the Administration would talk about it an not publish at least a redacted version is a little hard to understand.
Incidently, since this thing is in the nature of an admission against interest the circumstantial probability of its reliability is pretty strong. If there was the announcement that there was a secret report that said every thing will be just fine the prejudicial effect would not be there. When the government says they have a secret report that says things are not going well when the President is out on the stump proclaiming that things are progressing toward a stable, democratic and Western friendly Iraq then you tend to sit up and take notice.
Of course we have to notice, I am beginning to think that the biggest, and most important reason why we need to get rid of Bush this November, is that I see an escalating friction of the intelligence community and the current administration. Not good for our security, but good enough for an even worse future Watergate (That case then gave us Hillary, so you guys on the right should think more than twice if you still plan to vote for Bush, better and more capable liberal leaders will come from the prosecution of the scandals brewing)
From allowing spies to control our foreign policy (Chalaby and Israel) to ignoring threats (this report) and outing our spies (not only Plame, but even more recently, an Al-queda informant), this administration is IMO the biggest threat to our security, ignoring all that, and happily voting for this crowd is nonsense, it is even more disturbing to realize that those yahoos will feel VINDICATED and good for doing all that and worse if they win the election.
Voting for Bush is ensuring “we will follow the course”, that one of incompetence.
Of course. I did not mean to suggest that you could not. I simply did not notice the polemic free part of that last post. 
No, a serious policy thinker who believes the situation is dandy. What you are trying to imply is that since the situation could be better, it could not be worse.
Well, I don’t know. I have not read it. My first impression is that someone talked to some reporter and leaked a few details including the best and worse case scenarios and everyne is jumping to conclusions about the report’s measureing of the likelyhood of those scenarios. They are then attempting to claim that Bush has been painting a “Things in Iraq are dandy” picture and claiming that the NIC report contradicts this. Well, yes, it does. It probably also (implicitly) contradicts the existence of Santa Clause*.
Yes! This is what I wanted to ask you about in the first place. Can you point me to a news report which contains the appropriate quotes to back this up. I’m really not challenging you, I’d just like to see the quotes myself and you seem to have seen them.
Yes, but they don’t do this unless the quotes are completely bogus. Notice how many days it took the White house to suggest that the CBS Killian memos were faked. Silence does not equal agreement.
I agree entirely. I am not trying to say that any news organization made any quotes up. I am simply questioning the characterization of the report based on those quotes.
This administration has often tried to hold onto documents which it considers classified and then later release them. Consider this period (the final report is not even finished yet) a period during which they are making sure no secrets are contained in the report. They may not release it in any form. But I suspect that they will. Just MHO.
But again, you have to look at the difference between what the report actually said (or more precisely what we know about what it says) and the characterizations of the various news outlets. What I have seen so far is an estimate for the best and worse case scenarios over the next 18 months. They range from tenuously stable to outright civil war. This estimate does not seem that far off from the speculation that has been flying around this very board for the last couple years.
It would seriously help me if you could show me the article which contains the quote from the anonymous source which says that democratic reforms in Iraq are not likely at all.
And for the record, if there were any official anywhere which tried to claim that “everything is fine” in Iraq I would take notice secret or not. Such a claim (not the inference from profesations of resolve but an actual claim) would definately get my radar tingling.
*How’s that for some injected polemic.
Can you please point me to the portion of the cite which says this?
Given up, or are they trying to transfer control to Iraqi forces? Can you please site that for me.
And capture arms caches, and capture colegues, and prevent the much larger attacks he would be capable of if we weren’t there.
Ok, so we are not meeting every single challenge if we are not pursuing every single insurgent. Ok, that is at least a definition we can work with. If you can demonstrate that this is the context in which Bush made the meeting challenges remark, I may concede the point to you.
I’m sorry, but I never got that impression. Maybe it was my unwillingness to think of Bush or his administration as idiots. But I never once got the impression that we would invade and leave Iraq in a few months with a stable functioning democracy. To this day, I cannot understand how so many on the left did get that impression. I’m sure its just me.
Democracy in Iraq was never likely, nor even considered. I keep asking the same uncomfortable question…does anyone really believe that if a free election in Iraq was certain, or even very likely, to elect a theocratic, Shia governance, freely and openly…that we would permit such an election to go forward?
I think that’s very unlikely, in the aereodynamic pig sense of unlikely. And if so, that means that we never really considered “democracy” as such, but only a referendum to legitimize a pre-ordained conclusion. And if they can’t stack the deck, they won’t deal the cards.
I have heard this allegation a couple of times. Where exactly is your evidence? Do we have any statements from government officials that say that any government composed of primarily Shia oficials would have to be toppled?
The answer to your question, BTW, is yes. We would allow a theocratic Shia government. Just MHO, of course. Do you mean a Taliban like regime? How “theocratic” are you talking?
Now, are you comparing the prevention of elections that took place in Vietnam to some scenario you’ve cooked up for Iraq? I’m not trying to say it could not happen. Just that it is not a forgone conclusion.
I’ve got to ask you one more question. If a democracy is only a democracy if the people can elect undemocratic facists, then is it also not a democracy if the electorate cannot establish slavery? Are we not a democracy because that issue is off the table?
Rumsfeld specifically ruled out an “Iranian-style” theocracy back in '03:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2975333.stm
Colin Powell then seemed to reverse course on this in a Meet the Press interview in May of '04:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4992558/
'course could be they just disagree ;).
- Tamerlane
The most complete report of the July intelligence estimate I can find is what seems to be the original New York Times article here. Clearly this isn’t the more or less 50 page report and analysis but right now it is the best we can do. To suggest that the report is not what it is reported to be, to suggest that the report is consistent with what the government and the Administration has been telling the public and the electorate is more than a little obtuse. The Administration has responded, as recited in the Times piece but that response did not address the report; rather it generally dismissed “pessimist” as “hand wringers.”
So why is the NIC report important? Simply because it confirms that the occupation of Iraq is turning into the quagmire that the pessimistic, hand wringing haters of America thought it was going to be when this thing started in 2002. This taken with the conclusion that Saddam was not in cahoots with AlQiada (see the 9/11 commission report), Mr Keye’s conclusion that Saddam had no WMDs, the apparent coming conclusion from the Arms Search guys that Saddam had no stockpiles but had facilities that were capable of producing small quantities of chemicals and biologicals and had ambitions of having nuclear weapons as soon as the world quit watching him, all apparent official government conclusions, all concurred in by the people involved, sort of knock the basis and rational for the invasion and occupation of Iraq into a cocked hat.
Due respect to my worthy opponent, who recognizes Kent State for the massacre that it was, I believe that your present assertion is simply not accurate. For quite some time, the administration has been warning Americans of the difficulties that lie ahead for Iraq. Sure, he has spun the whole thing as positively as possible, but that is to be expected, just as his opponents spin it all as negatively as possible. I believe that if you are going to call positive spin obtuse, you should call negative spin the same.
Lib, just out of curiosity, what would a non-spun evaluation of the Iraq situation look like? Would it be generally positive (“things are lookin’ up! Good times a’comin’…”) or generally negative (“many parts of the country are under the control of insurgents… the Green Zone is no longer 100% safe…”)? And if the non-spun evaluation is generally negative, wouldn’t generally negative statements about our prospects in Iraq be more reflective of reality than generally positive statements, and therefore less “obtuse”?
I certainly don’t want to speak for Liberal. But I think this is a good question, so I’m going to answer it.
A good un spun description of the current situation would include both. Clearly there are security problems in Iraq. Clearly though, without Saddam Iraq is closer to a democracy. An unspun report on the current situation would include both.
I think this depends on the context within which the evaluation is being made. If I am not mistaken, you are now talking about Bush administration statements made at press briefings or even at political rallies. To some extent these statements are aimed at the whole policy rather than a snapshot of the current situation. When Bush says things like “We will win the war…” or “We have resolve…” he is not trying to say that the situation in Iraq is Dandy nor that the work left to do will be easy. He is simply saying that the work he sees as necessary for America to do will be worth the cost. He is not implying that the cost will be negligible.
What I’m saying is that you can have generally positive statements about an issue in which the current situation is generally negative without divorcing either from reality.
I cannot access that as I am not registered. Again, can you quote me the things NYT quoted (the quotes included as quotes in the article) that support your position. I would appreciate it.
Understood.
Well, hold on a second. You are confusing two different things here. I am not disputing what is in the report. If I recall correctly, one of the principles who has read it is quoted as saying that it is “pessimistic” about the current situation in Iraq. So, I am not saying that the report claims roses are falling from the sky. But I really need to differentiate the report itself (or what we know of it) from the characterization made by reporters. Given that we don’t have the full report, I can make the concession that we accept at face value the quotes from those who have read it. They are necessarily summarizations and thus characterizations, but its all we have. But I’d rather stay away from news characterizations of these characterizations if we can.
Secondly, we are slipping back into the argument about how easy the Bush administration thinks the Iraq campaign will be. I think you need some significant proof that they never felt the Iraq peace would be hard before we can say that 20 to 30 words characterizing a 50 page report is in direct opposition to the administration position.
Exactly.
Does it really? Again, can you quote the quote which confirms this?
Yea, but they don’t.
The 9-11 commission concluded that Saddam was not in cahoots on any activity directly targeting America. They also noted that there was a long standing relationship between them. The intelligence about the WMDs was wrong. Everyone (or nearly everyone) got it wrong. Saddam’s own military thought they had nukes. And the conclusion that Saddam was protecting what little was left of his WMD program is proof that he was not contained. Not unless you are willing to suggest that sanctions were functioning exactly as planned and that they were going to do so into the foreseeable future. In which case I’d have to ask why you are so attached to the dandy evaluation of that situation.
Can you point me to the part of those article where it says that America, the Iraqi government or anyone else is giving up on Fallujah? Thanks.