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Panetta unloads on White House for pulling US forces out of Iraq

Objective Voice said:
So, what you're saying is you would have been okay with a U.S. combat troop strength of 10,000 in Iraq versus the 182,060 troops that were in country at the time according to this GSA report:



Just ask yourself if over 180,000 armed U.S. military personnel could not keep sectarian violence at bay in Iraq at its highest troop strength level, how in the world were 10,000 suppose to? But it's not about that is it?

Troop levels or immunity thereof really isn't the issue for most of you. It's the fact that this President wouldn't give in to your perception of "American leadership" or "American dominance". And yet the one time he stands up in defense of our men and women in uniform, the only thing you people complain about is "he didn't give in to another nation's leader to keep U.S. combat forces in Iraq to help defend their country like we wanted." Whaaah!

For all the bowing down, giving in and non-support of the military you people claim this President does I'd think that for once you'd be clad he stood up for something.
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Where did I say I would be OK with anything? Because I am opposed to what is, does not mean I favor someone's arbitrary alternative.
 
Montecresto said:
More lies from the chief of disinformation. Obama supported the MB against Mubarak, he used Al Qaeda to help topple Gaddafi, and has been pursuing old US policy of regime change in Syria. Very bad Obama policies. But the Islamic State and ISIS/ISIL didn't come into being just because you only heard of them a few months ago!

The Sunni militants who now threaten to take over Iraq seemed to spring from nowhere when they stormed Mosul in early June. But the group that recently renamed itself simply “the Islamic State” has existed under various names and in various shapes since the early 1990s. And its story is the story of how modern terrorism has evolved, from a political and religious ideal into a death cult.

ISIS: A Short History - The Atlantic

The Islamic State (IS; Arabic: الدولة الإسلامية‎ al-Dawlah al-Islāmīyah), which previously called itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL /ˈaɪsəl/) or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS /ˈaɪsɪs/; Arabic: الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام‎ al-Dawlah al-Islāmīyah fī al-ʻIraq wa-al-Shām) and is also known by the Arabic acronym Dāʻish (داعش), is an unrecognized state and a Sunni jihadist group active in Iraq and Syria in the Middle East.

ISIL originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999. This group was the forerunner of Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn—commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)—a group formed by Abu Musab Al Zarqawi in 2004. AQI took part in the Iraqi insurgency against American-led forces and their Iraqi allies following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. During the 2003–11 Iraq War, it joined other Sunni insurgent groups to form the Mujahideen Shura Council, which consolidated further into the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) shortly afterwards.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


None of which would have happened under Hussein's watch! Bush bears far more responsibility for the rise of the Islamic State.
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Do you realize you just justified GWB's invasion of Iraq as an attack on Al Qaeda?
 
poweRob said:
No straw man. You made an assertion and I'm asking you to back it up...
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That is incorrect. I asserted that those who were not allowed to vote by virtue of (for example) being a felon or being dead managed to vote, indicating that the claim that voting was too difficult was bonkers.

You then attempted to move the goalpost and asked that I demonstrate not that these things happened, but that they were some kind of epidemic.

btw... if it's so easy to vote, why does it take people 7 hours or so to do it? That's not "easy".
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1. it is not difficult to wait in a line.

2. However, very well, according to the logic that you have brought to this debate, gosh, those kinds of waits must be everywhere and it must be damn near impossible to vote due to their prevalence. Please "show me the overwhelming evidence of this apparent epidemic in the U.S."

:)
 
Montecresto said:
Not true. You invoke Clinton as agreeing with Panetta when Clinton believed the Iraq war was a mistake to begin with.
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already prepping to lie to yourself enough to vote for her in 2016?

 
Unitedwestand13 said:
i am willing to cut Bush some slack on iraq because the thing i am criticizing him for was an unintended an unforeseen consequence of removing a large group of people from power. there are many things that have happened over the course of this decade that have been unforeseen and were not anticipated to happen. Fair enough?
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:shrug: I"m willing to critique the Bush administration plenty enough over it as well - the actual decision-making process to go to war was atrocious, and the administration appeared to have simply assumed lots of things would work out (much like the Obama administration dealt with the Stimulus bill: just overthrow-Saddam/spend-a-lot-of-money and things will take care of themselves).

However, de-Ba'athification was a result of a definite need to get rid of lots of tainted officials and demonstrate that we weren't going to simply prop up a new dictatorial system, along with constraints in time and resources.

But yeah. You are definitely correct on unforseen consequences.
 
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Montecresto said:
I'm not denying the benefits of free societies. I'm denying that US policies are creating any such thing.
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Of course they are not, because we fight the extremists, then at any sign of casualties, we close up shop and allow them to take over. We have been doing this since WW2. In essence, we defeat ourselves and that defeat is on the heads of the Anti-War movement. If we are allowed to use the full extent of our military power, there are very few countries or entities that could pose any challenge to us. The problem is, since WW2, we have not been allowed to do that.
 
cpwill said:
iraq_vote_purple_finger.jpg
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Democracy is nothing if people dont compromise. It doesnt work for every country.
 
Jack Hays said:
Senator Hillary Clinton voted for the resolution to authorize force in Iraq.
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I was referring to president Clinton. But to play along, at one time eighty percent or better of Americans supported the Iraq war, but in the course of time, they'd like to put that genie back into the bottle.
 
Capster78 said:
Of course they are not, because we fight the extremists, then at any sign of casualties, we close up shop and allow them to take over. We have been doing this since WW2. In essence, we defeat ourselves and that defeat is on the heads of the Anti-War movement. If we are allowed to use the full extent of our military power, there are very few countries or entities that could pose any challenge to us. The problem is, since WW2, we have not been allowed to do that.
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Well, with respect to the current issue. It's a result of decades of support of various militant Islamic groups, and regime change of the very people who did a far better job of containment of them then the US has. Better policy coming out of Washington is what's needed, not unleashing our military.
 
cpwill said:
already prepping to lie to yourself enough to vote for her in 2016?

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I would never vote for her. And it's president Clinton on record that the Iraq war was a mistake.

"In terms of the launching of the war, I believe we made an error in not allowing the United Nations to complete the inspections process". President Clinton, CBS 60 Minutes.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clintons-fight-against-terrorism/

Of course the completion of the inspections process would have eliminated the impetus for the war.
 
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Jack Hays said:
Do you realize you just justified GWB's invasion of Iraq as an attack on Al Qaeda?
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How's that? AQI was formed by al Zarqawi in Iraq in 2004!
 
Grant said:
Single issues Presidential elections are not necessarily a good idea. How about a national referendum?
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I would support national referendums on many things.
 
Hmmm...Two def sec's both saying essentially the same sort of thing about Obama. But rest assured, to the bots it is not Obama that has a problem, it everyone else.
 
Montecresto said:
I was referring to president Clinton. But to play along, at one time eighty percent or better of Americans supported the Iraq war, but in the course of time, they'd like to put that genie back into the bottle.
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President Clinton has had no role in Iraq.
 
Jack Hays said:
President Clinton has had no role in Iraq.
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Really! He never bombed Baghdad? At any rate, he thinks the premature invasion was a mistake and that the weapons inspectors should have been allowed to finish their job, and being there were no WMD's, they would have concluded such and the impetus for war would have been non existent.
 
j-mac said:
Hmmm...Two def sec's both saying essentially the same sort of thing about Obama. But rest assured, to the bots it is not Obama that has a problem, it everyone else.
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Malaki didn't need residuals.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday he believed Iraqi forces would be ready by June 2007 to take full control of security in Iraq, an issue on which he pressed President Bush during their meeting in Amman, Jordan.

In making the argument that his military and police could handle security in the country, al-Maliki has routinely said the force could do the job within six months.

"I can say that Iraqi forces will be ready, fully ready to receive this command and to command its own forces, and I can tell you that by next June our forces will be ready," al-Maliki said in an interview with ABC News.
 
Montecresto said:
Malaki didn't need residuals.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday he believed Iraqi forces would be ready by June 2007 to take full control of security in Iraq, an issue on which he pressed President Bush during their meeting in Amman, Jordan.

In making the argument that his military and police could handle security in the country, al-Maliki has routinely said the force could do the job within six months.

"I can say that Iraqi forces will be ready, fully ready to receive this command and to command its own forces, and I can tell you that by next June our forces will be ready," al-Maliki said in an interview with ABC News.
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According to Panetta the US had the needed leverage to renegotiate the a SOFA agreement with the Iraqi's.

The White House even coordinated the negotiations.

But Obama wanted out period.

So I'm trying to figure out if his motives were purely Political or if he was just frustrated and wanted nothing more to do with Iraq.

Granted, neither one of those reasons justify what he did
 
Fenton said:
According to Panetta the US had the needed leverage to renegotiate the a SOFA agreement with the Iraqi's.

The White House even coordinated the negotiations.

But Obama wanted out period.

So I'm trying to figure out if his motives were purely Political or if he was just frustrated and wanted nothing more to do with Iraq.

Granted, neither one of those reasons justify what he did
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It could be a little of both. But remember, Obama was hired (amongst other reasons I realize) to get us out of Iraq. The American people were content with Bush's SOFA of complete withdrawal by Dec. 31, 2011.

Besides that, eight years of training left the Iraqi security forces ready to handle their own security.

Iraq PM Says Forces Can Handle Security Without U.S.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Iraq_PM_Says_Forces_Can_Handle_Security_Without_US/1764056.html

Also, right next door is the worlds fourth largest military that could have intervened if they didn't see the fall of a Shia government as beneficial to their interests.
 
PoS said:
Democracy is nothing if people dont compromise. It doesnt work for every country.
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There was a broad sunni-shia-kurd center coalition building after the elections before the ones we just had. We put Joe Biden in charge of sheperding it, and apparently he managed to dick it up bad enough that the other two groups walked, and Maliki was left with no one to build a majority with but the Sadrists. Iraq had the most federal system of any Arab State.
 
Montecresto said:
I would never vote for her. And it's president Clinton on record that the Iraq war was a mistake.

"In terms of the launching of the war, I believe we made an error in not allowing the United Nations to complete the inspections process". President Clinton, CBS 60 Minutes.
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:lol: what a cop-out that guy is.

June 23 2004: Former President Clinton has revealed that he continues to support President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq


Hillary Mann Leverett, at the time the White House director of Persian Gulf affairs, said that Rice and Elliott Abrams, then National Security Council senior director for Near East and North African affairs, met with Clinton several times in the months before the March 2003 invasion to answer any questions he might have. She said she was "shocked" and "astonished" by Clinton's remarks this week, made to voters in Iowa, because she has distinct memories of Abrams "coming back from those meetings literally glowing and boasting that 'we have Clinton's support.' "
 
Montecresto said:
Besides that, eight years of training left the Iraqi security forces ready to handle their own security.
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That is clearly wrong now and was clearly wrong at the time.

Iraq PM Says Forces Can Handle Security Without U.S.
Iraq PM Says Forces Can Handle Security Without U.S.
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Maliki was was a fool and is saying this as bombs dropped around him. Did Obama really take this guys words that Iraq would remain secure?? Who is more naive? Obama or Maliki?
 
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