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04/02/2004 Archived Entry: "Flying blind."
Flying blind.
Bob Herbert nails it.
Last May 1, in a fun moment for the commander in chief, Mr. Bush sat in the co-pilot's seat as an S-3B Viking aircraft landed on the deck of the carrier Abraham Lincoln. The president was in full flying regalia: flight suit, parachute, water survival kit. "Yes," he told reporters, "I flew it."The president's giddily choreographed "Top Gun" spectacle was designed to take full public relations advantage of his triumphant announcement that "major combat operations in Iraq" had ended.
He was wrong, of course, just as he was wrong about the weapons of mass destruction, and about the number of troops that would be needed to secure Iraq, and so many other things. In fact, the Bush administration has managed to conceal any and all evidence that it knows the first thing about what it's doing in Iraq.
When the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, dared to say publicly that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to occupy Iraq, he was ridiculed by the administration and his career was brought to a close. When Mr. Bush's former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, disclosed that planning for an invasion of Iraq was already under way in early 2001, he was denounced as someone who didn't know what he was talking about. And there's hardly a serious person in the country who is unaware of the administration's sliming of Richard Clarke, who said, among other things, that the war in Iraq had undermined the war against terror.
[...]
We are mired in a savage mess in Iraq, and no one knows how to get out of it. More than 600 U.S. troops are already dead. The rest of the world has decided that this is an American show, so we're not getting much in the way of help. (Even the Saudis have been sticking their fingers in Uncle Sam's eye, leading the effort by OPEC to cut oil production.) President Bush won't come clean about the financial costs of the war. His mantra remains: tax cuts, tax cuts.
We're flying blind. There's no evidence that the president or anyone in his administration knows what the next act of this great tragedy will be.
Replies: 8 people speak up
George Bush, Wrong on the facts, wrong for America
Posted by elvis56 @ 04/02/2004 10:16 AM NY
Timing is everything.
If you wish to prosecute a hostile military takeover on the pretense of freeing a country, the timing of the commencement of the action is considered poor if you don't understand how you wish to define success.
Imagine throwing open the doors of the asylum...these people have no idea what it is to live and act in a free society. Should we be surprised that factions are popping up trying to take control? Hell no. Should the prosecutors of the action have anticipated these problems? Hell yes.
The story of Pandora's box was apparently lost on the current leadership.
Posted by Murphy @ 04/02/2004 10:19 AM NY
We just have to do what we did in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, etc. Declare victory and get the hell out.
Posted by schrams @ 04/02/2004 10:30 AM NY
wanted to thank the maker of this blog - I come here every day to read what you have to say -
The mess in Iraq is frightenng - It's a big black hole for money, good intentions and American kids -
Declaring victory and getting the hell out sounds like a great idea, but it's untenable - the world will notice the civil war that follows our exit, stage right even - It's going to undermine everything the US tries to do on behalf of western interests for the next ten years - and worse, if today's news stories are to be believed, we're at the quagmire stage and headed for worse (whatever the hell that could be)
Bush said he was against nation building and middle-eastern initiatives (non-neo-con inspired I guess he meant) and what the hell are doing there? Oh right, we're remaking the middle-east in our image?
Hey for those of you who think Richard Clarke was spot on, here's more proof - to me the first story should be blowing the lid off of all Bush pre-9/11 assertions about preparedness:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=507514
http://slate.msn.com/id/2098067/
Posted by karl @ 04/02/2004 12:38 PM NY
Both NYTimes op-eds were excellent today. Rare day for the gray lady. Could it be that the Times is waking up?
Posted by Andrew Smith @ 04/02/2004 06:55 PM NY
Both NYTimes op-eds were excellent today. Rare day for the gray lady. Could it be that the Times is waking up?
Posted by Andrew Smith @ 04/02/2004 06:55 PM NY
Is there a roster anywhere of All of the people that have been fired, or resigned? It would be good to get an accurate count...
Posted by Allison @ 04/02/2004 09:01 PM NY
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me 223 times and counting, shame on me.
Posted by IXLNXS @ 04/02/2004 10:04 PM NY
