| op-ed | |||
| Christian Grantham was a student activist in the late 90s and later was a consultant to domestic policy forums for the Clinton Administration as well as events for HRC and GLAAD. | |||
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October 18, 2004
A record of not listening to his own people. A record of failure.
Wolfowitz: -- "there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it."
[Paul Wolfowitz - DoD Press Conference Transcript - 05-09-03]"I don't think you can win it," Bush said in the interview on NBC's Today show. "But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."
[Bush: 'I don't think you can win' war on terror - St. Petersberg Times - 08-31-04]In a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate, the council looked at the political, economic and security situation in the wartorn country and determined that — at best — a tenuous stability was possible, a U.S. official said late Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
[Group Offers Bush Bleak Iraq Assessment - AP - 09-16-04]"The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We’re conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It’s so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."
[Gen. Joseph Hoare, former head of the U.S. Central Command - Guardian - 09-16-04]"We’re in a lot of trouble… We gotta be honest with ourselves, as I said yesterday, the worst thing we can do is hold ourselves hostage to some grand illusion that we’re winning. Right now we’re not winning… it isn’t good enough to just say, well we just have to stay the course…"
[Sen. Chuch Hael (R-NE) - MSNBC - 09-17-04]"We made serious mistakes right after the initial successes by not having enough troops on the ground, by allowing the looting, by not securing the borders… [Bush has been] perhaps not as straight as maybe we’d like to see… It’s very serious. The situation is deteriorating."
[Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) - FOXnews - 09-19-04]"The CIA laid out several scenarios that said life could be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better," Bush said. "And they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like. The Iraqi citizens are defying the pessimistic predictions."
[Bush shrugs off his CIA skeptics - Newsday - 09-22-04]On Sunday, Rice acknowledged she was aware of a debate within the U.S. intelligence community about whether the tubes were intended for nuclear weapons. "I knew that there was a dispute. I actually didn't really know the nature of the dispute," Rice told ABC's "This Week."
[Rice Defends Comments on Iraq Nuke Threat - AP - 10-03-04]"It turns out that we have not found weapons of mass destruction," Rumsfeld said Monday in the speech to the foreign affairs group. "Why the intelligence proved wrong I'm not in a position to say, but the world is a lot better off with Saddam Hussein in jail."
[Rumsfeld Doesn't Expect Civil War in Iraq - AP - 10-04-04]"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. "We never had enough troops on the ground."
[Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels - Washington Post - 10-05-04]"The analysis shows that despite Saddam's expressed desire to retain the knowledge of his nuclear team and his attempts to retain some key parts of the program, during the course of the following 12 years Iraq's ability to produce a weapon decayed," Duelfer said.
[Iraq Had no Weapons Stockpiles or Nuclear Program, CIA Says - Bloomberg - 10-06-04]The top U.S. commander in Iraq complained to the Pentagon last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops' ability to fight, according to an official document that has surfaced only now.
In what appears to be a plea to top officials to spur the bureaucracy to respond more quickly, Sanchez concluded, "I cannot sustain readiness without Army-level intervention."
[General Reported Shortages In Iraq - Washington Post - 10-18-04]The national security adviser under the first President Bush says the current president acted contemptuously toward NATO and Europe after Sept. 11 and is trying to cooperate now out of desperation to "rescue a failing venture" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[Scowcroft slams Bush over Iraq - Salt Lake Tribune - 10-17-04]
