Tuesday, September 21, 2004
By Tweed
Yesterday, John Kerry opened a can of whup-ass on President George Bush, accusing him of "stubborn incompetence," and plunging into war "without understanding or preparing for the consequences of the post-war." Kerry also outlined his plans, should he be elected President, but urged the President to follow his plans in the interim.
In offering his blunt and negative assessment of the president's performance with respect to Iraq ("The president's policy in Iraq has not strengthened our national security; it has weakened it."), Kerry is going for the jugular - hitting Bush at his strongest.
After outlining the present state of Iraq - bleak - Kerry pointed the finger where blame lays: the President. "The President has made a series of catastrophic decisions - from the beginning - in Iraq. At every fork in the road, he has taken the wrong turn and led us in the wrong direction."
And Kerry made no bones about claiming that Bush had been less than honest with the American people about Iraq - from the beginning:
The first and most fundamental mistake was the President’s failure to tell the truth to the American people. He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war. And he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens. By one count, the President offered 23 different rationales for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.
His two main rationales – weapons of mass destruction and the Al Qaeda/September 11 connection – have been proved false… by the President’s own weapons inspectors … and by the 9/11 Commission. Just last week, Secretary of State Powell acknowledged the facts. Only Vice President Cheney still insists that the earth is flat.
The President also failed to level with the American people about what it would take to prevail in Iraq. He didn’t tell us that well over 100,000 troops would be needed, for years, not months. He didn’t tell us that he wouldn’t take the time to assemble a broad and strong coalition of allies. He didn’t tell us that the cost would exceed $200 billion. He didn’t tell us that even after paying such a heavy price, success was far from assured. And America will pay an even heavier price for the President’s lack of candor.
Kerry pointed out that the President's dishonesty has cost the country dearly, noting that in even moderate muslem nations, like Morracco, Osama bin Laden is more popular than the US, that it is unlikely that our allies will trust us in the future and that Mr. Bush has jeapordized public support in the event of an actual national emergency. And the war in Iraq has also turned our attention away from more pressing concerns, including the need to hunt down and kill bin Laden and the rest of the al Quada network, "threats like North Korea, which actually has weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear arsenal. . . . the emerging nuclear danger from Iran. . . the tons and kilotons of unsecured chemical and nuclear weapons in Russia . . . and the increasing instability in Afghanistan."
Kerry criticized the President harshly in terms of his performance and candor with respect to Iraq:
This President was in denial. He hitched his wagon to the ideologues who surround him, filtering out those who disagreed, including leaders of his own party and the uniformed military. The result is a long litany of misjudgments with terrible consequences.
The administration told us we’d be greeted as liberators. They were wrong.They told us not to worry about looting or the sorry state of Iraq’s infrastructure. They were wrong.
They told us we had enough troops to provide security and stability, defeat the insurgents, guard the borders and secure the arms depots. They were wrong.
They told us we could rely on exiles like Ahmed Chalabi to build political legitimacy. They were wrong.
They told us we would quickly restore an Iraqi civil service to run the country and a police force and army to secure it. They were wrong.
In Iraq, this administration has consistently over-promised and under-performed. This policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, an absence of candor, arrogance and outright incompetence.
And the President has held no one accountable, including himself.
Kerry noted that only those who had offered realistic assessments of what to expect in Iraq lost their jobs in the administration (General Shinseki, Larry Lindsey), while the president coughs up yet another excuse for the war (#24 by some accounts) - the possibility that Iraq might have some day decided to try really hard to get weapons of mass destruction.
In one of the more striking parts of the speech, Kerry highlighted Bush's spin policy:
Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq?
And Kerry offered a clear choice for the future, both with respect to our foreign policy in general and with respect to Iraq:
Kerry then outlined four specific proposals for dealing with Iraq. First, Kerry said, the president has to get international support into Iraq - both help that was promised but is not forthcoming and new help, in the form of troops on the ground, trainers for Iraq's burgeoning security forces and reconstruction funds.The President’s insistence that he would do the same thing all over again in Iraq is a clear warning for the future. And it makes the choice in this election clear: more of the same with President Bush or a new direction that makes our troops and America safer. It is time, at long last, to ask the questions and insist on the answers from the Commander-in-Chief about his serious misjudgments and what they tell us about his administration and the President himself. If George W. Bush is re-elected, he will cling to the same failed policies in Iraq -- and he will repeat, somewhere else, the same reckless mistakes that have made America less secure than we can or should be.
In Iraq, we have a mess on our hands. But we cannot throw up our hands. We cannot afford to see Iraq become a permanent source of terror that will endanger America’s security for years to come.
Second, Kerry said the president must "get serious" about the training of Iraqi security forces. Third, the reconstruction effort should be revitalized so that real, tangible results can be felt by the average Iraqi citizen. Kerry also suggested that more Iraqi's instead of US company employees be used in that effort. Finally, Kerry claimed that the elections set for January were in jeapordy because of the lack of facilities and the lack of security; therefore, "the President must take immediate, urgent, essential steps to guarantee the promised elections can be held next year."
Kerry noted that because the President had allienated allies and arrogantly refused assistance in the past, foreign assistance could be difficulet to achieve. Further, he claimed that "the president misled, miscalculated and mismanaged every aspect of this undertaking and he has made the achievement of our objective - a stable Iraq, secure within its borders, with a representative government, harder to achieve." Kerry noted that our task gets harder and harder every day.
The Bush/Cheney response was devisive, and typical - fear mongering, personal attacks and a mischaracterization of the facts. Bush keeps saying that Kerry voted to use force, which is technically true. Of course, in that vote, Congress required the president to take many steps before using force, which Kerry claims Bush did not do. Bush's current critique of Kerry only works if we assume Bush was seeking to use force back when he went to Congress.
So which is it, Mr. Bush? Are you trying to mislead us now, by saying Kerry voted for you to go to war? Or were you misleading us back then, when you asked for a resolution authorizing your use of force after taking steps to make sure SH did not have weapons of mass destruction?
Indeed, Bush's response to just about every Kerry proposal or suggestion is a personal attack. This is because he knows that if he runs a campaign on the issues, he loses. . . badly.
Any bets on whether the "news media" gets this story right?
