State Department Official Slams Pentagon

[DoYouEverWonder]

AP Wire

October 28, 2003, 8:03 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- A top State Department official criticized the military Tuesday for agreeing to a wartime cease-fire with an Iranian rebel group based in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

"We shouldn't have been signing a cease-fire with a foreign terrorist organization," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The military signed an April 16 cease-fire with the Mujahedeen Khalq after warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition invading Iraq and bombed Mujahedeen Khalq sites. The group agreed to disarm and was not attacked again.

<snip>

Pentagon officials have defended the cease-fire decision, saying the military's focus at the time was to defeat Iraq, and American troops could not afford to be fighting another heavily armed group at the same time.


WTF? First, I thought we were going after the terrorist and smoking them out not signing ceasefire agreements with them? Second, "we could not afford to fight another heavily armed group at the same time"? This is coming from the same people who claim we could fight three major conficts at the same time? Just some more bs from the biggest bs'ers in the world.

[mike_c]

1. the "war on terror" is a sham, just like the "war on drugs" and...

...the Cold War. Nothing to win. Remember, we have always been at war with Oceana. Now get back to your patriotic duty and go shopping.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. That's what pisses me off the most

the money and resources these greedy slimballs waste and the lives they destroy without a care. Imagine, what the world would be like if the US used this money to help people rather than to oppress them?

[displacedtexan]

2. I f-ing can't believe this sh*t!

this tells the world: we're vulnerable. come and get us.

i can't get my mouth to stop hanging open! this has shocked and awed me.

[DulceDecorum]

4. OK whaddawedonow

Run TO or FROM those militia types holed up in the Dakotas?

If American troops cannot not afford to be fighting another heavily armed group at the same time, then what will happen the day some of those gun-nuts get together and decide to liberate Washington DC?

[goforit]

5. Looks like Armitage is setting Rummy up.

The bad after the bad!!!!

Only one will win!!!

So we will lose half the "Bads"!

I guess I'm trying to see some positive out of this
catastrophy.

So the State department wanted more blood, eh?

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. We knew that some day

they would have to turn on each other. With the dems out of power for the last two years, eventually they have no choice but to eat their own young.

[damnraddem]

7. Who can sign cease-fire agreements?

Does the military have the authority to do so? Isn't this an area of State Department responsibility? Does such an agreement have legal weight?

[berry]

9. I was listening to this hearing, and I THINK someone said that

the signing was done by some field agent of the DoD. Just one guy. Also, that the agreement has already been cancelled, or declared void or whatever. Can't be seen to have an alliance with a terror group. IIRC, Feingold was asking this question. They kept talking about a group called the MEK (? or something like that)--everyone seemed to know what it is, but I didn't/don't. And I admit I wasn't listening too carefully (busy doing something else at the same time). Guess I should go read the article and see if it answers my questions....

OK--it's the same group as in the article (MK I guess--Mujahedeen Khalq). I also got the impression that a lot of the objection to dealing with them is that they are linked to Hezbollah and Hamas--but again, I'm not sure.

Does anyone know where to go to get transcripts of this and other hearings? ARE transcripts available? And how soon after a hearing?

[Kinkistyle]

8. Shhhh!!!

Bush: "Shut up Armitage! We need these guys around to perpetrate Sept. 11, 2004!"

[TacticalPeek]

10. If they'll blow up some ancient Buddhist statues,

they can qualify for US taxpayer payoffs.

:grr: