(Condi) Rice regrets how US prioritized rebuilding in Iraq

[sabra]

Source: WP/AP

HONG KONG -- Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday she would "many times over liberate" Iraq again, but she regretted the Bush administration failed to work closer with Iraqis to rebuild the war-torn country.

Rice, speaking at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said she believed history would eventually vindicate many of the decisions made during the presidency of George W. Bush.

"I would many times over liberate Iraq again from Saddam Hussein," Rice said. "I think he was a danger to the Middle East."

However, she suggested the U.S. government failed to understand "how broken Iraq was as a society" and should have focused its rebuilding efforts outside of Baghdad, the capital.

"We tried to rebuild Iraq from Baghdad out, and we really should have rebuilt Iraq from outside Baghdad in," she said.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031900914.html

[onehandle]

1. A war criminal says what? nt

[pundaint]

5. My exact response!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. well, bless my Pradas. She finally regrets something? Amazing.

[Aristus]

3. Oh you great compassionate, progressive, forward-thinking person, you!

Thinking of the oppressed like that...good on ya!

(Where the hell was all that dewy-eyed concern for the North Koreans, huh, Condi? What's Kim Jong-Il? Mr. Rogers? No threat? Great guy? International Life-Of-The-Party? Or did you and the Chimp simply consider that North Korea has the fourth largest army in the world, nuclear weapons, and no oil?)

Loser...

[HopeHoops]

4. Why do the war criminals even make the news?

It isn't like we should believe anything they say. We never could in the first place.

[LiberalFighter]

6. So called rebuilding Iraq from outside or inside of Baghdad would still have failed.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. she suggested the U.S. government failed to understand "how broken Iraq was as a society"

...while SHE was the National Security Advisor. IOW, SHE didn't know what the fuck was going on.

If anyone in "the government" was SUPPOSED to know, it was she.

She's just trying to rewrite history for her boyfriend.

[OnyxCollie]

8. But how was the DoD going to rob the Treasury for Halliburton/KBR?

[pattmarty]

9. "Fuck you, bitch!!!!!!!!!!"

[mike_c]

10. why is this woman still not in prison...?

:nuke:

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

17. The bigger the crime........ nt

[Jefferson23]

11. Ha ha, vindicated? Good luck with that, you schmuck.

[louis-t]

12. She still doesn't know what she's talking about.

You didn't "liberate" anyone, stupid, and Iraqi society wasn't broken. YOU and your husband broke it. YOU and your husband allowed al-Quaida to move in. YOU and your husband fired the police the military and allowed the looting of treasures. YOU and your husband tried to install a puppet regime. YOU and your husband didn't understand the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni. YOU and your husband are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents including thousands of our own soldiers. YOU and your husband will probably live long enough to see another military dictatorship or a Shiite theocracy in Iraq. So it's "the U.S. government" who is at fault? YOU WERE THE US GOVERNMENT, DUMBASS!

[Jennicut]

13. Iraq was broken as a society because the dictator that controlled the Sunnis and Shiites was gone.

Anyone could see that coming a mile away. Going from authoritarianism to democracy is a bitch to get a handle of.

[Igel]

14. Indeed.

Iraq was a broken as Yugoslavia was, and for most of the same reasons.

Almost nobody believed how broken Yugoslavia was under Tito. In fact, after the fighting started and the concentration camps got going most people in the US didn't want to believe it. People only woke up when scandalous pictures reminiscence of the Holocaust showed up in the media.

Now, Tito's "let's let things simmer" plan worked well, but Saddam's was worse. Expropriating Shiite mosques and giving them to Sunnis, for instance, was a recipe for civil war. But it firmed up his base, which was Sunni.

Whoever was in charge of national security advice in the early 1990s should have known this about Yugoslavia. Mostly because the analysts that were experts in the area should have known it. Nary a peep.

Rice should have known it about Iraq. Mostly because her analysts should have known it. They didn't say a word. These are career employees, too.

Makes you wonder how many other regimes that we love to hate are essentially lids on pressure cookers. (Personally, I'm surprised that Russia didn't explode. Had lots of problems. Semi-independent country-lings. But they all worked out deals peaceably.)

[Supersedeas]

15. A danger to the Middle East--we were told and our soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice

because Sadaam was an imminent danger to the U. S.

How many other dictators much be removed in far away regions (at the sacrifice of young Americans) so that NeoCon Chickenhawks can be vindicated in some future history book.

[gratuitous]

16. Darn the luck!

If only "Dr." Rice had been in a position to do something about it as the whole catastrophe unfolded.

[truthisfreedom]

18. We didn't liberate Iraq from Saddam, jackboot Condi. We liberated the US from the rethugs.

Stfu.

[tanyev]

19. Disappointed that shoe stores weren't at the top of the list, Condi?

[applegrove]

20. You shouldn't have fired all the bathists. What else were they going to do

but revolt?

[No Elephants]

21. BITCH, PLEASE.