Fox: Biden "responds" to Kennedy remarks: "let me comment on the reality"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147476,00.html

FIRST, the text of the Ted Kennedy clip that Chris Wallace of Fox played for Biden:

U.S. SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY (D-MA): When are the Iraqis going to fight for their own country? We want to know when the Iraqis are going to go out there and shed their blood.

...followed by this question from Wallace...

WALLACE: Senator, when U.S. troops are working hard to train up the Iraqis, when Iraqi security forces are now dying at a greater rate than the Americans are, is that kind of talk sensible?

...followed by Biden's "response"...

BIDEN: Well, let me not comment on the talk; let me comment on the reality. The reality is that a lot of Iraqis are dying. The reality is we haven't trained up many troops, as you now know. I had this long debate that's been going on long distance between Rumsfeld and me and others, them saying initially they had 210,000 Iraqi troops trained. That's simply not true. We probably do have somewhere between now 6,000 and 18,000 or 19,000. That comes from Tony Cordesman and other unbiased sources who are military experts.

We're now beginning, under General Petraeus, in Iraq, to really train up these Iraqi troops. And hopefully the president's trip will follow on to the recent trip in Europe with the secretary of state and secretary of defense and call on Germany and France to commit to their recent commitment of training troops. In other words, we need a serious training program. It's only now begun two months ago. We squandered an opportunity for 19 months. It's now beginning. When we train people and equip them — we send these troops out, for example, who are barely trained, and we send them out — they're not in armored Humvees. They're not in — they don't have tanks. They're not well-equipped. And that's our responsibility at the front end. We're now beginning to do that. That's when we can get to come home. Pray to God we'll start to do that in earnest now.

[leftchick]

1. Hey Joe"disaster is too polite a word" for efforts to train Iraqi forces.

Perhaps Joe should pull his head outa his ass long enough to read some REAL NEWS in Foreign papers....

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.j...

Police and army numbers falling far short of projections as post-election violence surges and wait for results drags on
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington, Kim Sengupta in Basra, and Raymond Whitaker in London
13 February 2005


<snip>

The resulting confusion over numbers has allowed the US administration to claim that it is half-way to meeting the target of training almost 270,000 Iraqi forces, including around 52,000 troops and 135,000 Iraqi policemen. The reality, according to experts, is that there may be as few as 5,000 troops who could be considered combat ready.

The gap between troops "on hand" and the overall target for fully trained and equipped security forces has actually widened in recent months, according to John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington- based think-tank. Between October and November last year, just before the Pentagon quietly stopped giving figures for fully trained troops, the shortfall more than doubled, from 69,400 to 159,000. At current levels, the targets would not be met until next year.

<snip>

David Isenberg, an analyst at the British and American Security Council, said "disaster is too polite a word" for efforts to train Iraqi forces. "We are not being honest about the numbers," he added. "We have no consensus about who has been trained, about who we are talking about."

<snip>

The Iraqi police force is considered the biggest failure, being poorly equipped and trained. US officials also say that tens of thousands of Iraqis are claiming police salaries but are not working, and nearly half of the force has been sent for further training.

A police colonel told the IoS: "I keep on hearing that we have been trained and we have been given the arms necessary by the Americans. But I seem to have missed all that. We have had people sent here who I would not trust at all. I have discovered that the Americans have made no checks on these men. Do you wonder why police stations and army barracks get blown up?"

[leftchick]

3. I REPEAT......

<snip>

A police colonel told the IoS: "I keep on hearing that we have been trained and we have been given the arms necessary by the Americans. But I seem to have missed all that. We have had people sent here who I would not trust at all. I have discovered that the Americans have made no checks on these men. Do you wonder why police stations and army barracks get blown up?"


:argh:

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. Biden's still dreaming...

...of pulling a Scoop Jackson (running to the right of a 'Pug on Defense, to the left on social issues) and straddling his way into the White House.

You do remember President Jackson, don't you.

[mattclearing]

4. What are our people doing cozying up the Rumsfeld?

I'm willing to give Biden the benefit of the doubt on that recent PNAC letter, and at least he isn't spouting happy talk like Joementum, but I don't see what he hopes to accomplish by working with these people and backhandedly defending their point of view.

And that "Europe needs to get over it - Bush won" thing was unforgivable. I could see past this kind of thing if not for that.

Whose side are you on, Biden?

[elfin]

5. One of the few political things

my late Rethug. husband and I agreed on was that Biden is a jerk.

[Vickers]

6. We have US troops over there with less than 6 months of training

That is the "reality" of it, Joe.

How long ago was it since Bush said Mission Accomplished?

[tinfoilinfor2005]

7. Biden has said repeatedly

that Rumsfeld's numbers "simply aren't true." How does that make him appear to be cozying up to the guy? The fact that he talks with Rumsfeld; well, that is part of his job. That is how we try to get some measure of accountability from these neocons. Sorry, I just don't see Biden as a bad guy.