Biden "Admin Officials, Maybe Even Including VP, Believes Iraq Is Lost"

[kpete]

White House Postponing Loss of Iraq, Biden Says

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 5, 2007; Page A06

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof," in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam.

"I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost," Biden said. "They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy -- literally, not figuratively."

[Skinner]

1. Link, please. (nt)

[Botany]

4. this help?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010401525.html?nav=rss_politics

[H2O Man]

19. Thank you ....

Interesting article.

[woodsprite]

2. Bingo! I think Joe's hit the nail on the head here.

Isn't there some joke about souls in hell paddling to keep their heads afloat in the lake of fire and on Sundays, the Devil goes water skiing. That's what I'm envisioning here.

[LiberalEsto]

3. I think they'll attack Iran

as a distraction

[leveymg]

6. I think that's what the WH wants Iran to think

The appointment of Admiral Fallon as CentCom commander certainly creates that impression.

But, in reality, I think regime change is coming to Washington rather than Tehran, and while we'll lose Iraq, Iran will pick up its new western province within 18 months.

This thing is going to move faster than Bush would want it to. But, who knows, maybe he'll be gone first? Cheney certainly is about to go.

[iconoclastic cat]

25. What makes you think Count Cheney is going anywhere? nt

[NewJeffCT]

32. Headline out of The Onion from a few years back..

It was something like:

"Exit Strategy for Iraq Revealed - Through Iran"

[Norquist Nemesis]

5. They'll reveal themselves in how quickly they hand it over

...especially if they make it a big aircraft carrier affair with banners and a band. Within 24 hours, they'll be pointing the finger at anyone but themselves.

[smoogatz]

7. Kicking the big problems down the road. It's the Republican way.

Reagan did it with the deficit. Bush 1 did it with the post-Reagan recession. Bush 2 is doing it with Iraq AND his huge, tax-cut induced deficits, and numerous other calamities. It's the height of irresponsibility, and ought to be criminal.

[liberalpragmatist]

8. I'm not so sure about Cheney

He's a cynical old bastard, so it might be true. Maybe he's just maintaining a pretense so that Bush can continue believing things are just dandy. But everything I've seen indicates that Cheney is an out-and-out true believer. There may be plenty of others in the admin who are just trying to drag it out until the next president, but Bush and Cheney are completely committed to their little crusade.

[LynneSin]

9. Just like Somalia - Bush started it yet it seems that Clinton gets blamed

There are days where I'm really really proud that Joe Biden is my senator - today is definately one of them!

[tblue]

26. I'll consider forgiving him for his vote on the credit card bill if he keeps this up

[Divine Discontent]

10. well, OF COURSE, that's what they're going to do

we certainly don't expect them to be honorable and APPRECIATIVE of the soldier's and their family's sacrifices do we????

they would RATHER have hundreds more killed of our own troops, and spend billions into the pockets of their military buddies, then get the troops out of their, because they want to look like they weren't the ones who officially failed in Iraq....

SICK
SON
OF
A
BITCHES




www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[LonelyLRLiberal]

13. You are correct - it doesn't matter to them how many more troops are killed and maimed.

It's all politics all the time to them.

[Felix Mala]

35. Karl Rove's "last" campaign for W

It's the liberal, Democrats, media, emmigrants, environmentalist, college professors, feminists, French, UN and Bill Clinton's fault!

[fooj]

41. Too late. Everyone knows the truth.

[sparerib]

49. Oversight

How come you forgot to blame the gays?

[E-Z-B]

11. Let the Bush administration legacy forever rest on this

[Captain Hilts]

12. How would Biden know? Is he getting late-night calls from Cheney? nt

[maxsolomon]

14. its only a TENTATIVE conclusion

cmon joe, don't hedge - declarative sentences. make a stink.

you are in power now. use subpoenas - make them confirm or deny it in public, on record.

if they have any grasp of reality (and they have to, don't they?), they know that we're too far down the river of De Nile to turn around & re-run the first rapid.

[Roland99]

15. So, they want to kill more of our targets...err...troops for POLITICAL REASONS?!?!

Fuckers not only need to be impeached but imprisoned for life in Gitmo!!

:mad: :mad:

[speedoo]

16. He's right, of course.

Many here have known this for a long time. And I'm glad Biden's saying this publicly. We need this kind of public discourse, which will be accelerated with Congressional investigations to end this war ASAP. Probably requires impeachment, or forced resigantion of Bush and Cheney.

[paulk]

17. good to hear this sort of talk

from the chairman of the Seanate Foreign Relations Committee. Something tells me the hearings he chairs are going to be pretty uncomfortable for the Bush junta.

[TheCowsCameHome]

18. I can believe this. Cheney/Bush are the only two left who don't get it.

[Wink]

23. They get it.

I've always knew once Bush got into his second term/first election win (maybe) that he would never pull the troops so that he could lay the blame on his successors. It's a win/win situation for him. He can always claim we would have won if the next guy hadn't pulled our poor troops out. Of course he would have won also had Iraq not turned into the quagmire that every sane analyst predicted it would become. The piece of shit will just keep sacrificing troops until he leaves office in disgrace. Let's hope for impeachment so we can get this over with sooner.

[IWantAChange]

20. open public debate? can you imagine such a thing in Repug BizzaroWorld?

I certainly can't. Senator Biden has simply shot the opening salvo in what I for one certainly hope is a long protracted war, oops - I mean debate - on this Administration's failed policies.

[Ms. Clio]

21. Well, there it is

Impeach these traitors.

[Roon]

36. Why does your dog have a remote control for a car lock

around his neck?

[Ms. Clio]

37. I didn't have any pockets that day, so I clipped the keys to her lead

when we went to the park.

[Roon]

42. Cute! eom

[dogday]

22. Shhhhh don't tell anyone!!!

we will just stay the course, no matter how bad it gets.....

[katty]

34. exactly! tsunami is cresting and everyone KNOWS this!

[dogday]

50. They are praying for a distraction

Don't ya know!!!

[rateyes]

24. How about this last paragraph from the link provided:

Biden said that Vice President Cheney and former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld "are really smart guys who made a very, very, very, very bad bet, and it blew up in their faces. Now, what do they do with it? I think they have concluded they can't fix it, so how do you keep it stitched together without it completely unraveling?"

"blew up in their faces," reminds me of Cheney's hunting accident...it wasn't Cheney's face, it was his hunting buddy's face....

And, it not his face in Iraq, it our troops' and innocent civilians' faces that are getting blown up.

[tblue]

27. Yep, you're exactly right. No skin off their nose. They don't care how many die. 20-40K more being

shipped straight to hell. Lord have mercy.

[Uncle Joe]

28. I believe Senator Biden is correct about this

Thanks for posting kpete

Kicked and recommended

[blues90]

29. Screw Biden

Here we have just another politician forging and securing his career .

[King Coal]

30. We are going to see some panicking now.

I can smell it.

[NewJeffCT]

31. So, who are we going to ask...

So, who are we going to ask to be the last man to die for this mistake?

[Amonester]

38. This was not a "mistake" but a really sick "plan" (see: PNAC).

Ask Helliburton&Co's CEO & havemores.

They did not make a "mistake" and they R still making a killing (to the benefit of their own retirement plans).

No. They did no mistake$. The idiot freeper-types did.

[NewJeffCT]

40. If Halliburton wanted a steady stream of money

They would have sent 500,000 troops in for the occupation and put Halliburton in charge of rebuilding the whole country. It would have been a lot safer for them to build for the long-term with a stable Iraq.

I think they believed they could do it their way, with only 150,000 troops and pissing on the rest of the world, and by implementing free market economics, etc, it all would have magically come together and Iraq would be an America-loving ally with a Mobil station on every corner.

I just don't think they are competent enough to plan out this colossal of a fuck-up...

[katty]

33. We all know it's LOST-so many lives GONE-it will be

a Viet Nam evac operation very soon - bush cannot stop this tsunami.

[robertpaulsen]

39. Literally dying in vain: a surge so *'s VANITY stays intact.

Just so some shmuck can say Our National Nightmare Is Over in 2009.

IMPEACH BOTH BASTARDS SIMULTANEOUSLY!

[LittleClarkie]

43. Not a Joe fan, but I think he nails it here

Good on ya, dude.

[liberal renegade]

44. IMHO

They have all shit on America! Feingold and Kucinich are the only exceptions. The rest of these dirtbags can go piss up a rope...

[LittleClarkie]

45. Thanks for including my Senator, but I rather like a few more than just those two

as evidenced by my sig.

[liberal renegade]

46. It's just to damn bad he didn't stand up and fight for what was rightfully his in 06

and that would be the POTUS....

[LynnTheDem]

47. So let's let more Americans die! says bush

And kill more Iraqi men, women and babies!

Let's hope there is no Justice in the world.

Else we are screwn hugh.

[NNadir]

48. Actually history will judge Bush very, very severely.

This is really not like any other war, even Vietnam, into which the United States fell by degrees. This war is unambiguously a war of choice, a choice made by very few men (and one now very poorly respected woman).

No matter who pulls off the next evacuation of Saigon, the reasons for the war will always be obvious.

[sparerib]

51. We didn't lose Iraq...

...we never had it to begin with. Iraq will never be a USA mini-me. It has a very different history, culture, system of values, social infrastructure, etc. Iraq won't be a democracy. It's leaders and people will not be our buddies, nor will they love us. Nor will they tolerate our setting up a puppet government. When are we going to realize that there are other countries on Planet Earth who are different than we are, who like being different than we are, and who plan to continue being different than we are?

[Oleladylib]

This would mean even the repubs would want to elect a dem. in '08. n/t

[Oleladylib]

52. This would mean even the repubs would want to elect a dem. in '08. n/t