(Kindasleazy) Rice regrets how US prioritized rebuilding in Iraq

[unhappycamper]

Rice regrets how US prioritized rebuilding in Iraq
Mar 19, 7:51 AM EDT

HONG KONG (AP) -- 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.


Rest of article at: http://ap.stripes.com/dynamic/stories/A/AS_HONG_KONG_CONDOLEEZZA_RICE?SITE=DCSAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


:grr:

[Walk away]

1. Going down in history as the unacknowledged girlfriend of...

the worst president in history must drive this woman crazy.

[Mari333]

2. she should be saying this from a jail cell

knr

[NJmaverick]

3. illegal invasion is now known as "over liberate"?

[obxhead]

9. yeah I had a problem with that as well

I think its a punctuation thing though. many times over, liberate

either way it's BS though.

[patrice]

4. I wish just once someone would ask these people what if someone decided to liberate US from Bush.

[rfranklin]

5. "he was a danger to the Middle East..." and that justified invasion?

What happened to the WMDs that were going to be flown on model airplanes to bomb us?

[90-percent]

6. REGRETS! YOU FUCKING BITCH!

The initial rational that got the country behind the war was the whole "I don't want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud" meme. Gotta get Saddam's WMD's so he doesn't cause a nuclear 9/11 next week! And we got to take Saddam out because he masterminded the 9-11 attacks in the first place!

I am aghast that once the war commenced the rational as to why we were doing it in the first place evolved into entire different reasons.

It is utterly absurd to conduct war and then change the justification for it....repeatedly. Sending our brave, selfless and patriotic military volunteers for something justified by ever changing reasons is madness!

We went there to stop the WMD's. Nobody but nobody has ever been held to account for such a colossal "mistake". We could have banished Saddam to his own private island without firing a shot! Nope, we gotta "git 'er done" just like a drunken cowboy would, guns ablazing and shooting every hajji in sight.

The people that cooked this up are guilty of treason at the least. And if they were sincere and just made an honest mistake, then their incompetence itself is treason by the magnitude of the damage wrought by their "bad call".

I bet it will be at least five more years before we go off and occupy some other country and then find out the entire justification is another fairy tail. Americans have short to non-existent collective memory.

-90% Jimmy

[Fumesucker]

7. Rumsferatu threatened to fire anyone that even mentioned planning for the post invasion period..

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009469.php

"HE WOULD FIRE THE NEXT PERSON THAT SAID THAT"....Today, via Orin Kerr, comes a remarkable interview with Brigadier General Mark Scheid, chief of the Logistics War Plans Division after 9/11, and one of the people with primary responsibility for war planning. Shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan, he says, Donald Rumsfeld told his team to start planning for war in Iraq, but not to bother planning for a long stay:

"The secretary of defense continued to push on us ... that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave," Scheid said. "We won't stay."

Scheid said the planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4," or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like occupation.

Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said.

"I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," Scheid said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.

"He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war."

[KeepItReal]

10. SoS Powell had a plan called Future of Iraq Project for reconstruction

Rumsfeld and the Neocons in DoD dissed Powell and his whole team.

Condi knows damn well there was a plan for reconstruction. Bush & Co CHOSE not to use it.

[lunatica]

8. She loves her some Shock and Awe all over again

Now those were the days!

[Echo In Light]

11. Another US war criminal walking free

[Javaman]

12. condi, I have never ever had an original thought ever, rice is a colossal jackass

and needs to be in prison.