<p>so did Bush lie to the press when he said no materr what Rumsfeld was staying</p>
<p>and after 4 years of Dem not being able to hold meetings, set agendas, and being excluded, NOW the Republicans want bipartisinship</p>
<p>hypocrits</p>
<p>as well, what did we hear for years, well the election is what it is, just take it, no recounts needed, and what do we see, go ole Burns asking for a recount</p>
<p>again hypcocrits</p>
<p>Bush admitted to the press that he told a “fib” cause he did not like the timing of the question and he hadn’t picked a replacement yet. How dumb does he think we are. Rummy was on his way out as soon as the elections were over. Someone needed to take the fall for a failing policy and it isn’t Rumsfeld’s policy either. It’s Dubya’s.</p>
<p>Well, people aren’t going to let Bush off the hook so easily. He thinks by letting Rummy go, that all’s swell in Oz?</p>
<p>Got some ‘splainin’ to do, sir. I am looking forward to the hearings.</p>
<p>-Allmusic-</p>
<p>Best I can tell, Rummy was looking to leave before the election. Bush kept him on board long enough to show unity so as to not worsen GOP chances this year.</p>
<p>GOP chances might have been better had he replaced Rumsfeld and showed, by his actions, that he was not just a “stay the course” guy.</p>
<p>^i agree. Replacing Rumsfeld would have removed one of the Dems’ biggest targets.</p>
<p>m&sdad,</p>
<p>History has shown this to be untrue. Carter learned this the hard way.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think Bush knew pretty well that if he told the truth, that Rumsfield was on the ropes, it would look to the “base” like an admission of failure. </p>
<p>I guess the only surprising thing is that he’s admitting now that he lied.</p>
<p>Only last week, Bush crowed about how much he supported Rummy, and planned to keep him till the end of the term.</p>
<p>double post again sorrrryyyy</p>
<p>What happened to Roves “secret” polls? you know that ones he bragged about</p>
<p>and knowing how these guys will fall on the sword for each other, IF Bush really thought he was going to not retain the congress, Rummy would have taken the dive, but I really think these guys thought they would win, so didn’t need to have Rumsfeld resign</p>
<p>In the press conference (about the Dems taking control), he seemed genuinely shaken. I think he was as unprepared for his party losing Congress as he was for how badly the war is going. It’s amazing, really; in both cases, it was pretty clear what was going to happen.</p>
<p>It says a lot about the people he chooses to be on his team. He seems to surround himself with people who tell him that he will get whatever he wants, just because he wants it, no matter what evidence to the contrary. Iraq? No problem, going to be a cakewalk. Voters demanding accountability? No worries, Karl Rove has something up his sleeve that’s going to turn the tide.</p>
<p>But I think once the initial shock wears off, nothing will really change in the Oval Office.</p>
<p>Let’s hope he gets the message. Two years is a long time to be a really lame duck.</p>
<p>I am curious, how are you so smart, Conyat, that you are the only one who foresaw how bad Iraq was gonna get. Bush, Rummy, not even the generals could figure it out, but somehow you did. Maybe you should apply for a job at the pentagon.</p>
<p>Golani, that’s ridiculous and you know it, if you have been at all paying attention from 1990-2002. </p>
<p>Many, many people warned that the war in Iraq wasn’t going to be the cakewalk that Bush and Co predicted. Cheney actually threatened to fire anyone who suggested that the war would take longer than 12 months, so there were clearly people suggesting it. It was one of the things that got Colin Powell pushed aside, trying to explain that Iraq was no Grenada. </p>
<p>The Clinton administration had previously predicted that it would take 300,000soldiers to stabilize Iraq if Saddam were taken out. It was the main reason Bush 41 didn’t go after Saddam in Iraq once he was out of Kuwait. He was surrounded by people who understood the realities of what it would take–and he himself was a combat veteran–and he decided that the benefit just wasn’t worth the cost.</p>
<p>So, no, I didn’t know this of my own knowledge. But I knew enough to know that people like Bush 41 and Colin Powell, who had real life experience of war in the Middle East, are in a better position to judge what would happen than naive neocon cheerleaders.</p>
<p>Actually, most of the predictions about the war being long and drawn out were not post-Saddam, but while Saddam was still in power. If you remember the NYT had headlines almost everyday about how the war against Saddam was going to take along time because Saddam’s own guards and the Al-Quds brigade were goign to hole up in Tikrit or Baghdad and keep fighting. The regular army, however, lost in two weeks. Then the dynamics of the war changed as America had to become a stabilizer rather than victor. No one really knew that there would be such an influx of Syrian, Palestinian Arab, and Iranian fighters in Iraq. No one really thought that even then there would be so much resistance and in-fighting. But all of us now know that the world will be a much safer and better place if we can work out Iraq.</p>
<p>Umm, sorry. There has been sectarian violence in the Middle East for thousands of years. Plenty of folks, including Bush 41, realized that it wouldn’t end overnight just because one leader was taken out. And borders in the Middle East have always been pretty fluid like that; historically the cultures of the Middle East were nomadic, and it’s a small area. </p>
<p>You may not have realised these things, but it doesn’t mean that everyone overlooked them, and Bush 41 certainly didn’t overlook them.</p>
<p>While it’s true that the world may be safer if some miracle happens to “work out” Iraq, but you could say the same of any situation. It’s precisely that brand of magical thinking that got us into this mess.</p>
<p>Just because there had been Secterian violence for ever does not reflect on the severity it was too occur. Afghanistan did not go Iraq’s way. Turkey does not have that much sectarian violence anymore. The fact remains that the post-saddam war was not predicted by the people who count-politicians, generals, military men. Even “scholars” on the ME did not all foresee that. </p>
<p>The war is winnable. Losing is not an option anymore. Iraq can be worked out if the war is fought right. You know people said winning in Japan, in Soviet Union would also be magical thinking. Look how that turned out.</p>
<p>Again, Iraq isn’t a war, it’s an occupation. You can’t really win an occupation, especially when you refuse to plan for it. And I don’t know anyone who said winning the Cold War, or Victory in Japan would be magical thinking. There were specific strategies used throughout the Cold War and WWII. No one expected that we could just waltz into Red Square or Toyko and be greeted as liberators.</p>
<p>We won those situations because the people running them were wise enough to know you don’t win a war by simply telling yourself that losing isn’t an option.</p>
<p>Interesting, though how in the Red Square America was a liberator after the Soviet Union, and the people were grateful for it.</p>
<p>Look back in history. There were many who predicted Japan would not be won. That they are to radical, that their culture is not compatible to democracy. The allies had to even get the Jap emperor to announce he wasnt the son of god or chosen by god. When it came to the Soviet Union, people said lets live with them, side by side- realpolitik. Go back and look at the archives of the NYT during the Reagan years, you find editorial after editorial abot how the Soviet Union will not collapse. Or howbout after the Jackson-Vannou (I think that what it was killed) amendmant was passed in Congress. It sent of a flurry of liberals and democrats saying that the Soviet Union is stoo strong and never will fall.</p>
<p>But Iraq is not the USSR and is not Japan. We are not just occupiers, but we are builders. We are building them a country to insure that we can live safely in our own. Moreover, it is a war against militant Islam, its a war against secular Sunnis terrorist orginizations. They can be defeated, but if we lose terrorism will win. You, in Sidell, Louisiana might not be in much danger, but people in NYC, Boston, Philla, etc will be, and I do not want that to happen.</p>