Via Think Progress. Condi Rice on FOX News Sunday claimed, "[T]he administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq." Hmmm....I must have missed that.
Someone needs to tell Condi Rice and the rest of the Bush Admin that Orwell's 1984 hasn't quite happened yet. They can't just change history with a snap of their fingers.
The folks over at Think Progress do some nice cherry picking and show from Cheney and Rummy on down the Bushies pitched the war in Iraq as a quick little adventure. We'd find the WMDs, turn things over to some pre-selected tough man, and get out. Now they're trying to tell us what they really meant is that we'd be in Iraq for a generation. Somehow this whole we're in it for a generation never got mentioned during the election. The George Bush Shell game continues. More people die.
Now just for history's sake lets go back and take a look at what the administration said about Iraq over the past few YEARS (that's right it's been years). this is Rumsfeld back in Sept. 2003 during to one of his visits to Baghdad,
It's truly amazing the amount of progress that's been achieved in whatever its been - four or five months, depending on whether you start before the war or after the war. If one looks at any other timeline - the timeline in Germany, the timeline in Japan, the timeline in any number of other countries. The progress here has been notably better, faster, and at least to my eyes really impressive. [. . .] It's going to be so much better down the road -- another three or four months [. . .] it seems to be the trajectory we're on is a good one.Amazingly this guy still has his job. Now, I don't know about you but I don't get the sense that Rumsfeld in Sept. 2003 thinks we're going to be in Iraq for a generation. He seems to be dancing pretty quickly to give the impression that it will just be a matter of months before U.S. troops can start to leave. Rumsfeld put the happy face on the ability of Iraqi forces to get the job done,
We talked about the growth in the Iraqi capability going from zero three or four months ago up to somewhere around 55,000 today, if you add up police, former Guard, militia, army, facilities protection -- now amazing that increment to go from zero to 55,000 Iraqis with weapons providing, assisting and providing security in this country.Rumsfeld was quite empahatic in reminding the press that "People in the United States don't want to stay here forever." Here of course being Iraq. Now, "forever" and "generational" aren't the same thing, but I bet if you ask most people they're pretty close.
And it just wan't Rumsfeld. Paul Bremer in an interview with Tim Russert way back in July of 2003 said "I think over the next 60 to 90 days we'll take some very important steps, as this report suggests, to try to turn the problem around on the security side, and get the economy moving, and to start showing progress on the political front." Of course that 60 to 90 days came and went and people are still dying, the Iraqi economy is sitll a fantasy, and politically things are as uncertain as the day we walked into Baghdad. When Bush & Co. weren't pushing a quick time table they were refusing to answer questions about how long it would take for us to hand things over to the Iraqis and for U.S. troops to come home. This is Rumsfeld on March 30, 2003 being interviewed by ABC's George Stephanopoulos,
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you think we'll still be fighting in Iraq six months from now?It's telling that Rumsfeld didn't add "years to that list. Clearly he wasn't thinking we'd still be in Iraq two years later conducting what are for all intents and purposes major combat operations. And just to make sure everyone is clear this is Rumsfeld being interviewed by KING-TV, Seattle, Wash on Feb. 6, 2003
SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, goodness, you know, I've never -- we've never had a timetable. We've always said it could be days, weeks, or months and we don't know. And I don't think you need a timetable.
In the event force has to be used to disarm Iraq, there is no question but that some much smaller number than would be involved in any conflict, a smaller number would be there along with other international forces to serve in a transition period to see that what succeeded Saddam Hussein was a regime, a government that did not have weapons of mass destruction, did not threaten its neighbors, was able to maintain a single country, and would be on a path towards providing the right kind of rights and freedoms to the various minority groups and ethnic groups in that country.
