VOTE08 REALITY CHECK: How Each Party’s Candidates Are Misleading You on Iraq
February 1st, 2008, 6:55 am · Post a Comment · posted by Dan Lehr
A lack of candidate candor over the Iraq question is hurting the United States’ long-term efforts in the struggle against terrorism. Vote08 has reality checks for voters on both sides after the jump.
First, the Democrats.
(from last night’s debate:)
CLINTON: I’ve been very clear in saying that I will begin to withdraw troops in 60 days. I believe that it will take me one to two brigades a month, depending on how many troops we have there, and that nearly all of them should be out within a year. BLITZER: But you can’t make a commitment, though, that 16 months after your inauguration will be enough time? CLINTON: I certainly hope it will be. And I’ve said I hope to have nearly all of them out within a year.
Obama (wisely) did not go so far as to make a commitment like this, but it is clear that many Democratic voters will expect whoever is the nominee to begin a troop pullout of Iraq immediately.
VOTE08 REALITY CHECK: At the end of this next administration, regardless of who’s in office, U.S. troops will still be in Iraq. The force size could change. The mission could change. The leadership & tactics on the ground could improve. But we’ll still be debating the issue for the 2012 election.
Consider sand. It’s everywhere in Iraq. It’s unavoidable. Each & every U.S. military vehicle in Iraq right now is full of it. Forget the military or political considerations — once the decision is made to leave, getting all of those vehicles out of the country presents a logistical nightmare, as illustrated by the man who oversaw this operation at the end of the First Gulf War:
“I think it’ll take at least 12 to 18 months to do this. Getting out of Iraq is not the issue; getting out of the theater of operation is. You can drive out of Iraq and nobody’s going to inspect you or anything. But once you get in Kuwait, every piece of equipment, every container, every generator has to be scrubbed and washed and inspected by the Agriculture Department so that we do not bring any hidden diseases back to the United States. Desert sand becomes hardened mud like cement. And all that’s got to be sprayed down or they won’t allow it on ships to get it home.” - Lt. General William Pagonis, Gulf War logistics chief
Read more of that general’s interview & you’ll recognize this won’t be an operation that can be solved “in the 1st 60 days” or “a year.” & if the estimate is “12-18 months, ” & considering how slow the bureaucratic wheels in the military move on something like this, you should tack on another 6 months to a year. & there is also the logistical issue of getting 100,000 American civilians out of Iraq - not to mention our obligations to the many Iraqis who helped U.S troops.
& now the Republicans:
Senator John McCain & Mitt Romney both spent a lot of time at their debate earlier this week going back-&-forth over whether or not Romney called for timetables for a troop withdrawl. Congressman Ron Paul gave his best answer of the evening that gives the Reality Check for Republicans on Iraq:
“We should be debating foreign policy, whether we should have interventionism or non-interventionism, whether we should be defending this country or whether we should be the policemen of the world, whether we should be running our empire or not, and how are going to have guns and butter? And we have these silly arguments going on about who said what when. I think it’s time to debate foreign policy and why we don’t follow the Constitution and only go to war with a declaration of war.”
Paul’s answer to the issues he raised may or may not be right; but he gets points for asking the right question.
VOTE08 REALITY CHECK: The debate’s not about who said what about a timetable for withdrawl. The debate is about how we create the conditions that remove the U.S.’s obligations to keep the country together — making “setting a timetable for withdrawl” moot. President Bush famously said in the 2000 debate “we’re not in the nation-building business.” Yet his policies as president were a 180 degree shift from that way of thinking. Republicans need to acknowledge that a lack of vision & overarching long-term strategy for victory against Islamic extremism since the Iraq invasion has hurt the United States’ struggle against terror. We think far too much about military tactics & not about waging (& winning) the war of ideas. The success of the surge has been a temporary solution that takes Iraq off of the front page. But the question about how best -philosophically- to approach conflicts such as these on the world stage remains, and none of the Republican candidates have approached this issue with any candor whatsoever. Doing so will help increase their chances of victory this year. Republican candidates who stick beside President Bush’s current “just looking over the next hill” strategy do so at their own peril.
What do you think? Which candidates have the best & worst plans for Iraq? Let Vote08 know — post a comment!
