The full Baker/Hamilton report may well echo Col Gene's sentiments. Robert Gates, incumbent Defence Secretary, has already stated that the war is a failure (Google news).

You "might" want to change your tone on this, since that's not ALL he said on the subject. Try "this" on for size, direct quote from hearing transcript:

His response was as follows, and I quote him: "We're not winning, but we're not losing," end quote. It seems to me a parallel between what I said when I got back and that distinguished chairman's observation yesterday.

Link

Try again oh brainless wonder! The above link "was" obtained from Google News.

My parents did not have to make excuses for my actions.

No....they had to make excuses for your mere exsistence!

If we are not establishing stability in Iraq we are LOOSING! We loose troops and spend billions for WHAT? The situation gets worse all the time. How is that not loosing?

drmiler

I will be happy to stack up my accomplishments against yours any time!

Obvious case of projection on the Col's part. 6 long, futile years and what to show for it? Does Bush even know his name? At least mosquitoes can brag that they've been swatted at.

If we are not establishing stability in Iraq we are LOOSING! We loose troops and spend billions for WHAT? The situation gets worse all the time. How is that not loosing?

If you spend all your time bush bashing and nobody listens to you....then YOU are "LOOSING".

drmiler I will be happy to stack up my accomplishments against yours any time!

Been that route, remember? And you lost. So shut-up you ignor-anus!

the col may be biased, he may be a "bush basher" and he may someday learn how to spell "losing." but facts are facts, and as the baker commission confirmed what more and more americans realize every day, that the col. is right, the policy is a failure. and george bush and his boys are to blame.

attacking the col, myself or anyone else who has spoken out against this war won't make us safer. what might make us safer is changes in policy. how bout instead of bashing good americans who disagree with the policy of this president, ya'll "stay the course" loyalists might wanna start offering some suggestions on what you think we should change, now that , finally, even the president knows that change is necessary and inevitable.

Sean:

the baker commission

The only words that need to be remembered about this commission are "We have no expertise in this area".

Three guesses on who said that.

Let's let those with expertise make the assessments and plans based on them... The Commanders on the Ground!

Only fools like ColGene think you fight a war from Washington.

11 U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq
By KIM GAMEL (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
December 07, 2006 7:38 AM EST
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The toll in one of the U.S. military's deadliest days in Iraq rose to 11 when the military said Thursday that another soldier had died in fighting west of Baghdad.

At least seven Iraqis - six policemen and a 7-year-old girl - were killed in a series of bombings and shootings.

The U.S. soldier was shot Wednesday while manning a machine gun nest on the roof of an outpost in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, the capital of the volatile Anbar province, according to an Associated Press reporter on the scene.

The death came on the same day that 10 other U.S. troops were killed in four separate incidents in Iraq, and a blue-ribbon panel in Washington recommended gradually shifting U.S. forces from a combat to a training role.

The military released details about five of the other troops killed on Wednesday, saying they were Task Force Lightning soldiers who were struck by a roadside bomb while conducting combat operations in the vicinity of the northern city of Kirkuk. The soldiers were assigned to 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.

The U.S. military gave no further details about identities or the other deaths, pending notification of relatives.

The attacks followed a particularly bloody weekend and raised to at least 31 the number of U.S. troops who have died in the first week of this month. At least 69 troops were killed in November and 105 soldiers were killed in October - the highest monthly toll since January 2005.

"Our thoughts are with all 11 families who lost family members yesterday. Taking care of them right now is the military's highest priority," U.S. spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said. The last time 11 Americans were killed in one day was Oct. 17.

At least 2,919 service members have been killed since the war started in 2003, according to an AP count.

At least 75 people were killed or found dead across Iraq on Wednesday, including 48 whose bullet-riddled bodies were found in different parts of the capital


Parated2K

Baker told GWB you could not secure Iraq on the cheep. He warned Bush of exactly what has happened in Iraq. Do not tell me that Bush was not warned what was likely to happen if we invaded Iraq. Baker also told Bush that the sectarian violence was a very real problem and would create a civil war. Powell warned Bush about both going into Iraq and in not sending force levels that would be required to stabilize the country.

Richard Armitage warned Bush of the most likely consequence of invading Iraq. His predictions have come true.

The Army Chief of Staff told Bush it would take 500,000 troops to secure Iraq after Saddam fell and the Op Plan to invade Iraq called for 500,000 troops. Franks told Bush it would take 500,000 troops and later under extreme pressure said 350,000 was the absolute minimum. Bush sent 130,000.

The situation in Iraq is 100% the fault of Bush- that is a fact that no one can deny!

Idiot liar... You have gone on and on about how EXPENSIVE this war has been, now you sit there with your head up your butt complaining that it is being fought, "on the cheap?"

More proof that lies and stupidity are all you got.

Parated2K

From the VERY outset I said we did not send nearly the troop levels needed to prevent what we see today. Had Bush followed the military planning and sent 500,000 troops the most likely outcome is that we would have been able to turn a STABLE situation over to the NEW Iraqi Government and been out of Iraq a long time ago. That would have SAVED LIVES, INJURIES and MONEY. You are the idiot-- READ what the commission said. Read what Baker, Powell et al told Bush. Bush did not listed to ANY of their advice and he is responsible for the mess, deaths, injuries and the excessive cost of this war. We were told BEFORE we invaded that the cost would most likely be 40-60 Billion WHAT A LIE!

Here some excerpts from my book about Iraq:


When the former Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki provided his assessment that it would take several hundred thousand boots on the ground to secure the peace in Iraq, the President and Secretary of Defense told us he was wrong. It was the President and Secretary of Defense that did not understand the nature of the problem. The lack of manpower has caused frustration from the Iraqis and has produced additional casualties to both the United States and its coalition partners. Because of the Bush policy toward the United Nations and countries that did not agree with our going to war, we were unable to obtain assistance from other nations to secure Iraq.


(17)




In December 2003, Jeffery Record a visiting professor at the Army War College published a highly critical paper concerning the lack of understanding by the Bush administration of the threat facing America. Professor Record made some very perceptive points in his article. First, President Bush has incorrectly lumped al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq into a “single undifferentiated terrorist threat.” According to Professor Record, this was a “strategic error of the first order because it ignored critical differences between the two in character, threat level and susceptibility to U.S. deterrence and military action.” He went on to say, “The result has been an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al-Qaeda. The war against Iraq was not integral to the GWOT (global war on terrorism) but rather a detour from it.”

(20)


On February 10, 2006 the Washington Post carried the story of Paul R. Pillar, the retired CIA’s top counterterrorism analyst from 2000 to 2005 who coordinated the intelligence on Iraq from 15 agencies. Pillar said Bush misused the intelligence and “cherry-picked” the intelligence to justify his decision to invade Iraq. The Washington Post story said Pillar wrote in an upcoming article for the Journal of Foreign Affairs that “It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, which intelligence
was misused publicly to justify decisions already made…” These comments by Mr. Pillar are some of the most severe indictments of the way President Bush misused our intelligence to justify his invasion of Iraq in early 2003. Mr. Pillar said, “Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war”.

(24)




The most dangerous reality is that millions of Muslims believe the policies of the United States and other Western countries threaten their belief, their territory and their God. Michael Scheuer, in his book Imperial Hubris states that America is faced with what he calls a defensive jihad, which is triggered by our policy in the Middle East. He points out that for Muslims do not separate politics and religion from their lives. They are all intertwined. For a Muslim to not join to protect Islam means that they are disobeying God's law. According to Mr. Scheuer the relationship of the Muslims to their religious beliefs is something that the Western world does not fully comprehend. Millions of Muslims look at Osama bin Laden as the protector of the Muslim faith, their way of life, their God and is not a terrorist. In fact the way Mr. Scheuer describes the conflict is more than just terrorism, it is an international insurrection by Muslims against what they believe is an attack on them, their religion and their way of life. The former CIA agent claims that we are faced with international insurrection by millions and millions of Muslims and that they will not end their resistance until the United States and other Western countries stop interfering with what they believe and remove themselves and their influence from all Muslim countries.

(25)

Only fools like ColGene think you fight a war from Washington.

i don't think the col or anyone who was opposed to us invading iraq want to fight the war from washington. we never wanted to fight in iraq at all. and still don't.

Sean

Right ON!!!

This war was NOT justified because we were NOT in any danger from Saddam and Iraq in 2002. GWB ignored ALL the warnings about the likely outcome of America invading Iraq and those warnings have come TRUE! Now the options to fix what Bush broke are NOT GOOD. We have not achieved the objective of establishing a Stable democracy and have managed to create millions of additional Moslems that hate us enough to attack us again.

Bush came to office with NO Foreign policy or Military experience and the results SHOW in all aspects of both the Moslem World and in most another areas like the Americas, North Korea, and Cuba etc. BUSH IS A LOOSER!

Bush came to office with NO Foreign policy or Military experience

actually, i don't judge him on that. History has proven that direct experience and success don't always go hand in hand. so i can't make that kind of blanket judgement. fact is, that everyone around him, from dick cheney, to wolfowitz to rumsfeld et al...had a wealth of experience. and see where it got us?

my problem with bush and his foreign policy is his "faith based " decision making process. the whole "stick to your guns" and "say it over and over and it will become true, facts be damned" methodology is reckless and dangerous.

i believe these men would have invaded iraq even if 9/11 never happened. there is clear evidence that shows they were working on it from day 1 in their tenure and 9/11 gave them the excuse they had been waiting for since the early 90's when his father wisely avoided the "hornet's nest."