As I said, everything we were told about the Iraq war was not a little wrong it was totally WRONG. We have a President that insists he did the right thing when ALL the results say just the opposite. We are NOT safer.

Holland has done just what you claim can not be done. The levy system in New Orleans is a Corps of Engineers responsibility.

Yeah right they have repaired the dikes how many times? It is true the levy system it the responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers, the money is given from the feds and handled by the local government. Local control of the money and local choices as to what to spend the money on.

Your statement about Afghanistan does not square with the facts on the ground. We diverted our resources to Iraq and now see Afghanistan becoming a problem.

Nut case news strikes again. Try doing research.

have posted stories you ignore. The cost estimates of the war and how Cheney said we would be received. The warnings of the Pope.

I have answered them several times you have not responded to them.

To have an estimate of 50 Billion that has turned into 500 Billion and heading to a Trillion says that the estimate was worthless!!!!!!

How much was spent during the war? Look at those figures not what was spent in the three years after the war ended.

Let’s see. AQ averages 3 to 5 years to plan and execute each attack on the US. It has been 5 years since their last attack on the US. Dozens of attacks have been stopped in that time. This would lead one to assume that they are not as strong as they once were and suggests we are safer than we were before we started hunting them down. The attacks on 9/11 took 5 years from the idea to the act. Our government has successfully stopped all attacks planned as follow up attacks of 9/11 and the others that were planned for at least the year after that. The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has drawn the ones that were going to do damage in America. Osama bin Laden has already said that the most important battle is the one in Iraq. I take that to mean that he can’t reach Americans anywhere else. Logically it is better to have the terrorist fighting our military instead of our civilians. So yes, I conclude that we are safer than before. AQ only attacked one military target on 9/11 the rest were civilian. Now they are only attacking our military which is paid to be attacked.

We have enabled Foreign Terrorists to operate in Western Iraq where they did not operate before our invasion. The majority of the Iraqi people want us to leave. We have added millions of new enemies. There is no prospect to secure a stable Iraq that will improve our security. Most other countries do not support our Iraq War. Bush lives in a world he make up in his mind that has NOTHING to do with reality. He NEVER admits what he was wrong and refuses to alter his course when his plan fails. He is a stubborn arrogant and ill informed man that has not succeeded with almost anything in his life. In the past when he failed daddy and daddy’s friends bailed George out. This time our country will suffer from what he has done and it will take future Presidents and members of Congress to fix what GWB has done! The American People will be stuck with the bill and the disaster that the 43 rd president has left as his legacy!

This is all crap that has been debunked over and over again. The Kurds that live in the north greeted us as liberators. They paid for and produced commercials thanking us for what we have done but I guess you don't watch TV or listen to the radio, or read news papers. The one third that is in turmoil is the area where Saddam had the most supporters as they were a minority in power under Saddam, and like the Democrats they are doing everything they can to get that power back.

A bar chart in the Pentagon's report to Congress gave no exact numbers but indicated the weekly average had approached 1,000 in the latest period, compared to about 800 per week from the May-to-August period. Statistics provided separately by the Pentagon said weekly attacks had averaged 959 in the latest period.

I love this one. Yes, attacks are up. LOL now do the math. Are we sending home 1000 dead Americans a week to go along with the 1000 attacks per week? No? But if attacks are up and our deaths are down would that not suggest that we are winning? If not then the 800 attacks would mean they were gaining ground of some kind. If they are attacking coalition forces on average 1000 times per week and not moving the ball forward it would have to mean that their attacks are not doing anything positive for their cause. Looking at it through your eyes you see the number of 1000 attacks and scream we are losing. Try looking at the results of these 1000 attacks. Most of them are against Iraqis looking for work in government, or going to work for the government. When they killed fifty men going to the police academy and two thousand get in line to take their place that means people want to serve their new democracy. So the terror attack did not meet the goal of causing so much fear as to stop people from becoming police officers. The military is being built up, but if we are so hated why are there long lines of people wanting to join the military? Ten thousand new businesses have started up you don’t start a business if you have no hope for success. As a business owner I can tell you that if you think the economy is going down you don’t open your business unless it is designed to survive in that environment. Could it be that they don’t fear the terrorist and believe the government system they put in place will work? Or is everyone over there just butt assed stupid?

Paladin 77

You and Bush are alike in one way you BOTH refuse to accept reality. For anyone to try and make a case that we are winning or that what we were told about this war was true is just absurd. What we were told was nothing but LIES and totally ignores the reality on the ground. Bush said that we need to judge by results. I agree the results are that we attacked a country that posed NO DANGER to the United States. We destabilized the country and enabled a government to be formed like Iran who we have not been able to deal with since the Carter Admin. We have allowed al Qaeda to begin operating in Western Iraq. We have added to our enemies through the Moslem world which make preventing another 9/11 harder. We diverted our attention from where 9/11 was planned and now that situation is getting worse. We are destroying our ground military by over deployment. We have spent 10 times more then we were told the Iraq War would cost with no end in sight. We have literally destroyed the majority of the equipment in the Army, Marines, Reserve and National Guard. That is the reality and as Bush tells us "The RESULTS". The RESULTS ARE ALL BAD!

Paladin 77

We are winning:

________________________________________
December 19, 2006
Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says
By DAVID S. CLOUD and MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 — A Pentagon assessment of security conditions in Iraq concluded Monday that attacks against American and Iraqi targets had surged this summer and autumn to their highest level, and called violence by Shiite militants the most significant threat in Baghdad.
The report, which covers the period from early August to early November, found an average of almost 960 attacks against Americans and Iraqis every week, the highest level recorded since the Pentagon began issuing the quarterly reports in 2005, with the biggest surge in attacks against American-led forces. That was an increase of 22 percent from the level for early May to early August, the report said.
While most attacks were directed at American forces, most deaths and injuries were suffered by the Iraqi military and civilians.
The report is the most comprehensive public assessment of the American-led operation to secure Baghdad, which began in early August. About 17,000 American combat troops are currently involved in the beefed-up security operation.
According to the Pentagon assessment, the operation initially had some success in reducing killings as militants concentrated on eluding capture and hiding their weapons. But sectarian death squads soon adapted, resuming their killings in regions of the capital that were not initially targets of the overstretched American and Iraqi troops.
Shiite militias, the Pentagon report said, also received help from allies among the Iraqi police. “Shia death squads leveraged support from some elements of the Iraqi Police Service and the National Police who facilitated freedom of movement and provided advance warning of upcoming operations,” the report said.
“This is a major reason for the increased levels of murders and executions.”
The findings were issued on the day Robert M. Gates was sworn in as defense secretary, replacing Donald H. Rumsfeld.





________________________________________
December 19, 2006
Iraq Insurgents Starve Capital of Electricity
By JAMES GLANZ
BAGHDAD, Dec. 18 — Over the past six months, Baghdad has been all but isolated electrically, Iraqi officials say, as insurgents have effectively won their battle to bring down critical high-voltage lines and cut off the capital from the major power plants to the north, south and west.
The battle has been waged in the remotest parts of the open desert, where the great towers that support thousands of miles of exposed lines are frequently felled with explosive charges in increasingly determined and sophisticated attacks, generally at night. Crews that arrive to repair the damage are often attacked and sometimes killed, ensuring that the government falls further and further behind as it attempts to repair the lines.
And in a measure of the deep disunity and dysfunction of this nation, when the repair crews and security forces are slow to respond, skilled looters often arrive with heavy trucks that pull down more of the towers to steal as much of the valuable aluminum conducting material in the lines as possible. The aluminum is melted into ingots and sold.
What amounts to an electrical siege of Baghdad is reflected in constant power failures and disastrously poor service in the capital, with severe consequences for security, governance, health care and the mood of an already weary and angry populace.
“Now Baghdad is almost isolated,” Karim Wahid, the Iraqi electricity minister, said in an interview last week. “We almost don’t have any power coming from outside.”
That leaves Baghdad increasingly dependent on a few aging power plants within or near the city’s borders.

Gene, are you ever going to rebut what I wrote or is your rebuttal your repeating what I have refuted over and over again?

For anyone to try and make a case that we are winning or that what we were told about this war was true is just absurd.

Unless you read the facts and ignore the BS, you seem to read the BS and ignore the facts. Based on this I can’t see you changing your mind or even trying to be honest. Your conclusion is we are losing the war because of the number of attacks each week. Your conclusion is we were lied to because the media hype before the war. The media said it would be a cake walk not the administration. I have already outlined what the President said before the war and you chose to ignore it. Show me some quotes from the President that were lies.

The report is the most comprehensive public assessment of the American-led operation to secure Baghdad, which began in early August. About 17,000 American combat troops are currently involved in the beefed-up security operation. According to the Pentagon assessment, the operation initially had some success in reducing killings as militants concentrated on eluding capture and hiding their weapons. But sectarian death squads soon adapted, resuming their killings in regions of the capital that were not initially targets of the overstretched American and Iraqi troops.

This is called a gorilla war. This is how you fight a gorilla war. We see what they do and adapt, they see what we do and adapt. It is tit for tat until one side gives up or can no longer adapt. If you notice the operation is 5 months old. It took that long for the enemy to adapt to our tactics. This adaptation has been going on since the terrorist began attacking us. When the new adaptation worked you did not see the administration tout that we won because it is just a minor battle in a war that is going on and it is expected that the enemy will adapt again. You don't seem to know much about warfare. We can not destroy the enemy until we fix the enemy. The only way to do that is to counter punch. They strike we see what they did and strike back. Gorilla wars are hit and run, the reason for this is to minimize losses and maximize deaths on the other side.
The troops seem happy and content with the way they are fighting or we would be reading many stories of how we are doing it wrong. Hearing from people not in the battle cry that we are overstretched is not that big a deal. Normally in wars we have fought, the troops were in the war till it ended. We are rotating our people in and out of the war zone, this is something new as a concept. The troops understand this, why is it you don’t? The problem is the people reporting the news don’t have a clue on how to fight this war and must rely on the past as an example. In the Gulf war they used Vietnam as a yardstick and predicted 100k dead the first day. In the war in Afghanistan they predicted a long drawn out battle with 10k dead. I don’t see you screaming that the media lied. In the war with Iraq the media cheerlead saying there would be about 1000 deaths, until the military stopped the push and they started saying they were stretched too far and the war was going badly. In reality the war plan was the same as Hitler’s blitzkrieg of France. Don’t stop to fight just drive forward. In a blitzkrieg the maximum distance you can drive forward is 250 to 300 miles before you have to stop and move your support forward. That pause was what was mistaken as a screw-up in planning. The troops moved forward and won. And the media had to say oops maybe they do know what they are doing. Saddam’s people reacted to this by folding like a house of cards for the most part, but Saddam had a back up plan of a cadre of troops in civilian gear to attack. That lasted two months and ended. This gave the terrorist enough time to move in and pick up where they left off. This is being done with the support of Iran. What you have seen so far is one war in Iraq, one mop up operation in Iraq, terrorist infiltration by AQ, and infiltration from the nation state of Iran. It looks like it is all one thing but it is not.

The new Sec Def, Powell, The Baker Commission and 70% of the American People and most of the senior military say we are NOT winning. The vast majority believe it is likely we will loose this war by the Bush definition of win and loose.

To end up with a stable democracy that is friendly toward the U.S. and in which no foreign Terrorist organization are allowed to operate is as likely as me winning the Power Ball.

Bush at odds with military experts:

White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops

By Robin Wright and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 19, 2006; A01

The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.

Sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops for a mission of possibly six to eight months is one of the central proposals on the table of the White House policy review to reverse the steady deterioration in Iraq. The option is being discussed as an element in a range of bigger packages, the officials said.

But the Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House review is not public.

The chiefs have taken a firm stand, the sources say, because they believe the strategy review will be the most important decision on Iraq to be made since the March 2003 invasion.

At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said.

The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.

so by posting this you are saying that the President wants to add more troops and the Generals don't want to add more troops. Is this the opposite of what you have been saying for months?

The new Sec Def, Powell, The Baker Commission and 70% of the American People and most of the senior military say we are NOT winning. The vast majority believe it is likely we will loose this war by the Bush definition of win and loose.

This is PURE BS! There ya go again misquoting the Sec Def. His "exact" quote was "We're not winning but we're not losing either! By God if you're going to quote someone at least do so correctly!
From MSNBC:

"Our military wins the battles that we fight," Gates said. "Where we're having our challenges, frankly, are in the areas of stabilization and political developments and so on." He said other federal agencies should do more in Iraq.

He said he agrees with President Bush’s goal for Iraq: a country that can defend, sustain and govern itself. Gates said the president believes “there needs to be a change in our approach in Iraq, that what we are doing now is not working satisfactorily.”

The chiefs have taken a firm stand, the sources say, because they believe the strategy review will be the most important decision on Iraq to be made since the March 2003 invasion. At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said. The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.

Even "more" BS:

Gates noted there are 150,000 troops engaged in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan today. But the Army has 500,000 active-duty soldiers and another 500,000 reserve-component forces. He said he would like to see how the rest of the rest of the Army -- those not engaged in Iraq or Afghanistan -- is being used to ensure that all forces are used in the best way. “If the answer is those troops are deployed in the way we want them deployed, then I am very open to the idea of increasing the end-strength,” he said.

Now that I have refuted your statement "with" proof are you now willing to retract your statement? And btw....Powell means absolutely nothing! He's not even part of the government.

I got bored of trying to prove anything to Col. He claims that we refuse to see reality when it is him who is blind to it cause he gets most of his info from the Media, which by the way is driven by what makes people read or watch them (fantasy stories made up or twisted by them), which means more money for them. Col is not interested in seeking the truth, he is only interested in using any piece of info, regardless of where it comes from, that makes Bush look bad. He is obsessed with Bush. Not even the Media focuses on Bush as much as Col does.

Col is a waste of time, online space and air. He ignores facts, and poses his opinions as facts. Somehow he believes that everyone should believe what he believes. What a waste.

Actually you discribe a typical liberal   

Paladin 77

What I have said is that we needed many more troops at the outset to prevent the various groups from organizing and arming themselves. The problem today is that 30, 000 more U. S. Troops can not deal with the level of violence that has been allowed to develop. We can not prevent foreign arms, money and people from entering Iraq. The time for MORE troops was from the outset as the military plan called for and Bush was told. The problem today could be resolved with MASSIVE numbers of troops that we simply DO NOT HAVE available.

You all want to blame the media. The media simply report what people and agencies are saying. They report what is taking place on the ground? When those reports do not reflect well on Bush you do not go after the SOURCE of the problem but try and deflect the results by attacking the News Media or the person making the statement.

If we are NOT winning in Iraq then we are not achieving the objective. After more then 4 years of NOT WINNING and FAILING to achieve the objective we are loosing! It would be best to achieve political stability in Iraq and end up with a country that is not opposed to the U.S. and which will not allow organizations like al Qaeda from operating in Iraq. That is NOT where we are heading. The government Bush helped establish in like the government in Iran. How in the Hell does that make us safer. Al Qaeda operates in the western section of Iraq even with 140,000 U.S. Troops and over 300,000 Iraqi military. What makes anyone believe they will go away in the future when we finally leave Iraq? What makes anyone believe the hate between the factions in Iraq that has existed for 1,000 years will end soon? YES it would be good to achieve what Bush has defined as a VICTORY in Iraq. THAT WILL NOT be the result of our invasion!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is why Bush 41 did not invade Iraq even with an army of 500,000 in the first Gulf War. That is what Baker, Armitage, Powell warned Bush about. Bush did not listen on the front end about going into Iraq. Then he made the very same error when his military told him to CONTROL Iraq it would take 500,000 troops. Bush did not have the knowledge or experience and refused to listen to those that DID have the knowledge and experience. That is what has brought us to the situation we face today in Iraq and in the greater Moslem world. We have NO GOOD CHOICES because of the decisions Bush made that IGNORED the advice of those that were a lot smarter and more knowledgeable then he was about Iraq and the Moslem World!

Iraq Troop Buildup Idea Worries Generals
December 20, 2006 2:53 AM EST

WASHINGTON - A White House laboring to find a new approach in Iraq said Tuesday it is considering sending more U.S. troops, an option that worries top generals because of its questionable payoff and potential backlash. President Bush said he is ready to boost the overall size of an American military overstretched by its efforts against worldwide terrorism.

The military's caution on shipping thousands of additional troops temporarily to Iraq is based on a fear that the move could be ineffective without bold new political and economic steps.

Commanders also worry that the already stretched Army and Marine Corps would be even thinner once the short-term surge ended. Bush's newly expressed interest in making the military larger would have little impact on that worry because it will take much longer to add substantially to the size of the military.

Generals also question whether sending more troops to Iraq would feed a perception that the strife in Iraq is mainly a military problem; in their view it is largely political, fed by economic distress.

You all want to blame the media. The media simply report what people and agencies are saying.

No col, the media misrepresents what people of the administration say, and take them out of context quite often, just as you do and have been called out on in the past.

I notice you can't refute what people here are telling you, you just keep posting MSM headlines just to ignore being caught wrong.