It's time to pull out of Iraq, says Powell

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It's time to pull out of Iraq, says Powell

Karen DeYoung in Washington
December 19, 2006

THE former US secretary of state Colin Powell says America is losing a "civil war" in Iraq and does not believe an increase in the number of US troops there will change the situation.

Instead, he has called for a new strategy that would relinquish responsibility for Iraqi security to the Iraqi Government sooner rather than later, with a US troop withdrawal to begin by the middle of next year.

Mr Powell's comments on Sunday broke his long public silence on Iraq and placed him at odds with the Bush Administration. He spoke a day after a US Marine died from wounds in Iraq's western Anbar province, raising the number of Americans killed this month to 59 and to at least 2946 since the invasion.

The US President, George Bush, is considering options for a new military strategy - among them a "surge" of 15,000 to 30,000 troops added to the current 140,000 in Iraq, to secure Baghdad and to accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, as the Republican senator John McCain and others have proposed; or a redirection of the US military away from the insurgency to focus on hunting al-Qaeda terrorists, as the nation's military leaders proposed last week in a meeting with the President.

The situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating, and we're not winning, we are losing. We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around," Mr Powell said.

A car bomb yesterday exploded at the entrance to a vegetable market in southern Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 19, police said. The blast took place in the mostly Sunni Saidiya district, police said.

The Washington Times, citing a security report commissioned by the Saudi Government, reported yesterday that Iran had created a Shiite "state within a state" in Iraq, providing both logistical support for armed groups and funds for social programs.

The 40-page security report says Iranian military forces are providing Shiite militias with weapons and training and that Tehran is actively supporting pro-Iranian Iraqi politicians.

"Where the Americans have failed, the Iranians have stepped in," the newspaper said.

The Iraqi Red Crescent said yesterday it had halted its operations in Baghdad after the mass kidnapping of more than two dozen staff at its biggest office.

"Only in Baghdad have we stopped, to make more pressure to free those who have been kidnapped," the aid organisation's secretary-general, Mazen Abdallah, said. "We are the only organisation working in all Iraq. We don't want to stop." Yesterday 17 of the hostages were released.

smh.com

Better late then never, although Mr Powell had lost all credibility you know when ?.

http://www.sierrafoot.org/soapbox/powells_un_speech.jpg

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What is so interesting about the "new option" Bush is considering is the increase of the foot soldiers of 15,000 to 30,000 for some limited time frame which he can't commit, because we don't have that many to transfer to Iraq indefinitely.

What makes this impossible for Bush is simply based on all the rhetoric about providing more troops if the generals asked for them.

As general Powell has stated, there are no more troops to be had for some unknown goal. Also, the generals probably knows how to count, and knew asking for more troops would be in vain.

Keeping our soldiers in harms way for longer than 12 to 18 months will be a disaster for those already committed.

His "stay the course" was defeated long ago, and he continues to persist we will win in Iraq - with no soldiers.

For those that have loved ones in the US military, say your goodbyes now. We must live two more years with this psychopath.

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"WASHINGTON -- A majority of Americans favor setting a fixed timetable for bringing troops home from Iraq and just 12 percent would support a plan to increase troop strength, an option under serious consideration by the military, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-poll12dec12,0,6072121.story?coll=la-home-headlines

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Powell could've probably been elected to the presidency, he chose not to run, he gave up his chance to be the C-n-C, he now has no business telling this president how to run things.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

What is so interesting about the "new option" Bush is considering is the increase of the foot soldiers of 15,000 to 30,000 for some limited time frame which he can't commit, because we don't have that many to transfer to Iraq indefinitely.

What makes this impossible for Bush is simply based on all the rhetoric about providing more troops if the generals asked for them.

As general Powell has stated, there are no more troops to be had for some unknown goal. Also, the generals probably knows how to count, and knew asking for more troops would be in vain.

Keeping our soldiers in harms way for longer than 12 to 18 months will be a disaster for those already committed.

His "stay the course" was defeated long ago, and he continues to persist we will win in Iraq - with no soldiers.

For those that have loved ones in the US military, say your goodbyes now. We must live two more years with this psychopath.

McCain wants 15,000 to 30,000, the president has talked about 50,000. McCain doesn't call the shots.

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C in C meaning, I gather, Chickenhawk in Cashmere.

Nice to see Powell begin to redeem himself.

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blatham wrote:

C in C meaning, I gather, Chickenhawk in Cashmere.

Nice to see Powell begin to redeem himself.

In Clintons case, that would be coreect.

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Clinton settled a war in the Balkans with no Americans losing their lives. The same place WWI and WWII started.

Bush has a war going on for years with no end in sight, and the only thing he can come up with is to send more soldiers. Almost 3,000 Americans lost their lives.

Bush is the chickenhawk. Clinton is the man of peace.

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Now the dangnab Joint Chiefs are into the whole defeatist, we-hate-America, traitorous, leaking-to-the-press, anti-Bush thing. Bastards! Where the hell do they get off trying to tell the C in C what he ought to do?

Quote:

White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/18/AR2006121801477.html

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kelticwizard wrote:

Clinton settled a war in the Balkans with no Americans losing their lives. The same place WWI and WWII started.

Bush has a war going on for years with no end in sight, and the only thing he can come up with is to send more soldiers. Almost 3,000 Americans lost their lives.

Bush is the chickenhawk. Clinton is the man of peace.

A war that was absolutely none of our business, & Clinton slaughtered thousands of innocents in sending our fighters in. That is where WWI & WWII started & those people saved over 500 of our troops during WWII. We thank them by killing them.
Clinton took the easy way out, as usual, to flex his flabby muscle while he allowed OBL & Saddam to keep festering & we paid by losing 3,000 innocent lives.

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Well, for now there is a major conundrum that will not soon open any avenues for meeting US goals and objectives.

Latest reports reveal that Al Sadr's militia is causing more trouble than Al Qaeda. Given that Al Sadr's power is derived from his political alliance with PM Maliki......poses a more than huge problem for the Iraqi government to overcome....there is nothing the US can do in regards to that.

We don't need to send more troops to fight a faction that Maliki is in bed with.

I don't see any 'victory' options for how it's been (loosely)defined so far...at least not now. So I'm with Powell.

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Brand X, And that includes the Joint Chiefs of Staff; they don't see any advantage in sending more troops. It only exposes more to the killings field of Iraq.

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Brand X wrote:

Well, for now there is a major conundrum that will not soon open any avenues for meeting US goals and objectives.

Latest reports reveal that Al Sadr's militia is causing more trouble than Al Qaeda. Given that Al Sadr's power is derived from his political alliance with PM Maliki......poses a more than huge problem for the Iraqi government to overcome....there is nothing the US can do in regards to that.

We don't need to send more troops to fight a faction that Maliki is in bed with.

I don't see any 'victory' options for how it's been (loosely)defined so far...at least not now. So I'm with Powell.

You've really gotten to the heart of the matter; we don't know exactly who to fight or exactly what the objective is...

Cycloptichorn

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Brand X wrote:

Well, for now there is a major conundrum that will not soon open any avenues for meeting US goals and objectives.

Latest reports reveal that Al Sadr's militia is causing more trouble than Al Qaeda. Given that Al Sadr's power is derived from his political alliance with PM Maliki......poses a more than huge problem for the Iraqi government to overcome....there is nothing the US can do in regards to that.

We don't need to send more troops to fight a faction that Maliki is in bed with.

I don't see any 'victory' options for how it's been (loosely)defined so far...at least not now. So I'm with Powell.

Now outside of the speech/opinion boundaries that his prior position demanded (true too for his associates like Wilkerson, of course). That proves a great benefit for honest discourse on these matters because of the expertise these fellows bring to the problem.

Nice to see us in agreement, brand.

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Powell Doctrine
calls for the use of threatened & use of An overwhelming force

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There was a slaughter going on already.

Even worse, Russia and Germany were allied with warring factions.

World War I started when Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Ferdinand, setting off a war between the big powers which were allied with various Balkan factions.

The same thing was happening in front of our eyes.

Clinton stepped in, brokered a deal, and got the UN to enforce it with peacekeepers, some of whom were American troops. Not a single American soldier was killed. Yet Clinton was booed by conservatives who wanted to know how he could send American boys into a war zone.

Bush gets 3,000 American troops killed in a situation that is getting worse by the day. Yet all you conservatives can do is yell "More! More!"

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LoneStarMadam wrote:

Powell Doctrine
calls for the use of threatened & use of An overwhelming force

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It is my opinion that bush has gone mad and becomes more so by the day.

I believe the same thing about those who doggedly support him and share his views.

I am afraid something very bad is going to happen.

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BPB, Something bad has already happened - ever since Bush decided to take action on his preemptive attack of Iraq. Everything else has gone downhill ever since - or has nobody else not seen the mismanagement and incompetence of this administration yet?

How many more of our men and women is he willing to sacrifice for a cause that's been lost long ago?

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I think something much more cataclysmic is going to happen....

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It's time to pull out of Iraq, says Powell

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