THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

President Bush Welcomes President Nguyen Minh Triet of Vietnam to the White House

10:50 A.M. EDT

PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. President, thank you for coming. Laura and I remember very fondly our trip to your beautiful country. And I remember so very well the warm reception that we received from your government and the people of Vietnam.

I explained to the President we want to have good relations with Vietnam. And we've got good economic relations. We signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement. And I was impressed by the growing Vietnamese economy.

I also made it very clear that in order for relations to grow deeper that it's important for our friends to have a strong commitment to human rights and freedom and democracy. I explained my strong belief that societies are enriched when people are allowed to express themselves freely or worship freely.

I thanked the President for his continued cooperation on the issue of POWs and MIAs. I saw firsthand that cooperation when I was in Vietnam. We are now extending our search to missing remains in some of the coastal regions of Vietnam.

And I also told the President that Congress recently passed appropriations measures to help with dioxin, or Agent Orange. It has helped the people of his country. And, as well, we're firmly committed to helping Vietnam in the battle against HIV/AIDS.

And so, we welcome you, Mr. President. And thank you for the frank and candid discussion.

President Bush Exchanges Toasts at State Banquet in Vietnam
International Convention Center

Hanoi, Vietnam

PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. President, and Madam Chi, the reason I'm smiling is because I'm really happy to be here. And so is Laura. And we thank you for your warm hospitality. First, I want to congratulate you for your success on hosting APEC. I'm confident our fellow leaders will have the same sense of gratitude and respect that we feel from the Vietnamese people.


Vietnam is a remarkable country. For decades you had been torn apart by war. Today the Vietnamese people are at peace and seeing the benefits of reform. The Vietnamese own their own businesses, and today the Vietnamese economy is the fastest growing in Southeast Asia. Vietnamese students have great opportunities here at home and abroad. The Vietnamese people are traveling around the world and sharing this ancient culture with peoples of the world. And the United States, as well as other APEC partners, look forward to strengthening our ties.

The American people welcome the progress of Vietnam. And we want to continue to work together to better our relations. We will work with you to help combat avian flu and HIV/AIDS. We have signed agreements to protect religious freedom. We strongly support Vietnam in the World Trade Organization.

Vietnam is a country that's taking its rightful place as a strong and vibrant nation. Mr. President, your leadership is helping your country succeed. I can see it as I drive on the streets, the people of your country have hope. And I hope they know as a result of my visit they have the friendship of the American people.

And so, Mr. President, I would like to propose a toast to you and Madam Chi and to the fine people of Vietnam. (Applause.)

(A toast is offered.)

Quote:

President George W. Bush exchanges toasts with Viet President Nguyen Minh Triet during a State Banquet Friday, Nov. 17, 2006, at the International Convention Center in Hanoi. President Bush told his host, "Vietnam is a country that's taking its rightful place as a strong and vibrant nation," adding he hoped its people know they have the friendship of the American people. White House photo by Paul Morse

END

Cycloptichorn working away...

McG has the habit of making statements he can't back up when asked, but will flame the topic by ad hominems and insulting cartoons as if she's offered anything intellgent to the discussion. Typical throughout most of the topics they post in.

i'd rather mcg would offer a toast , the way president bush did !
hbg (here's mud in your eye :wink: )

Found on You Tube:

Cheney's 1994 interview

In a 1994 television interview Mr Cheney, who was defence secretary in the 1990-91 Gulf War, said that it had been right not to seize Baghdad after driving Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait.

US vice-president Dick Cheney: "There would have been a US occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

"Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off."

Congress's Joint Resolution September 14, 2001

SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
...
(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Congress's Joint Resolution Oct. 16, 2002
Public Law 107-243 107th Congress Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 114) To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.
...
[10th]Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

[11th]Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
...

Congress had it wrong, because the administration told lies. When has any administration lied to congress to start a war before Bush? Members of congress must trust their president and his administration on such matters. Senator Feinstein said that after they found out the truth; she said most of the democrats who voted would not have done so if told the "truth." She said they were "lied to." Unfortunately, the article that had her statements were buried in the inside pages of our local newspaper.

You may continue to try to sell the idea that congress approved the war, but you still don't know how to read by your translation. Go back and memorize what the legislation says.

American Soldier, by General Tommy Franks, 7/1/2004
"10" Regan Books, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

page 483:
"The air picture changed once more. Now the icons were streaming toward two ridges an a steep valley in far northeastern Iraq, right on the border with Iran. These were the camps of the Ansar al-Isla terrorists, where al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had trained disciples in the use of chemical and biological weapons. But this strike was more than just another [Tomahawk Land Attack Missile] bashing. Soon Special Forces and [Special Mission Unit] operators, leading Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, would be storming the camps, collecting evidence, taking prisoners, and killing all those who resisted."

page 519:
"[The Marines] also encountered several hundred foreign fighters from Egypt, the Sudan, Syria, and Lybia who were being trained by the regime in a camp south of Baghdad. Those foreign volunteers fought with suicidal ferocity, but they did not fight well. The Marines killed them all. "

Congressional Intelligence Report 09/08/2006
REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
Conclusion 6. Postwar information indicates that the Intelligence Community accurately assessed that al-Qa'ida affiliate group Ansar al-Islam operated in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq, an area that Baghdad had not controlled since 1991.

ican, Do you understand anything about chronology? I doubt it, because terrorism increased after Bush started his war and failed to secure the borders.


AUGUST 27, 2004: Bush acknowledged for the first time that he made a "miscalculation of what the conditions would be" in postwar Iraq [Reuters, 8/27/04]

old europe wrote:

ican, how would you define "success in Iraq?"

ican711nm wrote:

(1)The mass murder of Iraqi non-murderers is reduced to less than 1,000 per month;

(2) the Iraq Government continues for one year after that to reduce the mass murder of Iraqi non-murderers; and

(3) al-Qaeda continues for one year after that to be denied sanctuary anywhere in Iraq by the Iraq government.

...
What Cheney said in 1990-91 still holds true when Bush started his illegal war in 2003, and we have seen the consequences of not adhering to his proposition about over-throwing Saddam.

You are the #1 a2k dummy who can't grasp history and extrapolate that to our current events.

Another Test in Iraq: Our Aid to Refugees
By Michael Gerson
Washington Post
Wednesday, August 22, 2007; Page A17

The Bush administration correctly asserts that the entire Middle East, from royal palaces to terrorist camps, is watching the eventual outcome in Iraq to determine the state of American resolve. But the region is also taking a more immediate measure of America's commitment to its friends: our response to the Iraqi refugee crisis. And this, too, is a matter of national credibility and honor.

About 2 million Iraqis have been displaced within Iraq by sectarian violence and contagious fear; another 2 million have fled the country for Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and beyond. According to the United Nations, a steady flow of new refugees continues at about 50,000 each month. For the most part, these Iraqis are not concentrated in refugee camps but dispersed in poor urban areas of cities such as Damascus or Amman, making it difficult for humanitarian agencies to identify and reach them.

The sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis creates tensions -- swamping education and health services, increasing prices and provoking suspicion. According to Kristele Younes of Refugees International, Lebanon has begun deportations. Some refugees in Jordan are in hiding for fear of raids. The eventual danger is clear: As some Palestinians have demonstrated, refugee populations can marinate in their grievances, succumb to radicalism and trigger broader conflict.

Over the past several months, the American response to this crisis has improved from dismal to minimal. The United States is funding its normal 30 percent of U.N. refugee efforts and cooperating more closely with UNICEF and the World Food Program. But these global initiatives amount to tens of millions of dollars of help to millions of refugees ?- completely unequal to the scale of the need. American efforts to help internally displaced Iraqis through the International Organization for Migration were funded at a little more than $1 million last year, which Younes dismisses as "peanuts." And if America and its friends and allies do not provide practical help to refugees, Islamic radicals are adept at filling the gap.

A few members of Congress clearly are pressing this issue as a way to embarrass the president, on the theory that large refugee flows prove the security efforts in Iraq have failed. But the refugee problem actually reinforces a very different argument. As Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institution points out, an all-out Iraqi civil war could dramatically increase the number of Iraqi refugees. Neighbors such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia would find it difficult to hold back the flood. And the fragile sectarian balance of several Middle Eastern countries could be upset, causing serious destabilization. A precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq could make a miserable problem significantly worse.

But the credibility of one of the Bush administration's central arguments -- that America should not abandon Iraqis to chaos and genocide by leaving prematurely -- would be strengthened if America showed its commitment to displaced Iraqis now. Helping Iraqi refugees on a larger scale is not an embarrassing necessity. It is an opportunity to show consistency, humanitarian concern and constructive, long-term engagement in the Middle East. Rather than ceding leadership on this issue to Congress, the administration should develop a comprehensive approach -- increasing its own funding to aid refugees while pressing friends in the Middle East and Europe to do more as well.

To be convincing, this effort will need to start by removing a national embarrassment. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has recommended about 8,000 Iraqis for visas to the United States this year because they helped American forces and now live under threat of murder, kidnapping or persecution. These Iraqis are being admitted in a trickle -- about 200 in the first half of this year -- largely because of terrorism concerns at the Department of Homeland Security. Screening of refugees is an important job -- so important that the appropriate officials should do it in a timely fashion and stop exposing America to contempt. If friends of America continue to be treated this way, we will face the world friendless.

When it comes to refugees, Iraq is not Vietnam. America has not abandoned the Iraqi people; there is no need for the permanent resettlement of hundreds of thousands; and we still hope for many refugees to voluntarily return as security improves. "We are not saying that efforts in Iraq are a failure," explains Younes, "or arguing it will succeed or not, but you can't deny the humanitarian consequences."

Addressing those consequences may make success more likely.

Today, the Bush administration released an update to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled, "Prospects for Iraq's Stability: Some Security Progress but Political Reconciliation Elusive." The NIE ?- which offers the coordinated judgments of the Intelligence Community ?- observed some "measurable but uneven improvements" in Iraq's security situation, but cautioned that there remains a lack of political progress in Iraq and a failure of the escalation to successfully provide sufficient security for Iraqis.

NIE

Below, some important findings:

Decrease in Baghdad violence due to sectarian cleansing:

The polarization of communities is most evident in Baghdad, where the Shia are a clear majority in more than half of all neighborhoods and Sunni areas have become surrounded by predominately Shia districts. Where population displacements have led to significant sectarian separation, conflict levels have diminished to some extent because warring communities find it more difficult to penetrate communal enclaves.

Violence to remain high over next six to 12 months:

[L]evels of insurgent and sectarian violence will remain high [over next six to 12 months] and the Iraqi Government will continue to struggle to achieve national-level political reconciliation and improved governance.

National government to become more "precarious" over next six to 12 months:

The Iraqi Government will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months because of criticism by other members of the major Shia coalition, Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and other Sunni and Kurdish parties. … The strains of the security situation and absence of key leaders have stalled internal political debates, slowed national decisionmaking, and increased Maliki's vulnerability to alternative coalitions

Refugee crisis will continue to spill over during "next six to 12 months":

Population displacement resulting from sectarian violence continues, imposing burdens on provincial governments and some neighboring states and increasing the danger of destabilizing influences spreading across Iraq's borders over the next six to 12 months.

Quote:

Today, the Bush administration released an update to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled, "Prospects for Iraq's Stability: Some Security Progress but Political Reconciliation Elusive." The NIE ?- which offers the coordinated judgments of the Intelligence Community ?- observed some "measurable but uneven improvements" in Iraq's security situation, but cautioned that there remains a lack of political progress in Iraq and a failure of the escalation to successfully provide sufficient security for Iraqis.

NIE

Below, some important findings:

...

source

revel wrote:

Quote:

Today, the Bush administration released an update to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled, "Prospects for Iraq's Stability: Some Security Progress but Political Reconciliation Elusive." The NIE ?- which offers the coordinated judgments of the Intelligence Community ?- observed some "measurable but uneven improvements" in Iraq's security situation, but cautioned that there remains a lack of political progress in Iraq and a failure of the escalation to successfully provide sufficient security for Iraqis.

NIE

Below, some important findings:

...

source

Why
is the analysis of the situation in Iraq, in this first source's section titled, "Below, some important findings,"

source

more negative than
is the analysis of the situation in Iraq, in this second source's section titled, "Key Judgments,"

NIE

ican711nm wrote:

revel wrote:

Quote:

Today, the Bush administration released an update to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled, "Prospects for Iraq's Stability: Some Security Progress but Political Reconciliation Elusive." The NIE ?- which offers the coordinated judgments of the Intelligence Community ?- observed some "measurable but uneven improvements" in Iraq's security situation, but cautioned that there remains a lack of political progress in Iraq and a failure of the escalation to successfully provide sufficient security for Iraqis.

NIE

Below, some important findings:

...

source

Why
is the analysis of the situation in Iraq, in this first source's section titled, "Below, some important findings,"

source

more negative than
is the analysis of the situation in Iraq, in this second source's section titled, "Key Judgments,"

NIE

How hard is this to figure out?

One source had extensive editing by the WH, one didn't. The one edited had to include some good information.

Cycloptichorn