Senators Denounce Bush's War Performance

[Noordam]

AP News

Senators Denounce Bush's War Performance
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 12, 2003


Filed at 1:58 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush has lost control of Iraq policy because of infighting among administration officials, the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday.

The administration also came under criticism from Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry for being unwilling to create a real international coalition and alienating governments everywhere. ``This is haphazard, shotgun, shoot-from-the-hip diplomacy,'' the Massachusetts senator said.

The committee leaders urged Bush to take charge of U.S. postwar policy in Iraq.

``The president has to be the president, over the vice president and over these secretaries,'' the chairman, Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., said on NBC's ``Meet the Press


..more at article.....



I like http://www.hypocrites.com/

[Ivory_Tower]

1. Kerry's wrong

It isn't diplomacy at all.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

14. True, but Kerry certainly stretches the boundaries

of the definition with that characterization, and definitely helps steer one to that very conclusion.

[bahrbearian]

2. Too bad they are so slow to grasp the obvious..

[peterh]

5. And the obvious being…

When you are and always have been a puppet, ones ability to act presidential is in direct relation to the ability of the one controlling the strings….cut the strings and whatta ya have? The fraud exposed. Lugar, knowingly or unknowingly, came tantalizingly close to that revelation.

[thinkingwoman]

10. with Lugar...

it's knowingly. Count on it.

He's been criticizing W for the entire term...especially all the Iraq stuff.

[kodi]

15. lugar is sharp as a tack in foreign policy and is royally pissed at bush

it started when the 2001 tax cut forced a reduction in funding for the nunn/lugar law to finance the dismantling of old soviet nukes and pay for their nuclear scientists, so neither would find their way to terrorist organizations. the budget was cut from $120M to less than $30M and Lugar rightfully went ballistic in the senate about it. ever since then lugar has been hard as nails on bush about foreign policies. he considers bush a dangerous man who is in over his head, and has spoken up repeatedly in the last two years for bush to get his act together.

if cheney goes down, lugar might become vp because the feeling in a lot of the congress is that lugar would promote sanity in the administration

[leesa]

3. They don't seem to understand that the WHOLE premise was wrong

and immoral.

There should have been no coalition because the unprovoked attack against a defenseless country was WRONG!! Wrong!! Wrong!! Wrong ethically, wrong legally, and wrong in the eyes of God!!

What is wrong with Kerry that he can't figure this out?? Too much a player in the big money rape and murder spree?

[wtmusic]

11. Kerry has figured it out

but it's inconsistent with his war vote and presidential aspirations.

Totally agree that the premise was wrong to begin with. It has nothing whatsoever to do with ineptitude after the war was 'over'.

[joanski01]

4. This is one of my favorite

quotes from Joe Biden on Meet the Press today: "The vote was correct, Biden said, because war was necessary to depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. ``I just did not count on the fact that it would be handled with such a degree of incompetence subsequent to the -- quote -- military victory,'' Biden said." Incompetence is right!!!! Looks like the bushies got beat up this morning.

[pasadenaboy]

12. Biden is an ass

the bad hair transplant has effected his brain.

[Eloriel]

13. LIAR

The vote wasn't "correct," nor did we need to depose Saddam, nor was that the reason the was was sold to us.

I'm so sick of these people. Enablers and Liars. And to think I once upon a time -- tho it's been quite a while -- had a great deal of respect for this self-serving, arrogant shithead.

Eloriel

[Snellius]

6. If he's lost Lugar, Bush's gone

This interview was fascinating because, even though Biden did most of the dirty work trashing Bush's incompetence, it was clear that Lugar was nodding his head in agreement as if they had worked out a common message before they sat down.

[joanski01]

7. And I also noted that

Biden said "neither Senator Lugar nor I were in the Rose Garden".

[blm]

9. Biden and Lugar carry alot of weight on military matters.

Bush cannot afford to have them BOTH trashing his competence.

[bread_and_roses]

8. 596,000+posts

on Yahoo off this story.

[LibDemAlways]

16. "The committee leaders urged Bush to take charge....."

Come on now. These guys must surely know that the chimp is incapable of taking charge of a coherent thought - never mind formulating US foreign policy.

A year ago Lugar, Kerry, and Biden voted for this clusterfuck - knowing that the PNACers were calling the shots. Sorry guys, you dance with the devil, you get burned.

[VolcanoJen]

17. Kicking, because this is HUGE.

Especially Lugar's comments, which are extrapolated here, on Josh Marshall's site:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

“The president has to be the president,” Lugar told Tim Russert yesterday on Meet the Press. “That means the president over the vice president and over these secretaries. And Dr. Rice cannot carry that burden alone.”

Lugar is not a Bush loyalist. He was a lukewarm supporter of the war, a voice of the old-line Republican foreign policy establishment. But he’s also no John McCain, nor even a Chuck Hagel. He’s not someone who looks for reasons to criticize the president.


And again, in the Washington Post article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17479-2003Oct12.html