Rice takes responsibility for Iraq occupation woes

[onehandle]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – Condoleezza Rice is taking responsibility for the troubled U.S. occupation in Iraq right after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

Rice was President George W. Bush's national security adviser when the war began in 2003. She says it wasn't former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's fault that things went badly when the U.S. began to occupy Iraq after driving out Saddam.

She says military operations went very well in removing Saddam from power. But she says the U.S. did not have what she calls the right structure in place to handle the occupation.

Rice says the Bush administration put a single department — the Pentagon — in charge of running Iraq. Rice — who's now secretary of state — says that wasn't the right approach.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081207/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rice

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A new twist to the "Save the Legacy Tour" by madame oil tanker Rice?

[NewJeffCT]

1. After 5 years of avoiding responsibility

a loyal Bushie finally sucks it up and takes responsibility... but, she was the Unsticker after all, and Bush did put her in charge of Iraq a year or so after the invasion.

of course, nobody will notice this.

[Turbineguy]

2. "... the right structure..."

Us everyday Americans would refer to that as "a Plan".

[KeepItReal]

13. Powell as SoS had a plan "The Future of Iraq Project". Bush & Co. Dissed it.

Condi is lying her ass off.

Colin Powell had a plan, but Cheney and Rummy didn't want State to have any part of running Iraq.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. First they destroyed our country and the world, and now they're asking for forgiveness

Bush and all his assholes need to be flushed down a toilet.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Easy to admit it when you're on your way out the door.

None of these worthless bastards had the courage to say so at the time.

[Buzz Clik]

5. "the Bush administration put a single department — the Pentagon — in charge of running Iraq." well..

The problem was that anyone in the Pentagon who didn't agree entirely with Bush was removed.

[Lasher]

6. She says it wasn't Rummy's fault.

The Washington Post
September 9, 2006

Rumsfeld Forbade Planning For Postwar Iraq, General Says

Long before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a postwar Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said.

Brig. Gen. Mark E. Scheid told the Newport News Daily Press in an interview published yesterday that Rumsfeld had said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a postwar plan.

Scheid was a colonel with the U.S. Central Command, the unit that oversees military operations in the Middle East, in late 2001 when Rumsfeld "told us to get ready for Iraq."

"The secretary of defense continued to push on us . . . that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave," Scheid said. "We won't stay."

Planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4" -- plans that covered post-invasion operations such as security, stability and reconstruction, said Scheid, who is retiring in about three weeks, but "I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090801797.html

Rummy helped sell Lord Vader's Iraq adventure by making it look like a cakewalk. Then after the invasion had started and we were committed, the rhetoric from everyone in the administration simultaneously changed to the 'long hard slog' mode.

Condi can fall on her sword all she wants, but that does not excuse Rummy or anyone else.

[No Elephants]

7. Please quote the words where she took the blame. I was unable to find them at the link.

[gratuitous]

23. Yeah, I don't see any "taking responsibility" there either

There's a confusing tangle of weasel words that say that Rumsfeld isn't to blame, but that the Pentagon was in complete charge. As the fellow in "Fiddler on the Roof" says, "You say he's right. And you say he's right, Tevye. They can't both be right." Tevye, of course, says to him, "You may be right."

But heck, it's not like anyone died or the Treasury was emptied or anything. So what's the big schmeal? Dr. Rice has her post-administration welfare slot all nice and ready for her, and she'll spend the rest of her days speaking before adoring audiences of bloodthirsty jock-sniffers who will applaud wildly for her tough pronouncements.

[msongs]

8. It's all the fault of BUSH there Condi - nice try tho nt

[Gman2]

9. I am truly frightened of their revelations on the way out the door. A few weeks ago, I learned that

George Bush has KILLED ME! They FINALLY admitted to BPA in plastics being a cause of diabetes and heart disease. I am a MOLDMAKER. I have heart failure, at 48, and in good health and shape. Be afraid, BE VERY AFRAID, of what we DONT know they were doing. Our children, our lives mean NOTHING to these monsters. That is why I want to persecute the repubs out of existence. To avoid any more treasonous POWER GRABS. On my way DOWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN, I intend to inflict a lot of pain on them. It settles my nerves and comforts my soul, to see them get their comin'. Bill Bennett was right all along. We need to reinstitute stigma. Not for welfare queens, or hip hop ho's. But for the really dangerous amongst us. The uppity pols that tried to institute perpetual republicker control of us all. They should pay, for their treason. For it is treason. I have a few pitchforks youall can borrow, but I'm gonna need them back, as urban farming might be the new grocery.

[AlbertCat]

10. Great!

Now take responsibility for 9/11 too, you worthless "security adviser".

If the prez isn't "getting" the threat message while on vacation... even though it is clearly in the TITLE of the DPB... you are supposed to light a fire under his ass, not kiss it, Condie!

[Spinzonner]

11. It's too late Condi

Your empty words won't bring back all those lost lives or redeem all the maimed, physical and mental, and emotional.

Or are you just ingratiating yourself further with the Bush family by taking the "responsibility" and absolving poor Georgie ?

[Warren Stupidity]

12. KindofnastyLiar was on tv this am lying her ass off about Iraq.

She was still pushing the WMD bullshit. They will never give up. They intend to die repeating the same sorry old lies. A million dead Iraqis later and it was all worth because in some alternate universe the Iraqis might have actually had weapons that might have actually been able to hurt us, while in this universe, these criminals just plain made that shit up to justify their long standing plans to invade and permanently occupy Iraq and its vast oil resources. Liar, war criminal. And they all are going to get off with it and get to sit in our living rooms repeating their bloody lies over and over and over again.

[surrealAmerican]

14. "Taking responsibility"? ...

... Is it just me, or would that usually involve some sort of consequences for the person who "takes responsibility"? I don't see that happening here, so it is NOT taking responsibility.

[MasonJar]

15. Now every loyal Bushista step up and take the blame to save W's

legacy!!!!!!!!! That ba.t.rd never will admit to error. Bush now regrets the poor job of the intelligence community or so he told Charlie Gibson. Sorry, Georgie, your crimes were (and are) just too egregious. These last ditch ploys will not work on the people of the planet Earth (and certainly not on historians.) You will live and die in infamy. You make Nixon look like a prince. You will reign in Hell alongside Hitler.

[Tutonic]

16. I bet this is part of her plan to avoid prosecution for her war crimes.

And with Obama in the house--it's gonna work.

[mamameow]

17. memories/intelligence?

condi darling, while we all do not have your education, we all have memories. didn't your sweetheart try to say: you can fool some of us some of the time but you can't fool all of us all the time. we have memories, we will pass them onto all who will listen. we will teach our kids about the dictator bush and his criminal gang of murderers and thieves. never think that 70% of us will ever forget some lying bitch talk about a mushroom cloud!!!! just fade into obscurity!!!!

[ACTION BASTARD]

18. Too Late Sleeza! Nothing can save your "husband's" legacy.

Nothing you can do or say at this point will prevent him from being the WORST prez ever.

[JDPriestly]

19. They must have polled the public and determined that she has

a better favorable than Bush. So she takes the blame. She has nothing to lose. Her future at Stanford or the Hoover Institute or the Heritage Foundation some other such tank for right-wingers will pay her for her services.

[Stuart G]

20. SHE IS A STUPID FOOL....THE BUCK STOPS WITH IDIOT BUSH....NO ONE ELSE..

[onager]

21. "Did not have the right structure in place?"

Sure they did--the right structure for the Bush family and its cronies.

That was the CPA, headed by Bush's cousin, Paul Bremer. Which ignored every sane proposal by Pentagon and State Dept. experts with actual experience.

I may have to go watch No End In Sight again. I remember a (now-retired) Army Colonel in that documentary, who put in a fairly rational and simple request: he needed an expert in urban traffic control to get the traffic lights etc. working in Baghdad.

He got a 22-year-old graduate in Poli Sci with zero experience in traffic. Or anything else.

The Colonel didn't mince words about how this candidate got the job: "Her Daddy gave a lot of money to the GOP, and that was the only qualification they were interested in."

[sofa king]

22. She shoulda been fired eighteen months before that.

For the 9/11 attacks, for which nobody in the Bush Administration has taken responsibility, because they let it happen.