What About Those Other Iraq Deadlines?

[maddezmom]

What About Those Other Iraq Deadlines?
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By LEON E. PANETTA
Published: April 4, 2007
Seaside, Calif.

WHAT has been particularly frustrating about the debate in Washington over Iraq is that everyone seems to be fighting one another and forgetting the fundamental mission of the war.

Whether one is for or against the war, the key to stability is to have an Iraq that, in the words of the president himself, can “govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself.” Achieving that goal is largely dependent on the political reforms that Iraqi leaders have promised but failed to put in place in their country.

As a member of the Iraq Study Group, I found that every military commander we talked to felt that the absence of national reconciliation was the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq. As one American general told us, if the Iraqi government does not make political progress on reforms, “all the troops in the world will not provide security.”

Instead of dividing over the strategy on the war, the president and the Congress should make very clear to the Iraqis that there is no open-ended commitment to our involvement. As the Iraq Study Group recommended, Iraqi leaders must pay a price if they continue to fail to make good on key reforms that they have promised the Iraqi people.

more:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04panetta.html?hp

[ClintonTyree]

1. "Open-ended commitment"...

is just what the Bushistas want. Without the constant specter of some bogey-man hovering over the American people's heads it becomes increasingly difficult to control them. We must ALWAYS have an enemy or the wheels of the military industrial complex grind to a halt. They will not stand for that. In the eternal struggle between "guns or butter" in our country guns always win. We couldn't have money lying around to improve social programs or reduce our national debt now, could we? :sarcasm: There's no profits to be made in peacetime.

Nope, the military industrial complex, of which the Bush family is a charter member, NEEDS eternal war and strife to keep the gears of their war profiteering machines humming along. Open-ended commitment is exactly what they want and as long as the idiot bastard son, George Bush, is in the White House that's the way it will be.

[ixion]

2. okay, one more time: it's not a 'war', it's an illegal invasion

and our presence there does absolutely nothing to help the situation.