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He's always been a diehard Republican, and I always ARGUED BITTELY with him. We bounced back discussion board messages (Our classes have them on the internet) and one time like 4 months ago he actually challenged me to a fight. That's how fired up he was to defend Bush. Being a diplomat I solved it by saying, "Come on, it's just politics, lets be gentleman."
Get this, here is the post he put up TODAY: I tell you Shane, you know I was an avid supporter of the war effort and defender of the administration and I still am. However, there was no excuse for using that bad intelligence, especially when Colin Powell refused to mention the Niger/Uranium in his speech because he said it was unverifiable.
What is really bothering me even more is that there are 150,000 heavy combat troops in Iraq who are supposed to be playing peace officers. That is ridiculous. There is no way 150,000 troops can maintain order, root out remnants of the Ba'ath Party, find weapons of mass destruction, and rebuild the infrastructure and find Sadaam.
More and more everyday Sadaam (because I believe he is still alive) appears to have outsmarted Rumsfeld and the Pentagon. It appears that Sadaam purposely laid in wait for the U.S. to destroy his army and once the forces pulled out waged orchestrated, low intensity attacks on U.S. soldiers.
The problem is that if we pull out without capturing Hussein we risk the possibility of him coming back into power and if that is the case then what was the point of the war????
I watched Rumsfeld get grilled by the Senate Armed Services Committee and every response from him was "I'll have to check", or "I don't know". WHAT???????? He should know everything. Rumsfeld has really disappointed me because he is being stubborn in insisting that U.S. forces can accomplish all those tasks with only 150,000 troops. Not possible. 150,000 troops plus air power was enough to win the war but not to maintain postwar order.
What really is bothering me is that because of the low number of forces U.S. soldiers have become targets for snipers and pot shots. They are dying everyday.
On top of all of this the Rumsfeld and Co. at the Pentagon want to go into Iran??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Based on what intelligence???? I'm sure Iran is building nukes but because of the lack of credibility the Defense Department seems to be having they have no business even proposing that we go into any other country. This kind of back and forth bickering is making the Administration look bad.
Furthermore, I think it is shady how Rice made Tenet take the blame for the State of the Union snafu. The President as you well know, is briefed by the National Security Council every Monday, so if Tenet told him the intelligence was bad the final decision was on G.W. not to put that in his speech.
The guy who is being treated unfairly in all of this is Colin Powell. I think C.P. did the right thing by forcing the Administration to go to the Security Council (especially now when Rumsfeld and Co. seem to have problems justifying the war) and build a coalition and then he didn't use faulty intelligence. But the problem here is that you have RACISTS, yes, RACISTS like Newt Gingrich who wants to try and blame the State Department for the Administration's current credibility problem. WHAT?????
Gingrich told Tony Snow that he used an "L.A. Times article" as the basis of his attack on Powell. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????? I think the State Department has performed admirably in going to the U.N. and trying to get support from the Security Council when they knew they wouldn't. Just imagine if we DIDN'T go to the U.N. and just attacked Iraq last July or September???? Then you have a snake in the grass in Pat Robertson doing the same thing.
I am a conservative and a Republican but I won't hide behind the title Republican. I mean when you are wrong you are wrong and the Pentagon and the DOD seems to be losing credibility every time a U.S. soldier gets capped. Rumsfeld and CO. have mismanaged the postwar effort and have accomplished none of the tasks they based the war on. They basically left 150,000 troops there with no air support to fight a guerilla/urban war.
So they better rethink this situation fast because if it keeps going like this G.W. may really have a problem getting re-elected despite the weak Democratic candidates. But until they correct it I can't defend Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's actions in Postwar Iraq.
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