Who started Our Withdrawal From Iraq?

2015-08-12T11:56:37-04:00

[Last night] Bush got a crucial fact wrong in this chronicle: His brother’s administration—not Obama’s—signed the status of forces agreement, on Nov. 17, 2008, which stated, in Article 24: “All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.”

Article 30 of that same agreement stated that its terms could be amended “only with the official agreement of the Parties in writing and in accordance with the constitutional procedures in effect in both countries.” These “constitutional procedures” included a vote by the Iraqi Parliament—and at no time between 2008 and 2011 was the Iraqi Parliament going to take such a vote.

Granted, President Obama did want to get out of Iraq; he won the White House in large part on that promise, and there was no more support in the United States than in Iraq for a continued presence of American troops. And yet Obama did send emissaries—among them former aides to George W. Bush—to seek an amendment to allow a few thousand residual forces. The Iraqi government refused. Unless Obama wanted to re-invade the country, there was nothing to be done."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2015/08/jeb_bush_s_major_foreign_policy_address_the_former_florida_governor_s_speech.html

Jeb Bush’s Major Foreign Policy Speech Was Shallow, Vague, and Wrong

Most presidential candidates who deliver a “major foreign policy address” have something original, potent, or insightful to say. On Tuesday night, as with most other aspects of his campaign to date, Jeb Bush defied expectations. His 40-minute speech, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, was a hodgepodge of revisionist history,...

Response by Capt Walter Miller made Aug 12 at 2015 11:57 AM

2015-08-12T11:57:25-04:00

Just sayin'.

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 12:11 PM

2015-08-12T12:11:29-04:00

I mean you already answered your own question haha...

He's definitely having a hard time getting going, and does not command as much of a base in the GOP as he undoubtedly thought he would. Time will tell.

Response by SSG Warren Swan made Aug 12 at 2015 12:16 PM

2015-08-12T12:16:32-04:00

According to the article it was Bust Jr. But when it comes to politics, does the truth really matter? Win by all means?

Response by Cpl Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 12:39 PM

2015-08-12T12:39:39-04:00

I see you are just as anti-Bush as most conservatives, captain. What you didn't do was offer an alternative. I remember the first tea party I attended was on tax-day, April 15, 2008, before BO was elected and Bush was still president with a Democrat controlled congress where all spending bills originate. Just sayin'!

Response by CW4 Guy Butler made Aug 12 at 2015 12:45 PM

2015-08-12T12:45:32-04:00

Awesome. Someone trying to use facts to screw up a perfectly good meme again.

Won't work - they're immune.

Response by Capt Walter Miller made Aug 13 at 2015 1:45 PM

2015-08-13T13:45:01-04:00

Jim Webb:

June 23, 2003

It pains me to point this out, but in my view the United States invasion of Iraq was one of the most ill-advised and reckless actions that the US government has ever taken. I make this statement not as a knee-jerk anti-war activist, but as one who still proudly defends our effort in Vietnam, and who has spent a total of five years inside the Pentagon.
We should start with the premise that a unilateral war – a war in which a country attacks another when it has not been itself attacked – must be undertaken only when the country’s national survival is clearly at stake, or under circumstances where the international community is so threatened that a strong power such as the US must save it from an enormous menace. Iraq clearly did not meet either of those tests.

Additionally, I find it regrettable that the Bush administration squandered an historic opportunity to unify most of the world against the notion of organized international terrorism, and through its relentless pursuit of war against Iraq created instead an era of unprecedented bad feelings. The present administration accomplished this through a puzzling campaign of arrogance and condescension toward long-time allies and by completely redefining the war against terrorism until it became a war against Iraq.

This “morphing” of the war against international terrorism into the invasion and occupation of Iraq had its roots in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when many neo-conservatives, led by the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and key figures in such think tanks as the American Enterprise Institute, believed that the US should have continued on to Baghdad after ejecting the Iraqis from Kuwait, in order to establish their dream of a “MacArthurian regency” in Iraq. In the first days after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, these well-placed advocates, many of whom are serving in the Bush Administration, moved quickly to justify not a general response against Al Qaeda, but an all-out invasion of Iraq, possibly followed by invasions in Iran and Syria. While their logic was that an Iraq invasion would make the world a safer place, proper strategic thinking actually argued in the opposite direction. If terrorism was principally a Mideast phenomenon prior to 9/11, after that date it was clearly a global dilemma. This made it imperative that smarter minds in America resist the notion of taking over one country in one region, potentially for decades, when the threat now extended across several continents and through a large percentage of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims."

http://www.jameswebb.com/speeches-by-jim/government-ethics-in-the-post-iraq-war-era

Walt

Government Ethics in the Post-Iraq War Era | Jim Webb

June 23, 2003The Investment Dealers Association, Canada It pains me to point this out, but in my view the United States invasion of Iraq was one of the most