President Obama to Mark End of Combat in Iraq, Cite Challenges Ahead Obama's Second Oval Office Address Heralds Progress, But Not 'Mission Accomplished' in Iraq
By HUMA KHAN and DEVIN DWYER WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2010—
President Obama tonight will deliver his second nationally-televised Oval Office address to herald the end of U.S. military combat operations in Iraq and remind the American people of his pledge to bring the war to a close.
"Operation Iraqi Freedom is over," the president will say, according to excerpts of the remarks released by the White House. "The Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office."
Mr. Obama, who has spent the past two days meeting with military service members and their families, will use the address to recognize the committment of America's men and women in uniform, whom he says have "awed" him with their sacrifice and "courage and resolve."
The seven and a half year war has cost the lives of more than 4,400 U.S. military service members and an estimated $885 million. At its peak in 2007, more than 170,000 troops were in the country; only around 50,000 troops remain.
"The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people," Obama will say. "We have persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people -- a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it is time to turn the page."
Today the official name of the military mission in Iraq will be changed to "Operation New Dawn." But the president is not expected to declare "mission accomplished."
George W. Bush's policy in Iraq has been vindicated .. his surge worked.
Seem to remember that a candidate for President from Illinois .. was opposed to both the policy of fighting terrorism in Iraq and the surge. Now that that candidate is President - He gets to take credit for George W Bush's policy .. which was spot on correct .. all along.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
George W. Bush's policy in Iraq has been vindicated .. his surge worked.
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GWB sent us to war and killed 4400 good American patriots, for a lie.
VINDICATED??? We went to Iraq to rid Iraq of WMD's. Remember?
There never were any and Bush Knew IT!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Well it's over now boxy! Iraq will never be mentioned again! They aren't and never were a nation that harbored terrorists! The truth finally came out. And now we can all sleep better now....the world is finally at peace! We can finally feel safe....thanks to obama and making amends with the muslim world!! FINALLY AN END TO IT ALL!!
Finally....no more terrorist attacts to worry about!!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Actually there were WMDs ..if you count biological weapons .. we just didn't find any nukes.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
There were no WMD's of any kind. NONE. IF there were GWB would have had them plastered all over Fox News for a month.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
No Bumble, It isn't over. It isn't over for the parents, brothers and sisters, wives and friends of the 4400 American Patriots who lost their life in Iraq. It's not over for the millions of displaced Iraqi's. Or for the hundreds of thousands of wounded.
And the killing is not over... not for a long time to come.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
There were no WMD's of any kind. NONE. IF there were GWB would have had them plastered all over Fox News for a month.
I love the liberal logic. Bush LIED to go to war with Iraq. YET...He was truthful in admitting there were no nuclear weapons. I can't even take people that say this serious.
There were no WMD's of any kind. NONE. IF there were GWB would have had them plastered all over Fox News for a month.
There were WMDs in Iraq .. when the UN weapons inspectors were counting them during the Clinton years
Chemical weapons are actually rather easy to produce .. with the same ingredients that we use to make perfume, fertilizer, and many other products. And I know from people that were in IRAQ .. post invasion .. that all the ingredients of chemical weapons were there .. and the equipment to turn them into chemical weapons .. and chemical weapons are WMDs. case closed don't believe all the "socialist liberal anti-war folks" who sold you the lie that there were no WMDs.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
Iraq's WMD Secreted in Syria, Sada Says By IRA STOLL, Staff Reporter of the Sun | January 26, 2006 The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.
The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, "Saddam's Secrets," released this week. He detailed the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.
"There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."
Mr. Sada's comments come just more than a month after Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam "transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria."
Democrats have made the absence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a theme in their criticism of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in 2003. And President Bush himself has conceded much of the point; in a televised prime-time address to Americans last month, he said, "It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong."
Said Mr. Bush, "We did not find those weapons."
The discovery of the weapons in Syria could alter the American political debate on the Iraq war. And even the accusations that they are there could step up international pressure on the government in Damascus. That government, led by Bashar Assad, is already facing a U.N. investigation over its alleged role in the assassination of a former prime minister of Lebanon. The Bush administration has criticized Syria for its support of terrorism and its failure to cooperate with the U.N. investigation.
The State Department recently granted visas for self-proclaimed opponents of Mr. Assad to attend a "Syrian National Council" meeting in Washington scheduled for this weekend, even though the attendees include communists, Baathists, and members of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group to the exclusion of other, more mainstream groups.
Mr. Sada, 65, told the Sun that the pilots of the two airliners that transported the weapons of mass destruction to Syria from Iraq approached him in the middle of 2004, after Saddam was captured by American troops.
"I know them very well. They are very good friends of mine. We trust each other. We are friends as pilots," Mr. Sada said of the two pilots. He declined to disclose their names, saying they are concerned for their safety. But he said they are now employed by other airlines outside Iraq.
The pilots told Mr. Sada that two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted to cargo planes by removing the seats, Mr. Sada said. Then Special Republican Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes, he said, including "yellow barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel." The pilots said there was also a ground convoy of trucks.
The flights - 56 in total, Mr. Sada said - attracted little notice because they were thought to be civilian flights providing relief from Iraq to Syria, which had suffered a flood after a dam collapse in June of 2002.
"Saddam realized, this time, the Americans are coming," Mr. Sada said. "They handed over the weapons of mass destruction to the Syrians."
Mr. Sada said that the Iraqi official responsible for transferring the weapons was a cousin of Saddam Hussein named Ali Hussein al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali." The Syrian official responsible for receiving them was a cousin of Bashar Assad who is known variously as General Abu Ali, Abu Himma, or Zulhimawe.
Short of discovering the weapons in Syria, those seeking to validate Mr. Sada's claim independently will face difficulty. His book contains a foreword by a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, David Eberly, who was a prisoner of war in Iraq during the first Gulf War and who vouches for Mr. Sada, who once held him captive, as "an honest and honorable man."
No Bumble, It isn't over. It isn't over for the parents, brothers and sisters, wives and friends of the 4400 American Patriots who lost their life in Iraq. It's not over for the millions of displaced Iraqi's. Or for the hundreds of thousands of wounded.
And the killing is not over... not for a long time to come.
Of course the killing is over. There is no need ANYMORE!!! No more terrorists....hurray! FINALLY PEACE!!! Now we can finally put the past behind us and help rebuild Iraq. This will also help the jews with their on going conflict in the region too. We can stop all of these nonsense airport security crap! Like I said...we can finally feel safe!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Troops yet to give Obama full salute War outcomes are crucial tests
As he winds down one war and escalates another, President Obama is struggling to win over the troops he's leading as commander in chief -- and military advocates say the real test will come as the nation approaches final timelines for withdrawal in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama has earned strong reviews from veterans groups, which praise his willingness to listen and his aggressive funding of the Veterans Affairs Department.
His progress among members of the military, however, has been slower. A Military Times poll this year of its subscribers -- which include active-duty, reserves and guard troops, and some retirees and family members -- found that a majority disapproved of his leadership as their commander.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama will meet with some of those troops when he travels to the Army's Fort Bliss in Texas, hours before he delivers a prime-time speech from the Oval Office to mark the departure of U.S. combat troops from Iraq - the conflict that defined the presidency of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Mr. Obama has largely escaped the criticisms of President Bush about underfunding troops and acting outside the chain of command, but detractors say he should approach timetables in both wars with more flexibility to account for conditions on the ground.
"Everyone will respect him as commander in chief and everyone will follow his orders," said Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war veteran who now heads Vets for Freedom, a group that supports the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "But at the same time, there is a lot of concern about whether or not he's truly committed to the fight that we're invested in and whether or not he will truly see through what we need to do to succeed."
Mr. Hegseth commended Mr. Obama for not doing "anything rash or too quickly" in Iraq, but said the Obama administration shouldn't be taking credit for drawing down combat operations under an agreement that Bush officials made with the Iraqi government.
"It's frustrating to see both the president and vice president jumping up and down saying, 'Look what we did, look what we did,' when if we actually followed the policies they were calling for ... we would have left early and we would have left in shame," Mr. Hegseth said, noting their opposition to the surge of forces in Iraq.
Mr. Hegseth said he has spoken with troops who are particularly annoyed by the administration's move to de-emphasize the radical Islamic dimension of the terrorist threat in favor of the term "extremist," and he described the July 2011 timeline for withdrawal in Afghanistan as an "albatross around the neck of our soldiers."................>>>>.....................>>>>......................http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/30/troops-yet-to-give-obama-full-salute/
~Combat troops left Iraq. Those still in Iraq are to train, then leave, not to advise.
~There were WMD's in Iraq at one time... we are 100% sure of that fact, because the Reagan Administration gave Iraq the WMD's in the form of Chemical Weapons. They were destroyed BEFORE GWB invaded Iraq, and that fact was known and certified to by UN Inspectors. There have never been any WMD's found in Iraq during or after the Bush Invasion.
~Bush and his flunkies not only said there were WMD's in Iraq, but they said they knew exactly where they were... It was a lie... there never were any WMD's. THE BUSH LIE ABOUT the "mushroom cloud" was just that... a LIE... so was the Bush Propaganda about 'aluminum tubes' used for missiles, and the Nuke 'yellowcake' from Niger... also a lie. NO WMD'S, NONE biological, NONE Nuclear, NONE Chemical. NOTHING BUT LIES!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
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