Obama ends Iraq war where it began — the Oval Office
The Iraq war ended where it began — at the president’s desk in the White House Oval Office.
President Barack Obama declared the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq with his hands folded on the desk where 7-1/2 years earlier President George W. Bush announced the beginning of military operations.
“Much has changed since that night,” Obama said in the second Oval Office prime-time televised address of his presidency.
Obama in his 19-minute speech praised the former president’s patriotism. But he did not do what Republicans had wanted – credit Bush’s troop surge, which Obama had opposed, with leading to the end of combat operations.
Instead, Obama spoke about the ”rough waters” endured during one of America’s longest wars that divided the country and turned increasingly unpopular.
“A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency,” Obama said, referring to the original justification for the war – that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction which never surfaced.
“Terrorism and sectarian warfare threatened to tear Iraq apart. Thousands of Americans gave their lives; tens of thousands have been wounded. Our relations abroad were strained. Our unity at home was tested,” Obama said.
Obama to call Bush ahead of Iraq speech
Just a friendly chat between two commanders in chief over a 7-1/2 year Iraq war…
President Barack Obama plans to call former President George W. Bush and discuss Iraq where he is ending combat operations that his predecessor began.
Whether or not Obama will mention Bush in his primetime Oval Office television address at 8 p.m. Tuesday is unclear. But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the ex-president will be among the people Obama calls before giving the speech.
Republicans have criticized Obama for what they say is a failure to acknowledge the success of Bush’s troop surge in bringing down violence in Iraq.
Gibbs was pressed during a briefing with reporters on whether Obama, who opposed the Iraq troop increase, now believes it worked.
Gibbs said additional troops were one element that contributed to the reduction in violence, but there were a “host of factors” that also played a role, such as the Sunni Awakening and an improved political environment.
“The president always believed that you would change part of the security situation by vastly increasing the number of troops,” Gibbs said.
I don’t quite understand why Obama wants to chat with Dubya. It would be interesting to hear what they say….
“Yo! George!”
“Whoze this?”
“The President!”
“Whish one?”
“Ah, Barak?”
“Oh, yea, what it is?”
“Well, I’m bringing back those troops you sent over to Iraq seven years ago.”
“WHUT? WHY??? Therz still eve-eel axis’es and “Weapons Of Mash Disstruction” over there…ah, aren’t there? Do I git to keep Husshein’s gun?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. But I’ll be on TV at 8 pm tonight, Eastern Standard Time.
“8?…What time’ul that be here in Dallush?”
“Have another beer, George…Goodbye.”
U.S. stimulus to cost more than Iraq, Afghan war so far
WASHINGTON – Republican critics of the Democratic-backed landmark stimulus package are pointing out that its 800-billion-dollar-plus price tag would — “in one fell swoop,” as Republican Representative Todd Akin put it — consume more resources than have been laid out for two wars, so far.
The Pentagon says the United States has committed $524.6 billion to the nearly six-year-old conflict in Iraq and $120.9 billion to the fighting in Afghanistan since 2001.
“I almost have to pinch myself, gentlemen, to think that just standing here a couple of hours ago, we just voted to spend $800 billion, more than the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Republican Akin declared Wednesday after the House of Representatives passed the stimulus without a single Republican vote in favor.
“Can our economy handle that?” he asked.
For years, Democratic opponents of the war in Iraq have questioned its cost and the fact that the 2003 invasion under the Republican Bush administration and the occupation that followed were done on borrowed money, adding to U.S. debt that ultimately must be paid by taxpayers.
Now Republicans, who largely supported the Iraq war, are trying to turn the tables on their Democratic critics and ask whether it is wise to borrow as much cash again all at once, taking on even more interest costs. “I know the Bush administration was savaged for the money that’s spent on the war in Iraq,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, said this week.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, dismissed Republican criticism that the package was too big, saying he had also consulted with Republicans who said “the package was too small” to get the economy moving again.
OK, here is the list for your edification. I’l only leave the salary increases from 911 to 09. How many members of Congress are there? 535? >500 anyway.
2001 — $145,100 per annum
500 x $145,100 = $72,550,000.oo plus uncounted.
2002 — $150,000 per annum = $75,000,000.oo
2003 — $154,700 per annum = $77,360,000.oo
2004 — $158,100 per annum = $79,050,000.oo
,
2005 — $162,100 per annum = $81,050,000.oo
2006 — $165,200 per annum = $82,060,000.oo
2007 — $165,200 per annum = $82,060,000.oo
2008 — $169,300 per annum = $84,650,000.oo
2009 — $174,000 per annum = $87,000,000.oo
st connsidering this vastly < total Congress,
raises for the 500 are just under $14.5 Million
Another 35 members add another $1 M 1.1 M
Only once did our patriotic leaders not
accept another pc of the pie.
Laura Bush: Shoe-throwing incident sign of ‘freer’ Iraq
The video of an agile U.S. President George W. Bush ducking two shoes thrown at him during a news conference in Baghdad has been fodder for jokes on late-night television and a big hit on the Internet.
Even Bush laughed off the Dec. 14 incident. But his wife was not amused by an Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush, narrowly missing the president.
“It was an assault,” Laura Bush said in a Fox news interview broadcast on Sunday. “And I think it should be treated that way.”
Iraqi TV reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi was tackled to the floor and arrested, and his lawyer said he was severely beaten in detention. He is to stand trial on Dec. 31 on charges of “assaulting a foreign head of state visiting Iraq,” a spokesman for Iraq’s High Judicial Council said.
But Zaidi has become a hero to Sunnis and Shi’ites alike, and clerics on both sides are demanding that he be freed.
Asked about demands for the reporter’s release, Laura Bush said that whatever happens with Zaidi is up to the Iraqis.
“But I know that if Saddam Hussein had been there, the man wouldn’t have been released. And he probably … you know, would have been executed,” she said. “As bad as the incident is, in my view, it is a sign that Iraqis feel a lot freer to express themselves.”
‘One of the most weird moments of my presidency’ — Bush
If you thought that shoe-throwing episode in Baghdad was odd, you’re not alone — President George W. Bush thought so too. “It has got to be one of the most weird moments of my presidency,” he told CNN in an interview Tuesday. “Here I am getting ready to answer questions from a free press in a democratic Iraq and a guy stands up and throws a shoe.” What was going through his mind? Not much it seems. “I didn’t have much time to reflect on anything. I was ducking and dodging,” Bush said. Throwing shoes at someone is considered a supreme insult in Iraq, a shoe being considered dirty. People whacked Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad with shoes after it was toppled during the U.S. invasion. Bush says he doesn’t harbor any anger toward the Iraqi TV journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi for attacking him. Al-Zaidi has been cheered by some in the Arab world for his action, but he faces potential criminal charges in Baghdad. “I’m not even sure what his status is,” Bush said. “They shouldn’t overreact.” Bush told CNN the most important decision he made during his presidency was “sending troops into harm’s way,” and not once but twice — in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The reason it’s the most important is because it’s the most consequential,” he said “It is a decision that no president should ever take lightly and every president should take a lot of time thinking about it because lives will be lost,” Bush added. Asked if he ever revisited the decision, Bush said he sometimes thought about it but usually “with a concern about whether or not we would succeed.” “In Iraq, I was deeply concerned about whether or not we would succeed,” he said, adding that was especially true in 2006. “A lot of people in Washington were saying, let’s get out now. And I obviously chose not to do that. But, that was a very difficult period.” For more Reuters political news, click here.
Photo credit: Reuters/Reuters TV (Bush ducks a shoe during a news conference in Baghdad Dec. 14)
I wonder what Saddam would do to a journalist who insults a state guest in front of him.
As for the Bush presidents, those guys added a lot of real estate for the U.S., in the Middle East where they really need a strong presence.
Bush contemplates how he’d like to be remembered
President George W. Bush, nearing the end of his final term in office, says he most wants to be remembered as someone who came to Washington and didn’t lose his values. Someone who didn’t sell his soul to the political process. Somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace. So he told his sister, Dorothy Bush Koch, in an interview for StoryCorps, the national oral history initiative. An excerpt of the interview aired on National Public Radio on Thanksgiving Day and the White House released excerpts on Friday. The entire interview will be archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
“I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process,” Bush said in the interview. “I came to Washington with a set of values, and I’m leaving with the same set of values. And I darn sure wasn’t going to sacrifice those values.” “I’d like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace; that focused on individuals rather than process; that rallied people to serve their neighbor,” the president added. He mentions his HIV/AIDS and malaria initiatives in Africa, and the Medicare prescription drug benefit as two programs he is proud of. Asked about his “No Child Left Behind” education law, Bush called it one of the “significant achievements of my administration.” “We said loud and clear to educators, parents, and children that we expect the best for every child, that we believe every child can learn, and that in return for federal money we expect there to be an accountability system in place to determine whether every child is learning to read, write and add and subtract,” Bush said.
Bush hands over power to President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009. As he heads into the final weeks of his presidency, Bush’s job approval ratings remain low. Only about 26 percent approve of his performance, while some 70 percent disapprove. Bush’s decision to take the United States to war in Iraq is widely unpopular. A Quinnipiac University poll in early November found that 58 percent disagreed with decision.
For more Reuters political news, click here.
Photo credit: Reuters/Ho New (Bush talks by phone to troops in remote locations on Thanksgiving); Reuters/Jason Reed (Bush pardons national Thanksgiving turkey, Pumpkin)
Bush sacrificed the American public in order to protect his own “values”. He has done everything possible to undermine our country and has done so with a smile and a glib “stay the course” on his lips. He has left the country in an absolutely preventable recession, with unemployment rates higher than they’ve been in 15 years, simply because he could and because he didn’t care. He spent 8 years using America as a disposable playtoy and has never once thought of taking responsibility for his own actions and attitudes.
“I think W. will be remembered as a man who did what he thought was right, a man of action who refused to back down or see America’s greatness compromised. ” — Posted by Mark
What someone thinks is right is not always the right thing to do. Politics can NOT be governed by personal values, especially not in a country as large and diverse as ours is. The President must put what’s best for the people at the forefront of his office. What’s best for himself comes last.
We didn’t need other countries to compromise America, he was happily doing it from within. Did you ever stop to wonder why Americans in other countries constantly felt the need to apologize for Bush, or were you too busy swallowing his “everything is fine” idiocy to look past your front lawn?
Bush out of sight, but keeping eye on election
WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush, who has stayed out of the public eye in the final days before the election to choose his successor, knows his popularity has suffered, but the White House insists he will have no problem looking in the mirror when he returns to Texas.
Bush spent the weekend at Camp David and has no public events on Monday or Tuesday. He last spoke with his preferred successor Republican John McCain on Sept. 25, the day of a White House meeting on the financial bailout.
McCain has actively campaigned to distance himself from the unpopular 43rd U.S. president, rarely appearing with Bush since capturing the Republican presidential nomination in March.
“Everybody would like to be popular. We can all remember that back in high school, everyone really wanted to be popular, and some of us just weren’t,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters on the eve of the election.
“But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have principles and values that you stayed true to. And that’s what this president has done, and that’s what he’s taught a lot of us, including me,” she said.
The Iraq war has been one of the key reasons for Bush’s unpopularity at home and overseas. However, Bush believes he made the right decision to order a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, Perino said.
“And when he goes home to Texas, President Bush will be able to look in the mirror and know that he was true to his values and true to his principles, and that’s what keeps him going,” she said.
Say whatever you want but how has Bush affected you and your family. Yes, we went to war. It was a decision that had to be made. Nobody wants war but with the information he had and the situation America was in, it was the right decision. Not everything is a huge conspiracy. Whether you agree with the war or not, Bush is NOT the reason for the realestate crash or the state of our currentour economy..you can not see the legacy of current economy. You can not see the true effects of a President administrations/policies until years after he is out of office. This is Clinton’s mess…
In apparent shift, Cindy McCain invokes sons in criticism of Obama
BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania – Republican John McCain’s military history is famous, but the service of his sons is less well known. And until recently, that’s exactly how the presidential candidate and his wife, Cindy, wanted it. But on Wednesday, Mrs. McCain made a rare reference to her sons when criticizing the Illinois senator for his 2007 vote against a war funding bill. McCain has two sons in the military, and one has served in Iraq. “The day that Sen. Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body,” McCain told a crowded rally in Pennsylvania, an electoral battleground state. “I would suggest that Sen. Obama change shoes with me for just one day and see what it means … to have a loved one serving in the armed forces and more importantly, serving in harm’s way,” she said. “I suggest he take a day and go watch our fine young men…and women deploy, get on those buses and leave with a smile.” McCain also invoked vice presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s son, who recently deployed to Iraq. ”We have a lot in common, the McCain family and the Palin family,” she said. “We represent between us the Army, the Navy and the United States Marine Corps.” Obama voted against the funding bill in 2007 but supported a version that included a timetable for withdrawal for U.S. troops from Iraq. The son of Obama’s vice presidential running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, has just been sent to Iraq with the Army National Guard, and will be there for about a year. Obama has two young daughters.
Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Cindy McCain should stay in the background. As I saw it, she made a fool of herself and the McCain campaign with her inaccurate comments. Desperate is the only way to describe the republican ticket and pathetic is the word to describe Cindy McCain.
Kerry takes convention stage again, rips McCain
DENVER – John Kerry, the failed 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, took the stage at this year’s party convention on Wednesday to praise Illinois Sen. Barack Obama – whose career he helped launch — and lambaste John McCain.
Kerry, who said he had been friends with McCain for nearly 22 years, used tough words to criticize the Arizona senator’s evolution from a maverick legislator to a presidential candidate.
“Before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself,” Kerry said, listing what he described as McCain’s shifts on tax cuts, immigration, and climate change.
“Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding?” Kerry said. “Talk about being for it before you’re against it!”
The last line was a send-up of a gaffe Kerry himself made about being in favor of funding for the Iraq war before he was against it.
Many felt the line, which Republicans used to mock him, helped cost the Massachusetts senator the election four years ago.
Kerry gave a big boost to Obama’s career by giving the then-state senator a prime-time speaking role at the ’04 convention.
The whole quote is:
“Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Sen. McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Sen. McCain’s own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it.”
You tell ‘em Kerry! Now if only the news channels would do their job and air these speeches without talking over them, then the American people could make an informed decision this time around!!
Obama: Russia, U.S. should not ‘charge into’ other countries
LYNCHBURG, Virginia – Democrat Barack Obama scolded Russia again on Wednesday for invading another country’s sovereign territory while adding a new twist: the United States, he said, should set a better example on that front, too.
The Illinois senator’s opposition to the Iraq war, which his comment clearly referenced, is well known. But this was the first time the Democratic presidential candidate has made a comparison between the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Russia’s recent military activity in Georgia.
“We’ve got to send a clear message to Russia and unify our allies,” Obama told a crowd of supporters in Virginia. “They can’t charge into other countries. Of course it helps if we are leading by example on that point.”
Foreign policy has become a dividing line in the race for the White House.
Obama favors a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq over 16 months, while John McCain, his Republican rival for president, opposes a timeline and says U.S. forces must stay to finish and win the war.
McCain, an Arizona senator, sought to highlight his foreign policy credentials during the Russia-Georgia crisis last week, giving a series of harsh statements directed at Moscow soon after the conflict began.
Obama, who was on vacation in Hawaii, followed suit with statements that became sharper over time.
Obama’s take on the Georgia crisis was enough to convince me that his foreign policy would be akin to that of Neville Chamberlain in 1938 – and we all know how that panned out. History has proven time and time again that soft talk and appeasement doesn’t work in the face of genuine aggressors. Obama seems to have his heart in the right place, but he doesn’t seem to understand how the real world works. Obama is showing himself to be terribly naïve. His message of hope is inspiring, but in the end, his naive policies could very well bring the United States (and the rest of the western world) to its knees.
When Neville Chamberlain stepped off the plane after his meeting with Hitler, the British public hailed him as a visionary and a hero, chanting “peace in our time!” A year later, after Hitler had gobbled up two more countries, the world was plunged into the most devastating war in human history.
I believe the current world landscape is a dangerous one. The next US president is going to have a lot of responsibility thrust upon their shoulders, and the decisions they make could quite literally alter the course of human history. We all need to be very, very deliberate and thoughtful when we cast our votes in November.
Just why should Obama give credit to Bush for the surge that helped end a war that should have never begun in the first place and that was won by our main enemy in the Persian Gulf, Iran?