My post earlier today noted Senator Coleman’s apparent confusion over where he stands on the surge policy (more on that soon) right as General Patraeus’ report is being reported to Congress. Senator Coleman is now saying, after his visit to Iraq, that he’s for the surge and essentially that he’s for whatever the President wants, or at least that’s what it’s sounding like. But, as usual, the DFL has done their research better than I have and today released this stunning set of facts on Norm Coleman’s ever vacillating position on Iraq and how they relate to the Patraeus Bush report:
Norm Coleman and President Bush Back Symbolic Troop Withdrawal. Three days after Senator Coleman said that he supported a small drawdown of troops by the end of the year, Army Gen. David Petraeus indicated his willingness to consider a drawdown between 3,500 and 4,500 troops from Iraq early next year. President Bush also signaled the possibility of a token pull-out after visiting Anbar province last week. [MPR, 9/4/07; Washington Post, 9/7/07; 9/9/07]
Petraeus Requests Additional Six Months Before Major Troop Drawdown. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, recommended that decisions on the issue of reducing the main body of American troops in Iraq be put off for another six months.” [New York Times, 9/10/07]
Most Think Report Will Exaggerate Progress in Iraq. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that only four in ten Americans believe that General Petraeus will give an accurate accounting of the situation in Iraq and 53 percent believe that his report will try to make the situation in Iraq look better than it really is. [Washington Post, 9/9/07]
Following President’s Talking Points, Coleman Goes Back on Opposition to Surge. Coleman said during a conference call with reporters last week, “‘I questioned the surge in the beginning,’ he said. ‘I was wrong in my assessment of what the surge could accomplish. I was wrong.’” [MPR, 9/4/07]
Retired Senior Military Officers Recommend Change in Course. According to a report last week prepared by a commission of retired senior U.S. military officers, “Iraq’s army, despite measurable progress, will be unable to take over internal security from U.S. forces in the next 12 to 18 months and “cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven…the commission recommends that U.S. troops in Iraq be “retasked” in early 2008 to protect critical infrastructure and guard against border threats from Iran and Syria, while gradually turning internal security over to Iraqi forces despite their deficiencies. [Washington Post, 9/6/07]
Group Calls for 50 Percent Reduction of Troops within Three Years. According to the Washington Post, a report released Sunday by a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace will call for a 50 percent reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq within three years and a total withdrawal and handover of security to the Iraqi military in five years. “‘The United States faces too many challenges around the world to continue its current level of effort in Iraq, or even the deployment that was in place before the surge,’ the report says. ‘It is time to chart a clearer path forward.’” [Washington Post, 9/9/07]
GAO Report Finds Little Progress in Iraq. According to the Washington Post, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says that Iraq has failed to meet all but three of the 18 benchmarks for political and military progress. “The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.” [Washington Post, 8/30/07]
Most Americans Want to Decrease Number of Troops in Iraq. A new poll by the Washington Post and ABC News shows a new high of 58 percent said they want to de crease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, and most of those who advocate a troop reduction said they want the draw down to being either right away or by the end of the year. In addition, 53 percent believe that this week’s report by Army General David Petraeus will try to make the situation in Iraq better than it actually is. [Washington Post, 9/9/07]
Coleman Has Supported Bush on Key Votes 90.5% of Tenure in Senate. This figure represents the four-year average of Coleman’s Congressional Quarterly presidential support index. In his first year in the Senate, Coleman backed Bush a whopping 98% of the time. [Star Tribune, Big Question, 5/14/07]
Coleman Refuses to Take Action to Change Course in Iraq. In July, Senator Norm Coleman voted for the fifth time against a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. [Vote #252, 7/18/07; Vote #147, 4/26/07; Vote #126, 3/29/07, Vote #116, 3/27/07;, Vote #75, 3/15/07; NPR, 7/17/07]
Coleman Said “Whatever the Future Brings, We Must Stand With This President.” In September 2004, Coleman praised President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and said, “Whatever the future brings, we must stand with this president.” [Star Tribune, 9/22/04]
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I couldn’t help but notice you’re calling General Petreaus’ report the Bush report. Are you attacking his military service by claiming that the White House wrote the report for him? If so, you’re just as bad as the MoveOn people who called him General Betray-Us in the New York Times today. The attacks on our military and the people serving our country are truly pathetic and I hope this site is not lowering itself into the gutter with MoveOn and the like.
Two soldiers who wrote of their pessimism about the war in an Op-Ed article that appeared in The New York Times on Aug. 19, were killed in Baghdad on Monday, September 10, 2007. They were not killed in combat, nor on a daring mission. They died when the five-ton cargo truck in which they were riding overturned. The victims, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, were among the authors of “The War as We Saw It,” in which they expressed doubts about reports of progress. Another one was Staff Sgt. Jeremy A. Murphy, who was shot in the head. He was flown to a military hospital in the U.S. and is expected to survive. “As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day,” the soldiers wrote.
This reminds me of the rescue story of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, which Col. Pat Tillman was involved with and which Jessica later admitted was staged propaganda. Pat Tillman, who was killed with friendly fire (three shots to the head at close range) was set to stage an interview with Noam Chomsky to speak out against the war, and existing members of Jessica’s “rescue team” have since been dying off. I have also read of medical troops killed shortly after they expressed their views about not necessarily believing in the war, but having a deep desire to treat the injured Iraqi people as well as the troops.
Should it seem coincidental that many of these troops who say anything that might be construed as “against the war” are being killed or injured afterwards? In light of peaceful protesters getting arrested here in this country, one them being a reverend whose only crime was wearing a button on his lapel with a peaceful statement while standing in line to get into a congressional hearing on Iraq, it appears that we’ve lost our freedom of speech altogether. He was tackled from the back by a Washington D.C. police officer after telling them that he was just standing in line and meant no harm. He was injured and taken to a hospital and after he recovers, he will be sent to jail. What brand of democracy are we trying to establish in Iraq?
Warmongers can shout all they want and believe that we’re “winning” this tribal war with our occupation and keeping America safe, but it has little relevance with statistics (75% of Iraq’s want us to leave; 70% of Americans want us out of Iraq; most Americans feel less safe) or the lives of our wonderful and brave soldiers whom we appreciate, love and pray for every day. It has everything to do with the Bush and Cheney lies. Iraq war profiteering is making billions for their friends, Halliburton, Bechtel, Kellogg Brown and Root, to name a few of the most egregious. Most of that money is not going towards the reconstruction of Iraq, let alone the protection of our troops.
Since Petreaus takes his orders from Bush what is the difference between calling it the Bush or the Petreaus report? Does anybody think that the General would disobey a directive from the President?
Dear Editor: An Open Letter to Congressional Leaders
Bush Speaks With Forked Tongue:
The most anti American impeachable administration in the history of the United Sates of America speaks again with a forked tongue…!
Dear Leaders of the Legislators, the Occupant of the White House, has sent up one liar and law breaker after another to disassemble the Congress, confuse and divide the American public, rob our treasury, kill our children and commit genocide world wide. Bush has even given these liars and law breakers Medals of Freedom…? Bush has Betrayed Us All…! What are you going to do about it…?
Under illegal signing statements, unconstitutional and immoral declarations, Bush’s rouse has caused the American Middle Class to fall into unprecedented bankruptcy as the children of the American poor have lost their loved ones on the bloody fields of his twisted colonial corporate agenda in the Middle East. Yet it is the House and the House alone that initiates all appropriations bills and has the authority to take our nation into war and has the power to stop this madness. What are you going to do Madame Speaker…?
I suggest it is time for the Leaders of the Legislative Branch to listen to Admiral William Fallon, Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein and the American’s who elected this Legislature to stop this endless war. We must not send one more American hero or spend one more dime for this military industrial complex’s rampage into Iraq or Iran nor on to the streets or into our homes under the traitorous Bush Military Commissions Act.
The only funds that need to be made available are to bring our entire honorable troop’s home where they belong and to clean up the criminal mess that this horrid administration has wrecked on our beloved nation…!
Lee Mentley
Los Angeles, CA 90022 213-880-7282