Posted on 03/12/2006 3:19:37 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
The Bush administration will not pull American troops out of Iraq until victory is won, despite the growing number of Democrats urging a withdrawal, presidential adviser Karl Rove said Saturday.
Abandoning Iraq now would signal to U.S. allies that America can't be trusted, Rove said.
"Tyrants in the Middle East would laugh at our failed resolve," he said. "To retreat before victory would be a reckless act."
Rove was the featured speaker at a Republican fundraiser at Bowling Green State University hosted by Rep. Paul Gillmor, a Republican from northwest Ohio.
Rove, who is Bush's top political adviser, said he came to Ohio to thank volunteers and local politicians who helped Bush win the state that put him back in the White House two years ago.
"You all had something to do with keeping me employed," Rove said.
Ohio will be crucial again to Republicans in the 2008 presidential election.
No Republican has won the presidency without carrying the state, which gave President Bush the White House in 2004, and only two Democrats have won without it in the past 100 years.
A key issue to this year's midterm elections will be campaigning against Democrats who voted against the Patriot Act, Rove said.
Recent attempts by extremists to start civil war in Iraq by blowing up a sacred mosque have not succeeded because political and religious leaders in the country eased tensions by calling for calm, Rove said.
"Why? Because they know Americans stand with them," Rove said. "As long as America stands with them, Iraqi people will reject al-Qaida's attempt to start civil war."
Only 39 percent of Americans support the way Bush has handled Iraq, according to the latest AP-Ipsos poll. Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq, the poll showed.
Rove did not mention several contentious issues surrounding the White House, including the political storm that forced the reversal of a deal allowing a Dubai company to take over operations at six U.S. ports.
Rove did defend the administration's anti-terrorism efforts and defended its warrantless eavesdropping program.
"President Bush believes that if al-Qaida is calling someone inside the United States, we should know who they are calling and what they are saying," he said.
> American's don't run
Thank God.
> The Bush administration will not pull American troops out of Iraq until victory is won, despite the growing number of Democrats urging a withdrawal, presidential adviser Karl Rove said Saturday.
> Abandoning Iraq now would signal to U.S. allies that America can't be trusted, Rove said.
It would also be the clearest possible signal to America's enemies that America could be attacked with impunity and resisted effectively by guerilla warfare. Thereafter, 9/11 would look like a pillow-fight compared to what would follow.
To paraphrase Winston L S Churchill, America is "fighting to save the whole world from (Muslim) tyrrany." The pillow-fighters on the Left should stand safely to one side and watch politely while the job gets done.
Good on President Bush. He is a fine Wartime President with many admirers DownUnder. In his own quirky way, he will go down in History alongside the likes of Churchill and Wellington and Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt: great wartime leaders tend to like to hang out together.
HERE HERE..thanks for your support!! Seems some of our congresscritters are abandoning ship in the storm and will risk lossing the congress to their own fears and personal ambitions!! I detest them for playing politics with our national security because of poll numbers that the press manipulates and massages for lefty reasons. If the sane world does not get a handle on world wide policies pretty soon concerning our 'enemies'..we better all buy forty acres,a mule and horde 60 days of water,tuna, and gasoline under our beds...because all is lost!! Not to mention plenty of guns and ammo when the 'vice police' from the 'shariah law' mounty police start going door to door! I hope they start in California....LOL...on the beaches of 'Barbra' Streisands 'estate'...she would look good in a burka........
> I hope they start in California....LOL...on the beaches of 'Barbra' Streisands 'estate'...she would look good in a burka........
LOL! A paper bag would do!
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