Posted on 09/16/2004 8:40:27 AM PDT by Huck
“It’s beyond pitiful, it’s beyond embarrassing, it’s now in the zone of dangerous,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., referring to figures showing only about 6 percent of the reconstruction money approved by Congress last year has been spent. “We know that the provision of adequate security up front is requisite to rapid progress on all other fronts,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Ron Schlicher. Related story Powell doubts WMD will be found White House spokesman Scott McClellan said circumstances in Iraq have changed since last year. “It’s important that you have some flexibility.” But Hagel said the shift in funds “does not add up in my opinion to a pretty picture, to a picture that shows that we’re winning. But it does add up to this: an acknowledgment that we are in deep trouble.” 'Lack of planning apparent' Hagel, Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and other committee members have long argued — even before the war — that administration plans for rebuilding Iraq were inadequate and based on overly optimistic assumptions that Americans would be greeted as liberators. “Our committee heard blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and people outside the administration — what I call the ’dancing in the street crowd,’ that we just simply will be greeted with open arms,” Lugar said. “The nonsense of all of that is apparent. The lack of planning is apparent.” He said the need to shift the reconstruction funds was clear in July, but the administration was slow to make the request. “This is an extraordinary, ineffective administrative procedure. It is exasperating from anybody looking at this from any vantage point,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Um... what did they have to say about America's future? (WOOPS! It the MSM!)
Two of my least favorite Republican senators.
Yeah, the midwest's answer to Olympia Snowe.
May as well go to Paris and draw up surrender plans to al-Quada. Kerry should be able to help with the plan. Maybe he still has the VC version.
It must be why the Sunday talk shows like Hagel.
Hagel is a real jackass. The ultimate solution in Iraq is through Syria and especially Iran. Difficult as it may be, what radical states will be left after that?
Chuck Hagel is McCain's understudy.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, and North Korea, for starters. Our job's not even close to done.
/sarcasm
And the shooting stopped in Korea in 1951.
So what is the latest US intelligence estimate about when security will be restored and US troops withdrawn from the Korean peninsula? And what did the estimates say about post-war Korea when Harry Truman launched the attack?
President Bush is a leader who does not cut & run at the first sign of trouble.
If I hear the phrase "lack of planning" one more time, some libs and RINO's are flat out going to die en masse.
No-one should be allowed to say those three words EVER AGAIN without having to explain what THEIR plan was/is in excruciating detail, with equally detailed supporting evidence from history rooted in a solid understanding of human nature.
President Bush is a leader who does not cut & run at the first sign of trouble.
Don't believe anything from The Main Stream Nerds.
/sarcasm
Rebuilding a nation almost from scratch takes more than one year and a half. It takes years longer than that to build a skyscraper or stretch of highway. By my observations, there is an uptick in attacks occurring about every 4 months and each time is somewhat less than before. First, Najaf, Baghdad, Fallujah and Basra had increases in attacks. Basra has settled down. Najaf has too since the return of Sistani from Europe and killing thousands of Sadr's thugs. The recent uptick was primarily in Baghdad. Fallujah residents are targeting the foreigners in their midst for air strikes. Bit by bit, the Iraqis are doing the policing themselves. In intercepted communications, Zarqwahi(sp) is beginning to get worried about the steady attrition of his jihadists and withering of his redsources. The Syrian border is geting tighter and tighter. The Marines recently killed many infiltrators. It going to be a long slog, no doubt, but we are winning. We are winning.
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