Posted on 09/18/2005 2:48:44 PM PDT by wallcrawlr
Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.
Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."
The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had," Bush said in an interview with an ABC's "This Week" programme.
Clinton said there had been a "heroic but so far unsuccessful" effort to put together an constitution that would be universally supported in Iraq.
The US strategy of trying to develop the Iraqi military and police so that they can cope without US support "I think is the best strategy. The problem is we may not have, in the short run, enough troops to do that," said Clinton.
On Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted the authorities' failure to evacuate New Orleans ahead of the storm's strike on August 29.
People with cars were able to heed the evacuation order, but many of those who were poor, disabled or elderly were left behind.
"If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out," Clinton.
He agreed that some responsibility for this lay with the local and state authorities, but pointed the finger, without naming him, at the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
FEMA boss Michael Brown quit in response to criticism of his handling of the Katrina disaster. He was viewed as a political appointee with no experience of disaster management or dealing with government officials.
"When James Lee Witt ran FEMA, because he had been both a local official and a federal official, he was always there early, and we always thought about that," Clinton said, referring to FEMA's head during his 1993-2001 presidency.
"But both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people."
On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.
"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.
"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."
Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."
Clinton launches withering attack on Bush
Freepers launch withering attack on Bush
Bill Clinton was elected, wrongly imo, by the American people TWICE. He is a Former President. Our current President respects the will of the American people and treats him in accordance with respect, given the circle of Presidential winners is few, and in companion with Christian charity.
IF anyone dislikes that, fine. Your right. G.W.B. doesn't give a damn. He will not change HIS OWN CHARACTER to suit your bitterness toward the ex-President.
Besides, if anyone could look outside the realm of that narrowed complaint, you'd see how attacking Bush only has diminished Clinton. He has become just another Democrat, whereas ONCE he actually had some distinction from them given his office. If he keeps this up he'll be vying with Carter for stature.
God Forbid she becomes.......I can't even say it....but if she does, we could have a Nuclear attack on a major city and open warfare with Al Qaeda in the streets of New York and LA and the responibility would be placed on George W Bush.
When Clinton gets through, he'll have as much credibility as Cindy Sheehan. There are so many obvious lies in this interview (e.g., his FEMA's rapid response, FEMA should have had buses lined up beforehand, there was no evidence of WMD's in Iraq), that he's already made a fool of himself. He's off his stride - maybe the operation had something to do with it.
That's because too many so-called Republicans think that we can only beat a Liberal by running a RINO Liberal of our own.
These are the same people who snipe at Republicans who stand up for defending our borders and telling the Islamofascists what to expect if they launch a WMD attack on us.
Sure-fire way to lose the next election to Shrillary and crew is to run a RINO and tell the conservatives to suck it up (again).
They're living under the illusion that Democrats are Americans. With the exception of Zell Miller, they're not.
Would that be the same James Lee Whitt who was just getting into action three WEEKS after Hurricane Floyd? The same Clinton who, with his wife, said Iraq had WMDs? I thought so. Did Little Stephy ask any followup questions about that? I though not.
That is EXACTLY what I told my husband too this morning...I feel this very strongly and pray the media covers it like they should but know they won't.
Powerful people stick together, no matter what they may say about each other in public.
This means nothing to Bush. We're only another disaster away from seen Bush-1 and X42 being best buddies again, no matter how much Slick runs his mouth.
Wrong face wrong place.
Looks like the Dims have seen the early polls (as well as viewing the initial response) to President Bush's speech on Thursday. I haven't seen any, but my guess is that the President's speech clearly delineates the real differences between conservative and liberal reaction to Katrina.
This is a desparate attempt to minimize any rebound in favorable ratings the President is realizing due to his proposals for rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Hillary can't directly respond to either the President nor the disaster (other than to call for an independent investigation) (Where has she been since then BTW?) so she sends out flub-a-dub to bite his lower lip and say "We'd a dun' better.
I'm so f'ing angry that these scum still command this unholy reverence from so many Americans I could (and do scream). For this bastard (which I believe may be an accurate Biblical description) to virtually deny his own assessment of ties between AQ and Sadam, say that the UN did not authorize intervention, praise Witt (who Blanco put in charge of post Katrina ops), and complain that we didn't have enough troops (that his own administration depleted through budget cuts) just flat torques me off.
Oh yeah, while I'm at it, he doesn't fail to mention again that he now is in the top 1% of taxpayers and I'm still waiting for him to send his "Gift" back to the US Treasury.
I'm sorry if this is rambling, but I had to vent since my parents, who are bivouaced with me since their home in Slidell was heavily damaged have already suffered through the worst part of my reaction to this POS and I still want them to respect me in the future.
Since this position on Iraq is diametrically opposed to his WINO, I guess Slick and Slickette are playing "good cop, bad cop"
The Arkansas Grifters conning the American people once again.
Am I the only one who strongly believes there would be a real Constitutional problem if ( God forbid )Hillary were elected POTUS? And if Slick had access to everything in the Oval Office ...and I'm talking top secret here, not interns.
fbi files !!!
AFP left this part out....
From NRO
http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_09_18_corner-archive.asp#076813
SPEAKING OF CLINTON [Byron York]
Kathryn -- Thank you for your enthusiasm about the effort to find common ground with the 42nd president after all that, you know, unpleasantness. Just for the record, Clinton had appeared earlier on "Meet the Press" and was asked about the war in Iraq. He said he believed the United States invaded prematurely and that it had hurt America's image in the world, but then added:
On on the other hand, Saddam is gone and 58 percent of those people voted. That's an even higher percentage of people than voted in America in 2004, when we were proud of our turnout and when nobody's life was at risk. So there's still a chance this will work. And if it does, there's still a chance it will be a net plus for the Middle East.
My very thoughts.
And it should be a lesson to every GOPer with power, tempted at all to listen to the Dems begging, "Oh, just make this one little compromise, this one little gesture, and we'll play along! Just name a moderate, President Bush. Just do this, just do that."
Baloney.
Dan
Same reason "some" men beat women, it's a lot easier to beat on someone when you consider them weaker ....
Wonder if he sent an email to Pres. Bush and told him "you better put some ice on that"?
I think BJclinton has been green with envy because Pres. Bush had opportunities to have a great legacy and BJ "thinks" he was just unlucky. He doesn't get it that his legacy is infidelity and that no amount of national tragedy would have changed his legacy.
George Allen! I hope. We will lose if the Rep.'s keep listening to whoever tell's them to keep the likes of Chaffe in instead of the guy running against him, they are doing the same thing to Harris in Florida, they did the same thing with Specter, Coburn was another example but he won, I am tired of it. I also we want strong consevatives in the congress. We will lose if people don't start paying attention soon to what the base wants.
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