McCain: Americans led to believe Iraq 'day at the beach' (Says we were Misled!)

Ohio.com - Akron Beacon Journal ^ | 8/22/06

[areafiftyone]

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain, who has been a staunch defender of the war in Iraq, said Tuesday that the sacrifices required were underestimated and Americans were misled into believing the conflict would be "some kind of day at the beach."

McCain, who has said the U.S. military should have gone into Iraq despite questions raised later about intelligence, said Americans feel frustrated because they had no idea of the toll the war would take.

"I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required. Stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes...," McCain said during a campaign stop on behalf of fellow Republican Sen. Mike DeWine.

"We had not told the American people how tough and difficult this could be. It has contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking."

McCain, considered a possible 2008 presidential contender, campaigned in a state expected to be crucial again to the presidential race, having given President Bush the electoral votes he needed to win in 2004.

McCain has supported the American presence in Iraq. He said Monday in an appearance in suburban Cleveland that if American troops announce a specific date to leave Iraq, insurgents will bide their time until they have an opportunity without interference from the U.S. troops.

"The chaos that would ensue would have direct implications for our national security," McCain said.

Other Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, have been more vocal in their criticism of the war.

[thoughtomator]

I guess Hyptonized in Hanoi slept through the President's speech on the subject?

[TommyDale]

Yeah, and McCain led us to believe he was a Republican!!

[Alex1977]

[eureka!]

Take a break, McVain. Can't you go a day without seeing your name in the press? Just one? Please?

[BradtotheBone]

One beef I do have with the administration was that it was announced or implied that the oil revenues would offset the cost of the war to the Amrerican taxpayer. To this day, that has not happened.

[Froufrou]

Day at the beach? How asinine.

[SF Republican]

Feinstien said the same thing this morning; I do not recall the "day at the beach" or "they will welcome us with open arms" ever being mentioned by this administation.

[Alex1977]

Lincoln Chafee and John McCain agree...

/ I'm astoinished - NOT

[MNJohnnie]

McIssane is a lying sack of dog crap McInsane. NO one promised anyone a walk in the park in Iraq!

[Alex1977]

Lincoln Chafee and John McCain agree...

/ I'm astonished - NOT

[cripplecreek]

I guess some of us aren't as easilly fooled as the weathervane. I had concerns from the beginning.

[Froufrou]

Where on earth did you hear that?

[areafiftyone]

McNUT is playing to the Democrats now.

[PhiKapMom]

Yeah, and McCain led us to believe he was a Republican!!

Good one and so true!

[TexasCajun]

Well, we did annihilate the Iraq Army in less than a week!

The Iraq War has been over for a very long time now.

The reconstruction is the problems with Iran & Syria the main troublemakers.

[coconutt2000]

I remember arguing with liberals who thought Iraq was going to be a quickie. I tried to get it through to them that it was going to be at least a five year occupation.

Oh, I think progress so far has been phenomenal. At the rate that the Iraqi troops were coming online, I was beginning to expect that this year would see the reduction of our troops by at least half, if not better.

I was saddened by the how rapidly the situation deteriorated last year when the liberals took control of the debate and turned Katrina into an indictment of the President's foreign policy. Don't ask me how they did it. I don't know. I can only blame the problems we're experiencing in the WoT on the MSM. If not for the utterly irresponsible press coverage, the terrorists would've given up on Iraq two years ago and moved on to fighting us elsewhere.

It is the illusory hope that the media holds out to the terrorists that keeps them tied to supporting the terror operations in Iraq. Take away the foreign support for terror within Iraq, and it collapses to a problem that the Iraqi security forces could handle even now.

[Unam Sanctam]

We were consistently told the opposite by the administration, i.e., that it would not be a cakewalk.

[areafiftyone]

The reconstruction is the problems with Iran & Syria the main troublemakers.

And they will always be troublemakers. They will never let Iraqis live in peace.

[Dixie Yooper]

Check the polls, adjust your stand on issues. Anything for a dollar, anything for a vote.

[AFreeBird]

Her Heinous, Queen Hitlery tried to pull that crap on Rumsfeld. He slapped her down with the fact that neither he, nor the administration ever said it was going to be a walk on the beach, or words to that effect.

[bmwcyle]

I never heard Bush say; sand, sun, fun, vacation, one day, beach, swimming, beach balls, sharks, fishing, surfing, or any other related item. McCain is sick and should be retired now.

[notigar]

Wolfowitz

[TexasCajun]

MeCain/Lieberman 08 -- Republicrat Party?

[edzo4]

wow, parroting the DNC and MSM talking points
what a maverick!

[CaptainK]

Unfortunately for John, they won't be voting in the primaries.

[CaptainK]

Unfortunately for John, they won't be voting in the primaries.

[BradtotheBone]

You are right, Wolfowitz.

[TommyDale]

John McCain is making the same mistake as Rudy Giuliani...

Southern and Midwestern conservatives will not vote for the candidates who stand against them on the issues:

Abortion
Partial Birth Abortion
Higher Taxes
Gun Control and/or Confiscation
Religious issues
Homosexual Agenda
School Vouchers
Illegal Invaders and/or Immigrants Amnesty

..... IN ADDITION to national security.

[meandog]

I think one of the biggest mistakes we (Bush) made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required. Stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes..., (but they wouldn't happen had I been in charge)" McCain said during a campaign stop on behalf of fellow Republican Sen. Mike DeWine. "We (Bush) had not told the American people how tough and difficult this could be. It (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld have) has contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us (xcpt Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking."

[VeniVidiVici]

With any luck maybe he'll join the Connecticut for Joe party.

[PackerBronco]

One beef I do have with the administration was that it was announced or implied that the oil revenues would offset the cost of the war

Really? When did you hear that? Can you provide a citation? I only ask because I heard a lot of that talk from pundits but never heard that said by someone in the administration. In fact, I heard just the opposite: time-after-time the administration stated that the oil revenues belonged to Iraqi people; but I would readily admit my error if you could provide evidence.

[Coop]

McCain is absolutely frightening, considering how close he may one day be to the nuclear button. Aaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!

The guy's a complete idiot.

[Mad Dawg]

I swear the problem in DC is these guys just slip into believing the MSM. Anybody who thought this would be a piece of cake just wasn't paying attention.

I'm sorry. I know he's a hero and everything, but I really do not like what McCain stands for.

[MNJohnnie]

Yeah I would like to see the source for this claim about Oil Revenues paying for the war as well.

[Chi-townChief]

Nah - and most of the "cakewalk" b/s was also said by the lefties.

[MNJohnnie]

Wolfowitz

Link to a source proving this?

[TexasCajun]

"Errrrrr Give me that damn briefcase!"

Be afraid, be very afraid.

[Prokopton]

"It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog."

Donald Rumsfeld, October 16, 2003

[day10]

[caisson71]

I will never vote for that jerk.

[MNJohnnie]

I don't hear any promises about a day at the beach here. Do you?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

****Snip

---

The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and our friends and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi's legal -- Iraq's illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups.

We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. (Applause.)

Tonight I have a message for the men and women who will keep the peace, members of the American Armed Forces: Many of you are assembling in or near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lay ahead. In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you. Your training has prepared you. Your honor will guide you. You believe in America, and America believes in you. (Applause.)

Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a President can make. The technologies of war have changed; the risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means -- sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military -- and we will prevail. (Applause.)

And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food and medicines and supplies -- and freedom. (Applause.)

Many challenges, abroad and at home, have arrived in a single season. In two years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril; from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes. And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.

Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. (Applause.)

We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not know -- we do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.

May He guide us now. And may God continue to bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

[monday]

"And they will always be troublemakers. They will never let Iraqis live in peace."

Pu-lease! Iraqi's themselves don't want to live in peace. The Shiites hate the Sunni's and the Sunni's hate the Shiites and everyone hates the Kurds. There will never be peace in Iraq until they get another brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein.

The only thing Iraqi's respect is brutal raw power. They must live in fear to live in peace. It is the way of Islam.

[OldFriend]

Just called DeWine's office and suggested having McCain carry his purse is not a good way to get the republican votes in Ohio.

Associating with a backstabbing traitor is not helpful at all so perhaps Sen. DeWine might want to rethink his association with McCain.

[wideawake]

That's a fake DNC talking point.

From day one the administration said that the oil revenues of Iraq belonged to Iraq and that any claim that we were going to war in order to secure oil revenues or resources for the US was false.

[gdani]

“There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
(House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03)

____________________

“I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
(Senate Appropriations Hearing, 3/27/03)

[John D]

I'm sorry. I know he's a hero and everything,



A hero??? How do you figure he is a hero? A hero is someone who does something brave. What did he ever do that was brave. He did get shot down and was a POW, but he did not do anything brave. In fact he did just the opposite, he gave the cong all the information he knew and they wanted.

[NC28203]

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: “There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld:If you worry about just the cost, the money, Iraq is a very different situation from Afghanistan…Iraq has oil. They have financial resources.” [Source: Fortune Magazine, Fall 2002]

State Department Official Alan Larson: “On the resource side, Iraq itself will rightly shoulder much of the responsibilities. Among the sources of revenue available are $1.7 billion in invested Iraqi assets, the found assets in Iraq…and unallocated oil-for-food money that will be deposited in the development fund.” [Source: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Iraq Stabilization, 06/04/03]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it. [Source: Senate Appropriations Hearing, 3/27/03]

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I thought we were told that this was the next Viet Nam.

That this war would drag on for 25 years with no sign of a victory in sight.

That there would be 200,000 American casualties.

That Islamic countries would never succumb to Western armies no matter how technologically sophisticated.

Just like Afghanistan.

[BW2221]

While I am hardly a fan of McCain, I admit thought we would be much further along after 3-1/2 years. Like most people, I didn't know enough about Islam.