Posted on 12/02/2006 8:49:34 AM PST by Dark Skies
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday she is certain the United States has made mistakes in the Iraq war, but the world will have to wait until she is out of government to learn what she thinks they were.
"As to whether the United States has made mistakes: of course, I'm sure we have," Rice told interviewer Saad Sillawi of the Arabic satellite television station Al-Arabiya. "You can't be involved in something as big as the liberation of a country like Iraq, and all that has happened since, and I'm sure there are things that we could have done differently."
She told Sillawi, however, that the Bush administration is looking ahead, not backward.
"When I'm back at Stanford University," she said, "I can look back and write books about what we might have done differently."
Rice was a political science professor and later provost at Stanford. She was interviewed at a conference in Jordan, and the State Department distributed the transcript in Washington.
I was once a real Condi fan. But now I look for to seeing her return to Stanford.
Colin been whispering in her ear?
Me too. I'd like to read those books.
yes mistakes were made. they should haved killed that Sdar cleric in the beginning. I wish they would rectify that mistake soon.
I know that in my job, I have made mistakes. In the middle of fighting an issue is not the time to do a review though. I see nothing wrong with reviewing after the fact to see how you might have done it differently, if the objective is to improve the way it is done in the future.
Colin Powell's problem is that he is criticizing the effort while it is in progress.
Condi is smart to wait until later.
Show me a war where mistakes haven't been made and I'll show you a liar.
Many new arrangements are being contrived as a result of the hard experience through which we have passed and the many mistakes which no doubt we have made - for success is the result of making many mistakes and learning from experience. If the lull is to end, if the storm is to renew itself, we will be ready, will will not flinch, we can take it again.
We ask no favours of the enemy. We seek from them no compunction. On the contrary, if tonight our people were asked to cast their vote whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of cities, the overwhelming majority would cry, "No, we will mete out to them the measure, and more than the measure, that they have meted out to us." The people with one voice would say: "You have committed every crime under the sun. Where you have been the least resisted there you have been the most brutal. It was you who began the indiscriminate bombing. We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst - and we will do our best." Perhaps it may be our turn soon; perhaps it may be our turn now.
[Winston Churchill, 14 July 1941]
I think the Administration has done a decent PR job just lately, starting with the leak of Hadley's memo. Condi should continue to be more visible. The impression given is that the adults are still in charge. Dems better keep their moonbat fringe VEWWWY QUIET -- they look like juvenile dilenquents by comparison.
It was Bremmer's fault that Sadr had not been killed. They had him in their scope sts, but Bremmer called it off
Mistake one, not closing the border.
I don't think they have made as many mistakes in Iraq as they think; I think they better watch out or they will botch the real problem which is Iran.
"No plan of battle ever survives first contact with the enemy."
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
Excellent Churchill quote. Was was true in 1941, is true today.
A lot of the usual suspects are going to criticize Rice for this statement, and thus betray their ignorance. However, she is dead on right here.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Bump.
Perhaps it is time to serve that arrest warrant on that fat pig.
What bugs me is not that mistakes are made, but that she is dwelling on them instead of dismissing any suggestion of mistakes as ridiculous. Of course mistakes were made...that's nature of any human endeavor. That's how we learn.
Saying that she is going to write a book critical of the war effort just rubs me the wrong way.
They are "juvenile delinquents"!
We really can't afford to lose. History is clear, withdrawal is read as a sign of weakness by the bin Ladens of the world.
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