Kerry: ‘I Was Wrong' On Iraq

CNSNews.com ^ | June 13, 2006 | Nathan Burchfiel

[bitt]

'He never has released his "secret plan to end the war" that he claimed to have in the debates has he?'

and he should be held accountable for all the troop deaths that followed.....

[ASA Vet]

John who?

Oh come on Dog, surely you remember this cute little bunny.

[Tribune7]

When is he going to sign Form 180?

[Christian4Bush]

Because responding to a comment you didn't actually hear is not very smart.

Why did those of us who don't get paid to do this, hear it (or read it), and those who do, didn't? (if that is what happened). Besides, the quote said they weren't available to comment. It didn't say they didn't hear the remarks. And if they didn't, or did - and weren't available to respond, my question remains "why not?"

[mewzilla]

[sgtbono2002]

Has Kerry ever been right? Even after the flip-flop he has some BS answer.

[AmericaUnited]

The best Kerry of all time:

[ASA Vet]

When is he going to sign Form 180?

He did sign it, he just didn't send it in.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

"We were misled, we were given evidence that was not true,"

Baloney. No one was misled except those who fixated on the WMD issue (which, to be fair, included a number of people in the executive branch). Deposing a dictator who necessitated the stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia, establishing a democracy and ally in the region, creating a catalyst for democratic uprisings in the surrounding dictatorships - all of these reasons were and are valid and important.

In hindsight, disbanding the Iraqi army, purging the Iraqi governmental apparatus at the behest of the Shi'ites, and not committing enough soldiers to the occupation seem to have been mistakes according to the experts, but the reconstruction of Iraq is happening, and the results can only be positive.

[DCPatriot]

"The true pessimists are those who do not understand that valuing our principles is critical to our national security and it is as critical to our national security as our military power itself."

Okay, so let's define "our principles", John.

That we are a peace-loving people who respect an individual's right to be the best they can be. And that we expect our government and President to keep us safe from enemies foreign and domestic.

All the intelligence available according to your own quotes and those of William Jefferson Clinton, Madeline Albright, et al indicated that Iraq had at the very least poison gas (WMD). It would have ended up in some crazy Islamist hands inside our borders.

So? Who misled us?

NOBODY!

Therefore you just admitted that you are not capable to lead this country because by voting against the war, you were shirking your duty and oath.

He's a despicable person who is walking the line of treason.

This country dealt with treason appropriately in the colonial days.

You know... when we were enforcing our Constitution.

[AmericaUnited]

The best Kerry of all time: = The best Kerry PICTURE of all time:

[builder]

It's a Woman's prerogative to change her mind.

[Dog Gone]

The key word is IMMEDIATELY.

You're leaving that out of your analysis, aren't you?

And what's your point, anyway? That the Republicans have to instantly respond to anything that the Democrats say or you'll type a complaint in 24 pt bold type?

[alarm rider]

Here Ladies and Gentlemen, we see the blatant stupidity of the democrat party. The base is nutwad, and Kerry is nutwad enough to play to the base. The democrat party does not get it, they stand for nothing but themselves, are all facade & have no core. Personally, I think Kerry is and has been a traitor and the people that elected him to congress are disgraceful.

[Question Liberal Authority]

He actually was right, before he was wrong.

[bitt]

I just love re-reading good stories....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0408,schanberg,51276,1.html

When John Kerry's Courage Went M.I.A.
Senator covered up evidence of P.O.W.'s left behind

by Sydney H. Schanberg
February 24th, 2004 1:00 PM


Related Articles:
"Did America Abandon Vietnam War POWs?" by Sydney H. Schanberg

"Follow the Microfiche"

Vets Demonstrate Against 'Jane Fonda Kerry' on Park Ave ( 2 min. 8 sec.)




Senator John Kerry, a decorated battle veteran, was courageous as a navy lieutenant in the Vietnam War. But he was not so courageous more than two decades later, when he covered up voluminous evidence that a significant number of live American prisoners—perhaps hundreds—were never acknowledged or returned after the war-ending treaty was signed in January 1973.

The Massachusetts senator, now seeking the presidency, carried out this subterfuge a little over a decade ago— shredding documents, suppressing testimony, and sanitizing the committee's final report—when he was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on P.O.W./ M.I.A. Affairs.

Over the years, an abundance of evidence had come to light that the North Vietnamese, while returning 591 U.S. prisoners of war after the treaty signing, had held back many others as future bargaining chips for the $4 billion or more in war reparations that the Nixon administration had pledged. Hanoi didn't trust Washington to fulfill its pro-mise without pressure. Similarly, Washington didn't trust Hanoi to return all the prisoners and carry out all the treaty provisions. The mistrust on both sides was merited. Hanoi held back prisoners and the U.S. provided no reconstruction funds.

The stated purpose of the special Senate committee—which convened in mid 1991 and concluded in January 1993—was to investigate the evidence about prisoners who were never returned and find out what happened to the missing men. Committee chair Kerry's larger and different goal, though never stated publicly, emerged over time: He wanted to clear a path to normalization of relations with Hanoi. In any other context, that would have been an honorable goal. But getting at the truth of the unaccounted for P.O.W.'s and M.I.A.'s (Missing In Action) was the main obstacle to normalization—and therefore in conflict with his real intent and plan of action.

Kerry denied back then that he disguised his real goal, contending that he supported normalization only as a way to learn more about the missing men. But almost nothing has emerged about these prisoners since diplomatic and economic relations were restored in 1995, and thus it would appear—as most realists expected—that Kerry's explanation was hollow. He has also denied in the past the allegations of a cover-up, either by the Pentagon or himself. Asked for comment on this article, the Kerry campaign sent a quote from the senator: "In the end, I think what we can take pride in is that we put together the most significant, most thorough, most exhaustive accounting for missing and former P.O.W.'s in the history of human warfare."

What was the body of evidence that prisoners were held back? A short list would include more than 1,600 firsthand sightings of live U.S. prisoners; nearly 14,000 secondhand reports; numerous intercepted Communist radio messages from within Vietnam and Laos about American prisoners being moved by their captors from one site to another; a series of satellite photos that continued into the 1990s showing clear prisoner rescue signals carved into the ground in Laos and Vietnam, all labeled inconclusive by the Pentagon; multiple reports about unacknowledged prisoners from North Vietnamese informants working for U.S. intelligence agencies, all ignored or declared unreliable; persistent complaints by senior U.S. intelligence officials (some of them made publicly) that live-prisoner evidence was being suppressed; and clear proof that the Pentagon and other keepers of the "secret" destroyed a variety of files over the years to keep the P.O.W./M.I.A. families and the public from finding out and possibly setting off a major public outcry.

The resignation of Colonel Millard Peck in 1991, the first year of the Kerry committee's tenure, was one of many vivid landmarks in this saga's history. Peck had been the head of the Pentagon's P.O.W./M.I.A. office for only eight months when he resigned in disgust. In his damning departure statement, he wrote: "The mind-set to 'debunk' is alive and well. It is held at all levels . . . Practically all analysis is directed to finding fault with the source. Rarely has there been any effective, active follow-through on any of the sightings . . . The sad fact is that . . . a cover-up may be in progress. The entire charade does not appear to be an honest effort and may never have been."

Finally, Peck said: "From what I have witnessed, it appears that any soldier left in Vietnam, even inadvertently, was in fact abandoned years ago, and that the farce that is being played is no more than political legerdemain done with 'smoke and mirrors' to stall the issue until it dies a natural death."

---

What did Kerry do in furtherance of the cover-up? An overview would include the following: He allied himself with those carrying it out by treating the Pentagon and other prisoner debunkers as partners in the investigation instead of the targets they were supposed to be. In short, he did their bidding. When Defense Department officials were coming to testify, Kerry would have his staff director, Frances Zwenig, meet with them to "script" the hearings—as detailed in an internal Zwenig memo leaked by others. Zwenig also advised North Vietnamese officials on how to state their case. Further, Kerry never pushed or put up a fight to get key government documents unclassified; he just rolled over, no matter how obvious it was that the documents contained confirming data about prisoners. Moreover, after promising to turn over all committee records to the National Archives when the panel concluded its work, the senator destroyed crucial intelligence information the staff had gathered—to to keep the documents from becoming public. He refused to subpoena past presidents and other key witnesses.

When revelatory sworn testimony was given to the committee by President Reagan's national security adviser, Richard Allen—about a credible proposal from Hanoi in 1981 to return more than 50 prisoners for a $4 billion ransom—Kerry had that testimony taken in a closed door interview, not a public hearing. But word leaked out and a few weeks later, Allen sent a letter to the committee, not under oath, recanting his testimony, saying his memory had played tricks on him. Kerry never did any probe into Allen's original, detailed account, and instead accepted his recantation as gospel truth.

A Secret Service agent then working at the White House, John Syphrit, told committee staffers he had overheard part of a conversation about the Hanoi proposal for ransom. He said he was willing to testify but feared reprisal from his Treasury Department superiors and would need to be subpoenaed so that his appearance could not be regarded as voluntary. Kerry refused to subpoena him. Syphrit told me that four men were involved in that conversation—Reagan, Allen, Vice President George H.W. Bush, and CIA director William Casey. I wrote the story for Newsday.

The final Kerry report brushed off the entire episode like unsightly dust. It said: "The committee found no credible evidence of any such [ransom] offer being made."

...MORE...

[Christian4Bush]

It's a Woman's prerogative to change her mind.

WINNER!!!!!!!!!

[Tribune7]

I think I do recall that now. He's pathetic.

[bobhoskins]

I'm proud to say, as a resident of Massachusetts, that I voted against Kerry before I voted against him. And I'll continue to do so.

[Darkwolf377]

Oh, please--he's "Speaking Truth To Power" and you expect him to deal with facts?