Vice President Cheney, a man whom I admire and respect as much as any living American, has expressed an entirely different view, the insurgents are "in their last throes." His assessment has been confirmed by Porter Goss, the Director of the CIA and a man also worthy of great respect, especially when he speaks within his area of responsibility and in a manner which leaves him little wiggle room if things go wrong.
There is no middle ground here, Cheney and Hagel cannot both be right. One must be wrong. But which?
One thing I know: We cannot find the truth of the matter, except by accident, by weighing the left or right wing tendencies of the advocates. A real democracy must decide matters of destiny not by resort to personality but by examination of the facts.
I have not read any replies to this thread yet, but I can bet that several have committed the sin which I warn against. Hagel might well be wrong, but he is not wrong, or even suspect because he is a RINO.
Let those who would persuade us to one side of another do so with facts.
Meanwhile, no matter what the consensus on Hagel's view of the war, no one is likely to argue with his prescription which offers commonsense if not new thinking:
U.S. troops and others could work harder to train local militias in small Iraqi towns to help identify and take on insurgents. Allies who don't want to enter Iraq could help patrol its borders, blocking terrorists from entering the war-torn country. The training of Iraq's military and military police should be accelerated immediately.
I would certainly add to this that we must bring the leaders in Iraq, not excluding the clergy, to accept that they have a stake in its stability and the success of the new government. Therefore, they should see to it that Iraqis themselves fight to preserve that stake and even their own lives.
Therefore, they should see to it that Iraqis themselves fight to preserve that stake and even their own lives. You might read this for a little insight as to how hard the task is, however, Iraqis are taking back their country a little at a time. Making the WOT harder are the anti-American propagandists who bleat piteously about mistakes rather than the many successes in that country both by the Coalition and Iraqis themselves. It would seem that Hagel, Kennedy, Biden, Pelosi, Clinton, Reid etc. expect something akin to the sound bites we get daily from the news, immediate resolutions. The reality is that extraordinary efforts and successes are being made and not reported in the MSM or MSP. How long, for instance, did WWII take? Korea and Vietnam were actions literally trashed by Washington directing war from the comfort of their offices, our elected, not the military, lost those conflicts by their meddeling.
The Senator should read this and learn to exercise patience - the enemy is :
:
(IRAQ: Police Winning Their War)