So, which is it? Are the Iraqis nearly ready to defend themselves, or would pulling out put the Iraqis at risk of terrorist attacks? If you're properly preparing the Iraqis it will make no difference to the terrorists WHEN you leave.

"We're leaving on September 8th, 2005. On 9/7/05, American soldiers will kick your ass. On 9/8/05, Iraqi soldiers will kick your ass." Done. Deadline set. No green light for terrorists.

Man, make me the fucking President!

Is it really a good thing that "more and more Iraqis are becoming battle-hardened"? Isn't that the problem?

Did he also thank the whales for allowing him to make burgers out of them?

Well, he ought to, I mean, why not, right? It makes as much sense.



c-

what makes NO sense adnd is maybe tell-tale of our president, is this statement. I thought the past 20+ yrs of living under Saddam sucked. He is acting like they are taking teenagers out of Beverly Hills and making them fight. "THey are finally getting battle-hardened." I have to think that Iraqis know alot more than us about loss. What an ..............

And LIKE the Pres knows a Damn thing about battle-hardened himself! Urgh!

Wow.

You're really confused there? It's nice to see they came from two different days because he's talking about two different different things. I don't even know where to start with this mess. Whether the Iraqi's are becoming "battle hardened" and ready to take over more of the effort has nothing to do with the simple fact that it's stupid to tell your enemy, "this is when we're leaving, we're gonna take away X-number of personal, here's how we plan to do it." See, Mr. Bush learned something from Somalia.

As for battle hardened, I don't understand why you're confused about that either. Living a hard life under a dictator means nothing about fighting a guerrilla style war against an un-uniformed enemy. You don't think experience in the actual field is having no positive effect on the Iraqi's who are fighting this? That's crazy. Knowing about loss, again, is completely seperate from compitence as a war fighter.

That's exactly my point. Bush tells us that we won't leave until the Iraqis are prepared to protect themselves. So, what difference does it make if we tell the terrorists when that will be. Because if the Iraqis are ready to defend themselves, it won't matter.

All Congress (and me for that matter) wants is a deadline. A goal. That's how you show success. If you refuse to set goals, it's because you're afraid to show that you're failing.

*separate (remember, there's a rat in separate.

*competence (this is one you should really try to get right)

Sure it does. You make your own internal judgements. You don't broadcast them to your enemy to prevent planning. You gradually pull out at your discretion. Think of setting dates for elections. It just begs to have attacks on that day. You do things on the down low to keep your enemy on his toes.



When has such a deadline ever been required before? What would make you happy? What day? Because I don't care what happens, you're pick it apart. If it's tomorrow, you will say it's too early. If it's two years from now, it will be too late. Either or, nothing will satisfy you.

You're right, I would probably pick the date apart and hate it regardless of when it was. I hate Bush. He can't do anything right by me, but at least Bush would be able to show that he wasn't failing miserably, or if he was he'd know it and be able to make adjustments accordingly.

Either way you'd call it a failure though...

It doesn't matter what it happens in regards to anything with you. It's all Bush's fault. If something bad happens, it's his fault, and if something good happens, you'll never attribute it to his actions.

Either way, I think the war was unneccesary and immoral, but because I believe that Bush should just throw his arms up and keep letting more soldiers die? Set a goal and get out.

What could I say? I hated the war, but we ended it. I didn't agree with the deadline, but we stuck to it.

Well he did kind of want the job. He took credit for the elections so he should accept the criticism.

I have more of a problem with so many americans changing their mind about the war now. What the hell did they think would happen? Idiots

I am finding this to be an oft used and abused excuse to not tell the american people what is going on and when we can reasonably expect the fighting to stop and the troops to come home.

And the more I hear this excuse, the more it cements in my mind the idea that the war is running the gov't, not the other way around.

I understand the need to keep operations secret, and to keep the enemy off balance, but come on...how many times can that excuse be pulled out? How many times can it really be applied to what congress is asking for?



Exactly. Setting goals and divulging operational tactics are two completely different things.

As for the waning interest in the war, the death of so many soldiers with so little explanation as to why it is happening (or rather, with an explanation that was proved to be a lie i.e. Saddam has WMD's) has that effect. It is not fickleness, it is wanting no more soldiers to die for something that is not quite as black and white as Bush would like the American people to believe.

If this did happen, do you think you could seriously hold up your end of the bargain?



Even if it is aimless? Even if it is just...matter of fact-like criticism? I'm telling you, the only reason the media and you guys want them to come out with a goal, is so you can criticize further. Again, Bush cannot win here. If he doesn't come out with a goal, then there's this diatribe. If he sets it tomorrow, it's too soon. If he sets it two years from now, it's too long. And no matter what happens, you guys are going to criticize it anyway. It makes no difference to you guys. I give immense credit to B for at least admitting that.





In this case, I see the goal, and the deadline as two completely different things. If you want a goal established, by my estimations, that'd be cool. But you're doing nothing but black-balling with dates.



Are you saying this is not viable? I'll reiterate again: SOMALIA! Do you realize how many thousands of people died because of what of what we did? Sure, our soldier's got out...the ramifications were devestating though. Setting dates would do nothing more than set up a repeat of history in regards to that humanitarian catastrophe.

If Bush said a timeline and stuck to it, I would be so flabbergasted ... I'm sure I'd shut up for a whole day, at least!