Chronicle's Cragg (pronounced "Craig") Continues Leftist Lies

So let's talk turkey about just where we are on Iraq

By CRAGG HINES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

If the question already is or ever becomes, "Who lost Iraq?" the answer is not Jack Murtha.

Nor Howard Dean. Nor John McCain. Nor Eric Shinseki. Nor even that pair of Euro-calculators, Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schroeder.

George W. Bush will have had to manage that, with a little help from Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice and a cast of go-along supporters.

And if Iraq happens to be "won" (just try defining that in relation to our current Babylonian bamboozlement), then as Brent Scowcroft has asked, "At what cost?"

So is it no-win? Sort of looks like it. This is not a reflection on anyone's military sacrifice or on anyone's (including my own) gullibility regarding weapons of mass destruction.

This is an assessment of the best-case scenario of what we can see about a year down the road, even if Dec. 15 elections in Iraq are modestly successful and a government creaks along under a problematic constitution and holds things together short of an all-out civil war.

The worst-case scenario is a civil war that draws in Iran, Syria and Turkey. Then we'd find that U.S. efforts, by removing Saddam Hussein (as satisfying as that may have been), have only accentuated the geopolitical power vacuum that was a principal reason that George H.W. Bush (and Scowcroft) opted not to hound retreating Iraqis up the Highway of Death in 1991.

And who would most recently have set the stage for Iraq to be a nasty little terrorist breeding ground? Well, let's just say he'll be spending his Thanksgiving holiday in McLennan County.

The question of medium-range scenarios is at the heart of the debate ignited last week by a speech by Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa. If you have not read it in its entirety, do so. It's on Murtha's House Web site at http://www.house.gov/murtha. In tone and preparation, the speech is, if anything, restrained.

What's interesting — and little done in the wake of various mischaracterizations of Murtha's speech — is to compare his proposal to what the White House plans. At least as manifested by the apparent intent of Central Command, Bush seems to have in mind the beginning of a significant drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq by spring.

This is the signal the White House is sending to calm political allies looking ahead to the 2006 midterm elections. "We're going to be on our way out of Iraq," Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said Tuesday when asked how the war will figure in 2006 voting.

Once the pullout begins, the only difference between Murtha and Bush is pace, positioning and the old troop-level argument.

On that point, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., among others, continues to contend that there have never been enough boots on the ground. That's the sort of observation that got Gen. John Shenseki fired, so no wonder the remaining brass doesn't clamor publicly for more personnel.

Cragg is so very typical of the MSM Left-wing bias. There is little of the truth in his assertions. "Best case?" The "best case" scenario is a continuation of what we are witnessing currently. The gradual progression of a state that has never before experienced self-government and liberty toward that same. Unfettered free elections, constitutional government, slow growth toward self-reliance (both political and military), gradual reconciling of political and religious differences, a gradual realization that disagreements need not mean irreconcilable differences nor result in open hostility, the gradual growth in national confidence as the realize they can do "democracy" as well as people in the west. Add to this the tremendous increase in stability this will bring to the Middle East. What cost is this worth? You tell me. Ask the soldiers if they believe it is worth the cost. Ask the Iraqi people if they believe it is worth the cost. Ask them why they keep lining up to serve as police and military when so many are targeted and killed by the terrorists. By the way Cragg Shenseki was not fired, he retired as he was scheduled to do. You Liberals just don't handle the truth too well do you? I guess that's because it is such an alien concept to you.

Full Editorial: Some Leftist Can Spell Their Names, Some Can't

What do you think?

To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below