nickshepAK

Wait...... their not liberals....

Nice little reminder that Democrats werent the only ones who opposed an invasion of Iraq or have criticized the Bush administration at one time or another.


Dick Cheney in April 1991, then Defense Secretary:

If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein,you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists?

How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2072479

President GHW Bush, 1998;

"Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

http://www.rense.com/general43/quote.htm

Brent Scowcroft, one of the Republican Party’s most respected foreign policy advisors, and national security adviser under President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, and close personal Bush friend:

Don't Attack Saddam It would undermine our antiterror efforts. "Our pre-eminent security priority--underscored repeatedly by the president--is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/D...ang020815.html

Norman Schwarzkopf - Four Star General:

"The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now. He thinks U.N. inspections are still the proper course to follow. He's worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq….(And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld)"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer

Col. David Hackworth (ret), America's most highly decorated living soldier:

"Should the president decide to stay the war course, hopefully at least a few of our serving top-uniformed leaders - those who are now covertly leaking that war with Iraq will be an unparalleled disaster - will do what many Vietnam-era generals wish they would have done: stand tall and publicly tell the America people the truth about another bad war that could well lead to another died-in-vain black wall. Or even worse."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=29786

James Webb, former Sec. of Navy under Ronald Reagan, Decorated Marine Veteran:

"Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years? …In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets…. Nations such as China can only view the prospect of an American military consumed for the next generation by the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall."

http://www.sftt.org/article09302002a.html

Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for U.S.:

"It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another…We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started."

Hawks in the Bush administration may be making deadly miscalculations on Iraq, says Gen. Anthony Zinni, Bush's Middle East envoy.

"I'm not sure which planet they live on"

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/10/17/zinni

"Republican Dissent on Iraq"
Full page ad in Wall Street Journal by major GOP contributors:

"Mr. President, …The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions. That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back…. A Billion Bitter enemies will rise out of this war."
- Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2003

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/001444.html

Republicans Who Voted Against Iraq Resolution Tell Why

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...1/194543.shtml

TOP REPUBLICANS BREAK WITH BUSH ON IRAQ STRATEGY

Leading Republicans from Congress, the State Department and past administrations have begun to break ranks with President Bush over his administration's high-profile planning for war with Iraq, saying the administration has neither adequately prepared for military action nor made the case that it is needed.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...1/194543.shtml

Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency:

"Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends…. I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defense and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaeda. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml

Retired General Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command:

"The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml

Col. Mike Turner (ret), Schwarzkopf's personal briefing officer during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm:

“The uniformed Joint Staff in the Pentagon strongly opposed this plan early on...The uniformed Joint Staff was overridden, yet in so many horrifying ways this operation resembles Somalia, not Desert Storm...Perhaps we can pull this off, but here's a far worse scenario that's at least as likely...Photos of American soldiers amid landscapes of Iraqi civilian bodies blanket the world press which aligns unanimously against the US. The US is condemned by NATO and the UN...The war ends within a few weeks, but the crisis deepens...”

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/...11.turner.html

US Air Force General, Tony McPeak, a four-star general who headed the U.S. Air Force during Operation Desert Storm:

McPeak served four years on the Joint Chiefs of Staff advising Bush’s father and then President Clinton after flying 269 Vietnam combat missions and participating in the Thunderbirds, the elite aerobatic team.

McPeak believes that President Bush should publicly admit personal failure. He claims Bush has botched the crucial process of coalition-building, has not enlisted the United Nations, and has failed to rebuild Afghanistan as a model of reconstruction.

http://news.statesmanjournal.com/art...cfm?i=57303%20

Retired Envoys, Commanders Assail Bush Team
Administration Unable to Handle 'Global Leadership,' 27-Member Group Asserts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Jun16.html

Growing GOP Dissent On Iraq

Republican Party ranks are beginning to break and the White House is worried. Longtime GOP critics on Iraq are growing progressively more vocal in their condemnation.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in610787.shtml

Republican Rep. Bereuter: War in Iraq not justified

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action. That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," the 1st District congressman said.

"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."

As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened."

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," he said.

Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/...y/10053833.txt

Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee

"There is no secret that on some very important issues I have difference with the current administration," Chafee said, listing abortion rights, the environment and war in Iraq.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1222081/posts

Republican senator Chuck Hagel, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee;

"No, I don't think we're winning," Hagel told a CBS interviewer. "We're in trouble, we're in deep trouble in Iraq."

http://www.iht.com/articles/539563.htm

Republican senator Richard Lugar, Foreign Relations Committee chairman, was asked on ABC why only $1 billion of the $18 billion appropriated last year for Iraqi reconstruction had been spent.

"Well, this is the incompetence in the administration," he replied.

http://www.iht.com/articles/539563.htm

Roger Cressey;

”We have a stronger jihadi presence in Iraq today than in March 2003,” noted Roger Cressey, the former director for Transnational Threats in Bush's National Security Council at a briefing at the libertarian Cato Institute earlier this week.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0911-01.htm

Bush close personal friend, Hilary Cleveland, president of the GOP Women for Kerry Steering Committee.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0912-06.htm

Congressman Ron Paul (R) U.S. House of Representatives
Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache...Ron+Paul&hl=en

smilingassassin

Funny how 9/11 changed many of these tunes however...

nickshepAK

Only 2 of comments were made prior to 9/11 (Dick Cheney and Bush 41).

Anon

What those comments show is that massive forethought WAS given to how to 'win the peace after the war', which is a central argument of the left....that no thought was put into it.

Which is utterly ridiculous.

nickshepAK

Take it how you want it. Im just tired of the RIGHT criticizing Democrats as being anti-american and claiming we are the only ones who criticize this president and his policies. Sure the far left goof balls who get all bent out of shape when someone steps on an ant ought to be spoken down upon. But to constantly say democrats, liberals, and the "left" as a whole are anti-american because they are speaking out is ridiculous.

Ray

Politicians everywhere are Janus faced.

I am not surprised.


The politicians do it in India at a more frequent interval and then when quoted, they say they were misquoted.

There is an idiot here who having been caught on TV saying something, and he had the cheek to say he didn't say it! He is the in house clown of the Cabinet! No one takes him seriously.

The only people who take him seriously are the village idiots, who love to have a free pantomime or harlequinade.

I have a healthy disrespect for politicians.

smilingassassin

I think most of us here can agree with you somewhat ray.

Broken

Fair enough, many of them have a healthy disrespect for us voters. They assume we are all gullible idiots. Considering how many politicians get re-elected, this assumption is disturbingly accurate.




BTW, interesting list, NickshepAK.

Ray

In India, there are millions of idiotic illiterate voters and more millions of literate gullible.

Anon

"Take it how you want it. Im just tired of the RIGHT criticizing Democrats as being anti-american and claiming we are the only ones who criticize this president and his policies. Sure the far left goof balls who get all bent out of shape when someone steps on an ant ought to be spoken down upon. But to constantly say democrats, liberals, and the "left" as a whole are anti-american because they are speaking out is ridiculous."

You're anti-american because you are socialist swines.

Feel better now?

nickshepAK

Sure do...

smilingassassin

Snipes is never one to mince words, thats for sure.

Julie

yep, he pretty much stands his ground.

Anon

An infantryman(even an ex) with a penchant for retreat or surrender is probably not what you guys would want standing on the proverbial 'wall' at night while you slept, i'm sure.

Broken

"You can fool some of the people all of the time ...and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."

- George W. Bush, Gridiron Club dinner, Washington, D.C., March 2001.



I think he was speaking in jest. ...I think.