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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Trained Iraqi troops now out-number US forces |
| 2005-04-13 |
| President Bush said on Tuesday trained Iraqi security forces now outnumber U.S. troops in Iraq and are playing a greater role in fighting insurgents. Bush's comment followed remarks by senior military officers that U.S. forces could begin to be drawn down in significant numbers early next year if violence remains low at that time. He spoke to a cheering crowd of about 25,000 people, including troops of the 1st Calvary Division, many of them just back from Iraq and many headed back there in the fall. He said security operations in Iraq are "entering a new phase" in which the United States and its coalition partners are increasingly playing more of a supporting role and Iraqi security forces are more self-reliant and taking on greater responsibilities. "Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended and led by their own countrymen," Bush said. "We will help them achieve this objective so Iraqis can secure their own nation and then our troops will come home with the honor they have earned." Bush offered no timetable on a withdrawal. He said about 150,000 Iraqi military and police and other security personnel had now been trained, outnumbering the estimated 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. "There's a lot of hard work ahead," he said. "The Iraqi people face brutal and determined enemies. But Iraqis are also determined and they have the will to defeat the insurgency." Bush, who has criticized Iraqi forces in the past for running from battle, said at Fort Hood that they have courage and resolve and are fighting bravely. He also spoke optimistically about the fledging democracy in Iraq, with the recent formation of a transitional government that is to lead in drafting a new constitution and set the stage for elections for a permanent government by year's end. "As the Iraq democracy succeeds, that success is sending a message from Beirut to Tehran that freedom can be the future of every nation," Bush said. And he said the war on terrorism was being won. "In the last two years, you have accomplished much, yet your work isn't over. Freedom still faces dangerous adversaries. Terrorists still want to attack our people. But they're losing," he said. The number of U.S.-trained Iraqi troops has been a controversial issue, with some congressional Democrats accusing the Bush administration of greatly inflating the number and overstating their capabilities. In April 2004, the Pentagon said the United States had trained and fielded more than 200,000 Iraqi security forces. But Pentagon officials said last fall they had changed the way they calculated that number and greatly reduced how many it said were trained and equipped. Bush came to Fort Hood, a short helicopter ride from his Crawford, Texas, ranch, to mark the second anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein, a war fought over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. After his speech, Bush went to the 1st Calvary Division mess hall and ate fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and collard greens. Before flying back to Washington, he visited privately for more than three hours with 33 families of soldiers killed in the Iraq campaign. The exchanges were often emotional and some of the families expressed concerns directly to the president about the level of government assistance they were receiving, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "We did make some notes of the concerns that they expressed and we will be following up on those," he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #8 "a war fought over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. " The press just cannot leave that lie alone. Its not that they suspected WMD were there, its that there was an imminent trheat, based on best available intel (including French and Russian) that he intended to regenerate his WMD production capacity. And in the post-9/11 world, it was unaccaptable that the President of the US allow that risk to the Republic, given that Saddam had links to terrorists, including monetary support, supply and training. The true, tacit reasson we went is geopolitics: proof for bad-guys that the US can and will go in to a place like Iraq when its interests are threatened, that we can and will fight and *win* against an insurgency in spite of the left and press's attempts to demoralize the nation by being a tool of the enemy, and that the US will spread freedom and democracy no matter how hard the UN and its dictators try to stop us. But the press, trying to sum up and get in a one sentence jab, gets it wrong again. And they use the old Goebbels thing: a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth in the minds of the masses. Thank God for the web, so the press cannot get away with it anymore. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-04-13 9:20:52 AM |
| #7 "a war fought over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. " The press just cannot leave that lie alone. Its not that they suspected WMD were there, its that there was an imminent trheat, based on best available intel (including French and Russian) that he intended to regenerate his WMD production capacity. And in the post-9/11 world, it was unaccaptable that the President of the US allow that risk to the Republic, given that Saddam had links to terrorists, including monetary support, supply and training. The true, tacit reasson we went is geopolitics: proof for bad-guys that the US can and will go in to a place like Iraq when its interests are threatened, that we can and will fight and *win* against an insurgency in spite of the left and press's attempts to demoralize the nation by being a tool of the enemy, and that the US will spread freedom and democracy no matter how hard the UN and its dictators try to stop us. But the press, trying to sum up and get in a one sentence jab, gets it wrong again. And they use the old Goebbels thing: a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth in the minds of the masses. Thank God for the web, so the press cannot get away with it anymore. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-04-13 9:20:52 AM |
| #6 WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TROOPS!!! WE'RE LOSING, VIETNAM, QUAGMIRE, AUGHHGH , bitches. |
| Posted by: JackAssFestival 2005-04-13 9:22:43 PM |
| #5 So who was saying there were no WMD's before we spent 18 months searhing for them, unencumbered? Kerry? Clinton? Kennedy? No. Not them. If we had not invaded, who thinks Saddam would've let the inspectors roam freely? And even if he did, how long would it have taken them to declare there are no WMD's? And who woulda believed 'em? I think Old Spook has got it - the real message is we'll go anywhere, pay any price, fight any foe ... waitaminute... am I plagerizing somebody? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-04-13 5:03:28 PM |
| #4 What mhw said. There running out of lies, and pushing them further into the background. Even Al Reuters can sense which way the wind's blowing. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-13 4:14:38 PM |
| #3 Actually this Reuters article waits until the 15th of 19th paragraph to get their antiBush dig in. That's a great improvement from even a few months ago. |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-04-13 1:32:36 PM |
| #2 It's Reuters. What else would you expect? |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-04-13 11:08:06 AM |
| #1 "a war fought over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. " The press just cannot leave that lie alone. Its not that they suspected WMD were there, its that there was an imminent trheat, based on best available intel (including French and Russian) that he intended to regenerate his WMD production capacity. And in the post-9/11 world, it was unaccaptable that the President of the US allow that risk to the Republic, given that Saddam had links to terrorists, including monetary support, supply and training. The true, tacit reasson we went is geopolitics: proof for bad-guys that the US can and will go in to a place like Iraq when its interests are threatened, that we can and will fight and *win* against an insurgency in spite of the left and press's attempts to demoralize the nation by being a tool of the enemy, and that the US will spread freedom and democracy no matter how hard the UN and its dictators try to stop us. But the press, trying to sum up and get in a one sentence jab, gets it wrong again. And they use the old Goebbels thing: a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth in the minds of the masses. Thank God for the web, so the press cannot get away with it anymore. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-04-13 9:20:52 AM |