Iraq: A “catastrophic success” or “remarkable success”
Posted : October 27, 2004 at 1:35 pm [America/Los_Angeles]
First, it was the President calling Iraq a “catastrophic success”. Like Senator Edwards, I was clueless what that meant so I ignored it as another example of the President’s infamous slip-of-the-tongue.
Not to be outdone, the other day, the Vice President chimed in and said the following:
Later, at a town hall meeting in Wilmington, Ohio, Cheney praised the administration’s handling of Iraq.
Iraq is “a remarkable success story to date when you look at what’s been accomplished overall,” Cheney said, “and I think the president deserves great credit for it.”
There is a part of me that just loses it everytime I hear such remarks. So, in order to keep the rebuttal civil and fair, I will quote what Aaron Brown of CNN had to say about this:
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
In case you missed it yesterday the vice president, while on the campaign, asserted that Iraq has been a remarkable success. Now, in fairness to the vice president, he did acknowledge that things aren’t easy right now and won’t be but then he added that overall it’s been a remarkable success.Even given the hyperbole that is inherent in a political campaign, remarkable success seems a bit over the top to me. The insurgency is growing not shrinking according to the Pentagon. Attacks on Americans and Iraqis have become so routine most don’t even get reported anymore.
There is real concern the Iraqi security forces are heavily infiltrated. More American troops are going to be sent in the weeks ahead. Someday we may get to remarkable success and given the cost in lives, Iraqi and American, we can only hope we do but with all due respect to the vice president we aren’t even close to remarkable success yet.
- Anand
Category: United (or not) State of American Politics 2004