If we're winning the war in Iraq, why can't we plan an orderly withdrawal? The President has assured us for nearly three years that we have been making progress all along. The Vice President assured us that the war would last "weeks rather than months." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the war "could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." So, if we were supposed to be done in six months and we have been making progress throughout, why can't we leave?
Is it me or did the President make a speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln with an enormous banner in the background that said, "Mission Accomplished"? That was two and a half years ago. If the mission has been accomplished for all that time, what are we still doing in Iraq?
This administration has to admit one of two things. Either we can go home soon because the war has been a success that accomplished our goals. Or we can't leave because the war has been a failure, our goals have not been accomplished and are nowhere near being accomplished.
They can't have it both ways. I assume since they are vehemently arguing that we can't leave anytime in the foreseeable future that they are admitting that victory is not within sight. The next question is: How did this administration, with the greatest army ever built by man, manage to lose to a bunch of ragtag insurgents in Iraq?
When we originally invaded, the Iraqi army waxed the palm trees in the desert to try to see us coming from a distance in the reflection of the waxed trees. And now we are losing to these guys.
Before the conservatives jump out of their seats to declare me unpatriotic for saying that we are losing the war, remember I'm not saying it. It's the Republican Party that is saying we're losing. Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) said today in response to Rep. Murtha's (D-Penn.) speech, "They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world." But if we're winning, why would it be surrender? Wouldn't it just be coming home after a good, solid victory?
The fact is the Bush administration has never clearly defined what "victory" means. When do we ever get to declare this war over? The insurgents aren't going to sign a peace treaty. The foreign fighters certainly aren't going to surrender. They're in it for eternal jihad. Though the foreign fighters are a small percentage of the insurgency, they are tenacious and unceasingly violent. No one is sitting down at the table with these people and getting them to negotiate terms of surrender.
So, when do we declare the job is done? How safe does Iraq have to be? How free do they have to be? How many elections do they have to have? At what point do we say: We have done our job, now it is up to Iraq to defend and define itself.
This administration has never laid out the answers to these fundamental questions. It might be because they are afraid that we are losing so badly that we are not anywhere close to positive answers to these questions. It might be because they are in fact planning to stay in Iraq indefinitely.
If an army comes home from a well earned victory, people don't usually accuse them of "cutting and running." So, the administration has to answer this question: When would leaving Iraq ever be considered a victory rather than cutting and running?
If they can't give us an answer to that, then it is patently obvious that they don't know what they're doing, what their goals are and or how they are going to accomplish them. And this is the party that accuses the Democrats of not having a plan?