{"id":55581,"date":"2014-10-03T11:45:55","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T15:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=55581"},"modified":"2014-10-03T12:17:04","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T16:17:04","slug":"eager-to-rid-itself-of-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=55581","title":{"rendered":"“Eager to Rid Itself of Iraq”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c. . . the President\u2019s team at the White House pushed back, and the differences occasionally became heated. \u2026 and those on our side viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, that’s not a quote from Charles Krauthammer, Ann Coulter, or another Conservative political commentator.\u00a0 It’s not a quote from some politician with an “R” after his name, either.<\/p>\n

As Jonn noted earlier today<\/a>, that quote is reportedly\u00a0from former SECDEF Leon Panetta’s upcoming memoir<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Panetta goes on to state his opinion that White House engagement would have resulted in an agreement for some residual level of US forces to remain in Iraq post-2011.\u00a0 He further states his belief that those forces would have made a critical difference in the recent situation there.<\/p>\n

But what would Panetta know?\u00a0 After all, he’s only the former SECDEF and DIR CIA.<\/p>\n

My take on this is somewhat different from Jonn’s.\u00a0 Panetta’s job as SECDEF wasn’t to make the decision on Iraq.\u00a0 Rather, his job was to advise the POTUS regarding the ramifications of either option – then to implement the decision made by the POTUS.\u00a0 Sounds to me like he did precisely that.\u00a0 My issue here is very different than Jonn’s.<\/p>\n

The current Administration has been trotting out the “we really wanted to keep some forces there, but the Iraqi government wouldn’t let us” \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 bunch of bullsh!t<\/del>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 load of horsesh!t<\/del>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 baldfaced lie<\/del> \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 whopper<\/del> \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 flight of fantasy<\/del>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 tall tale<\/del>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 revisionist history recently concerning the 2011 US -Iraq negotiations.\u00a0 With all due respect:\u00a0 quit trying to “rectify” history again, Mr. President.\u00a0 Because as they might have said where I grew up:\u00a0 “Now, that dog just don’t hunt.”\u00a0 Your attempts to “blame Bush” here are being disavowed by people who saw what your Administration actually did – from the inside<\/em>.\u00a0 Everyone can see the attempt to “blame Bush” this time is bull.<\/p>\n

Panetta is saying essentially the same thing here as the former US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker has said elsewhere<\/a>.\u00a0 So Panetta’s account would seem to have support from someone else who was in an excellent position to know “ground truth” in Iraq.<\/p>\n

How about you quit trying to blame the current situation in Iraq on your predecessor, Mr. President.\u00a0 In 2011, your hands weren’t tied.\u00a0 You had your chance to prevent the current problems there from developing – and your Administration consciously chose not to.\u00a0 Instead, you played Pontius Pilate and “washed your hands of the matter”.<\/em><\/p>\n

Fine. But the subsequent rise of ISIL and it’s takeover of much of Iraq is a direct consequence of that “hand-washing”. \u00a0That means that the situation in Iraq today with ISIL is your responsibility – yours, not someone else’s<\/span>.\u00a0 You and your Administration are the ones who “screwed the pooch” here.<\/p>\n

You own this<\/em><\/span>.\u00a0 Time to “man up” and admit it – for once.\u00a0 (Hey, a guy can dream – can’t he?)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c. . . the President\u2019s team at the White House pushed back, and the differences occasionally … “Eager to Rid Itself of Iraq”<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,9,84,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-foreign-policy","category-military-issues","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}