Doesn’t mean Diddley

First a little background music…

April 24, 2007
Democrats Back Date for Start of Iraq Pullout
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, April 23 — Congressional Democrats agreed Monday to ignore President Bush’s veto threat and send him a $124 billion war spending bill that orders the administration to begin pulling troops out of Iraq by Oct. 1.

“On Iraq, the American people want a new direction, and we are providing it,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, a leader of the Congressional negotiators who came to terms on the legislation that has become a test of wills between Mr. Bush and the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill.

The House and Senate are to vote on the agreement and send it to the White House by the end of the week, and Democrats expressed confidence that they could secure narrow approval. But even as they ironed out differences between House and Senate approaches to Iraq policy and cut some spending that has drawn Republican scorn, Democrats acknowledged that the bill would be rejected by the president.

Mr. Bush made it clear again on Monday that he would use the second veto of his tenure to kill the legislation, which would set a goal of having most American combat forces out of Iraq within six months of Oct. 1.

“An artificial timetable of withdrawal would say to an enemy, ‘Just wait them out,’ ” he said. “It would say to the Iraqis, ‘Don’t do hard things necessary to achieve our objectives,’ and it would be discouraging for our troops.”

Mr. pResident, “an artificial timetable of withdrawal?” Last fall Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki used procedure to squash a motion, backed by a wide majority, “demanding to know the date of a future American withdrawal.” Al Sader is waiting out your surge while increasing his political support. Who is waiting out who? For that matter who is discouraging our troops?

“Another major difference…our military is an all-volunteer army and we need to keep it that way.” – President Bush’s response when asked to highlight the similarities and differences between Iraq and Vietnam.

The Senate Armed Services Committee received testimony this last week from Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, Lawrence Korb and Andrew Krepinevich on just how to make keeping our military an all-volunteer force a reality in the face of what Korb called, “a complete misuse of the all-volunteer military,” in Iraq. For his part, Krepinevich observed one of the most striking parallels between Vietnam and Iraq when mentioning the effect the Occupation has had on the quality of personnel recruited and retained, reflecting the state of the military at the very beginning of the all volunteer Army[sitation needed]. Another of the many similarities President Bush failed to acknowledge was touched on by General McCaffrey, “For the first time since Vietnam, we are caught with no strategic reserve. We simply do not have a strategic fallback position for the crisis that will come inevitably.”

When looking at the discouraging state of the military, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Lastly, if setting a date for withdrawal tells the Iraqi political establishment “Don’t do hard things necessary to achieve our objectives,” then explain this statement by Defense Secretary Gates:

The debate in Congress…has been helpful in demonstrating to the Iraqis that American patience is limited,” Gates told Pentagon reporters traveling with him in Jordan. “The strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably has had a positive impact…in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment.