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lauriehelds US Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq Administration Is Shed ding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says By Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday , August 14, 2005; Page A01 The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what ca n be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to s ettle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transi tion due to end in four months, according to US officials in Washingto n and Baghdad. The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self- supporting oil industry or a society where the majority of people are fr ee from serious security or economic challenges, US officials say. "What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or w hat unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy s ince the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning." Administration officials still emphasize how much they have achieved desp ite the postwar chaos and escalating insurgency. "Iraqis are taking cont rol of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sus tain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed," Presid ent Bush said yesterday in his radio address.
View Replies To: lauriehelds You don't even have to look hard to see the steam rising from this comPos t One nice thing about being a lefist in the MSM, you don't have to let fac ts get in your way. If your side is taking it in the shorts, just punch out an article saying it isn't so. We're kicking the terorist' asses, and the Post's dreams in the teeth eve ry day.
View Replies To: Jeff Head Well, part of this sounds true enough. I will wager that there are some " senior officials" who are lowering their expectations - of a Bush (and A merican) failure and of continued success for the leftist agenda. With new leadership in State and Intelligence, I suspect some expectation s are being dramtically lowered.
View Replies To: lauriehelds The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self- supporting oil industry or a society where the majority of people are fr ee from serious security or economic challenges, US officials say. We will see a model of democracy, and a self sufficient oil ind ustry. Of course they will have serious security and economic challenges .
View Replies To: SIDENET What if this is a "senior official" at The New York Times or Move On Org or some such, or maybe just the guy in charge of emptying the White Hous e dumpster doing a "repeat after me" segment with a reporter (for extra cash, of course)? Journalists don't reveal their sources so that they can envisage petty wh iners (perhaps even their own boss) as secretaries of state.
View Replies To: lauriehelds While this could just be BS from the Compost as you say, I wonder if some of this could be the old Bush trick of lowering expectations, then blow ing everyone away with spectacular success in the end?
View Replies To: lauriehelds Thanks for helping in the War on Terror, gutless liberal jackoffs. I imag ine they're grinning ear to ear at their Walter Cronkite moment.
View Replies To: Numbers Guy this article is BS they set up a straw man of expectations that Bush never had and then say that Bush now knows these expectations can't be met. I can see through liberal BS like x-ray vision since I started listening to Rush.
View Replies To: Jeff Head "No named sources from the Washington Compost. We all know how positive our President is about everything. To make this statement: "The Bush administration is significantly lowerin g expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the Uni ted States will have to settle for far less progress than originally env isioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U S officials in Washington and Baghdad", means the President and his adm in have totally changed how they look at everything. this is a bunch of whining leftist drivel by people who want I raq to be a failure, and the leftist media is accommodating their opinio ns.
View Replies To: lauriehelds Iraqi officials yesterday struggled to agree on a draft constitution by a deadline of tomorrow so the document can be submitted to a vote in Octo ber. I just heard on the news that they finished it a day ahead of sche dule Yep ...
View Replies To: lauriehelds lowering expectations The mindset of the MSM, cheering for the US to bug out of Iraq. Many in t he MSM and on the radical left wish to see a repeat of a similar pullout a generation ago.
View Replies To: lauriehelds Looks like they've interviewed yet another State Department Lefty. Skip this article and th e WP and read the real news in the Washington Times.
View Replies To: Jeff Head Jeff, ABC led with this, positively frothing this morning. The "source" i s probably a janitor, but, of course, this confirms all ABC's hopes and dreams for a "failure" in Iraq. I think Andrew Jackson was a lame president, but old AJ would have arrest ed these people for treason and, after a fair trial, had them shot.
View Replies To: lauriehelds a society where the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges All you need to know about this article is the answer to this question: Is the United Kingdom, France or Germany "a society where the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges?" Pure, unalloyed BS using some deputy assistant undersecretary at the State Department as the source. Hopefully, this "official" will be Ambas sador Without Portfolio to Northern Emptystan soon.
View Replies To: gpapa Many in the MSM and on the radical left wish to see a repeat of a similar pullout a generation ago. Because an American success story in Iraq will expose and shine a light o n what the Left did 40 years ago and the magnitude of their moral failur e to live up to the Kennedy goals of defending freedom around the world. Somehow Harry Truman managed to keep the Communists from picking off Gree ce and Turkey and overrunning Korea, and Ike kept the Huks from overthro wing the Philippines' government and replacing it with a Communist dicta torship modeled on Mao's. Ike also took down growing Communist "revoluti ons" in Central America and Iran. But the rotten, soft, KGB-manipulated scum of the Mobe -- and the Clinton s were very much part of that crowd -- walked away from the Viets and Ca mbodians and Hmong and left them to die. They wrapped their fecklessness and moral cowardice in indignation and se lf-righteousness, and have been dissembling their wilful failure ever si nce.
View Replies To: InterceptPoint Looks like they've interviewed yet another State Department Lefty. Yeah, sounds like the Klintonx are about to surface another mole.
" Well, I would like to offer you a bet that democracy there will not happe n due to the very sociology of Iraqi society with its tribal and religio us lines of organization, but - like for every bet - proper timeframes a nd definitions of the outcome are to be settled first. Please state your timeframes and definition of what should pass for "Iraqi democracy".
" Well, I would like to offer you a bet that democracy there will not happe n due to the very sociology of Iraqi society with its tribal and religio us lines of organization, but - like for every bet - proper timeframes a nd definitions of the outcome are to be settled first. Please state your timeframes and definition of what should pass for "Iraqi democracy".
View Replies To: Brilliant Then Iran is democratic right now, per your definition, and so are Uzbeki stan and Turkmenistan. I would suggest som ewhat different standards, based on individual human rights as exercised and enforced AGAINST a group, ultimately, against the state. And I coul d offer you a generous time frame of, say, 50 years, with one proviso: s ettler democracies (like Israel) in muslim world are not to be counted h ere.
View Replies To: Brilliant Well, and I would not give any of them any benefit of ...
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