Another baldfaced lie:
My opponent says he has a plan for Iraq. Parts of it should sound pretty familiar — it’s already known as the Bush plan. (Laughter and applause.) Senator Kerry suggests we train Iraqi troops, which we’ve been doing for months. Just this week, Iraqi forces backed by coalition troops fought bravely to take the city of Samarra from the terrorists and Baathists and insurgents. (Applause.) Senator Kerry — Senator Kerry is proposing that we have — that Iraq have elections. (Laughter.) Those elections are already scheduled for January. (Laughter and applause.) He wants the U.N. to be involved in those elections. Well, the U.N. is already there.
There was one element of the Senator — there’s one element of Senator Kerry’s plan that’s a new element. He’s talked about artificial timetables to pull our troops out of Iraq. He sent the signal that America’s overriding goal in Iraq would be to leave, even if the job isn’t done.
Here’s what Kerry said at the debate:
I didn’t say I would bring troops out in six months. I said if we do the things that I’ve set out and we are successful we could begin to draw the troops down in six months.
Regarding his other point - that he has master plan for our success and Kerry is only piggy backing on it, I can only think of a seminar I took in which an undergraduate continually interjected “I was gonna say that!” after everything the professor said. Kerry has offered an imperfect answer, but one trying to be practical and specific. Bush has offered denial and platitudes. Now he wants to pretend that he’s the one with a specific plan and Kerry’s the copycat.
Not only that, but Bush is oversimplifying what Kerry is proposing, trying to disguise the fact that they are at best reactive to the problems on the ground, at worst leading us to a downward spiral. Yes, both sides want to train Iraqi troops, but decisions by the Bush team have led to a situation where adequate training of an indigenous security force is an uphill battle. So hold the supercilious guffaws.
And note that he’s leaving out one crucial part of the Kerry plan: renounce all designs on the national affairs (and oil fields) of Iraq, in order to signal that occupation is not our aims and help bring legitimacy to a democratic government there. It’s one step the Bush administration is flatly unwilling to make.
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