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| Bracket Buster | |
| Speaking of Being Tone Deaf |
| Government Versus Confidence | |
| Geithner on the Hot Seat | |
| The Burden of Battle | |
| Systemic Failure | |
| Bonfire of the Trivialities |
March 19, 2009
Panel on Six Years in Iraq
Special Report With Bret Baier(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID, D-NEV.: This war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything is indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.
KELLY: The lesson to the world is America will see this to victory. It's right around the corner anyways. Certainly it would seem to me that the situation is on the ground is such that it improves every day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: The Senate majority leader in 2007, and the situation today.
So, can the U.S. declare victory in Iraq? There have been, as of today, more than 4,250 soldiers killed in Iraq, and the U.S. has spent more than $650 billion there.
We're back with the panel — Juan?
WILLIAMS: I think you can declare victory to this extent — you can say that after the surge, it was 30,000 in '07, things have clearly improved. The level of violence, I don't think there is any doubt, the level of violence is down.
You have to say that in terms of our efforts to stabilize the Iraqi political scene, we have made tremendous progress. I think they're on the path. They haven't quite gotten there. They have elections coming. It looks like right now there is more of an opportunity to say they will be able to take control of that country as we head towards the deadline for the lion's share of American troops to pull out, even though some will remain.
So, on all those counts you would have to say we have made tremendous progress. But if you look at polls today, it's still the case most Americans say it was a mistake to go in there initially and most Americans feel that they were lied to about the reason for going in.
BAIER: It's hard to believe this is the sixth year anniversary of the start of the war — Jim?
VANDEHEI: A couple of things are certain. The one thing you can certainly say whether you hated or loved George Bush is that his decision to do the surge, and he did it against a ton of opposition in this town, was a smart move and one that I think has been validated by events since then.
That said, any measuring success in victory, and clearly things are much better than they ever were before, whether or not people will see this in retrospect as a good thing for the United States, it all depends on how you view going in there in the first place.
If you thought that he was not a lethal threat to the United States or to our interests, it wasn't worth losing that many people. It wasn't worth all the people that have been injured.
But at least now there is bipartisan agreement that we will try to get people out of there in 17 months and that if we can do that, that would be victory as determined under today's circumstance.
BAIER: Do you think President Obama has done enough to talk about the successes in Iraq?
VANDEHEI: I don't think anyone is talking about the successes in Iraq. Go pick up a newspaper any day of the week. No one covers success. No one covers the economy when the economy is going well. There is five stories on the front pages today because the economy is in the tank.
So we still have 140,000 troops. It's atrocious that there isn't more coverage of what is happening in Iraq and our interests there, and, quite frankly, what's happening in Afghanistan, because we're going to go through a very similar process once we move a lot more troops over there.
You're going to see a continuing escalation, presumably, of violence and death and hand wringing about whether that strategy is working or not working.
BARNES: Bret, I would say "mission accomplished."
BAIER: That's dangerous, isn't it?
BARNES: Look, the truth is we have an Arab democracy. We had a successful election there, we're going to have another one this year.
Obama was handed a gift by President Bush as a result of the surge, and that is his withdrawal plan is one that after the status of forces agreement was signed between the U.S. and the Iraqis that the generals could agree to in Iraq. All the troops will be out of the cities in Iraq by the end of July, and then you have I forget how many months until the end 2011 to get all the troops out of Iraq.
And there is something that Obama can do as president, and I hope he does. I don't know whether he will or not-and there is the status of forces agreement, but there is also a framework agreement about a long-term economic and military agreement.
The thing he can do is make an agreement there to keep some American forces in Iraq. They're important there, a buffer to Iran and so on. And maybe an air base. It would be terrific. Iraq is an ally in the middle of the Middle East, very important.
BAIER: We've got to run.
WILLIAMS: The gift that they gave President Obama was the White House. That's what the war cost Republicans.
