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Setting the Record Straight

Strategic Regional Thinking Required

posted on 03/19/08

“If you reflect back on those five years, I think it’s been a difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavor; that we’ve come a long way in five years, and that it’s been well worth the effort.”
–Vice President Richard Cheney, remarks at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, March 17, 2008

VS.

“If you look at the United States military presence in Iraq, particularly after the Saddam Hussein regime was taken out, in classical strategic terms, our military has been in what is called a holding action. The United States military is not capable in and of itself of bringing major political change. Without a larger strategic umbrella, a regional umbrella in terms of international diplomacy, and without the ability of the Iraqi government to come to some sort of agreement on its future, it’s not going to have the kind of long-term impact that people are hoping for.”
–Senator James Webb (D-VA), former assistant defense secretary and secretary of the Navy, Weekend Edition Saturday, March 15, 2008