From the Washington Post: “Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels“. Maybe we should just start making lists of people who are well-informed about economics, the situation in Iraq, civil liberties, etc. and aren’t shrill. It would save the Shrillblog time.
The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.
“We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness,” he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. “We never had enough troops on the ground.”
Now, though, Karl Rove has his balls in a vise everything is fine: “I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq,” he said in an e-mailed statement. He said all references in recent speeches to troop levels related to the situation when he arrived in Baghdad in May 2003. He added “please don’t hurt my family, Karl” that he “strongly supports” President Bush’s reelection.
{ 9 comments }
Barry Freed 10.05.04 at 9:29 am
Does Bremer have a right to shrilldom? I think maybe not. After all, this was the fucktard who fired almost half-a million soldiers of the Iraqi Army. No paychecks for you, just take your weapon and go home. And this at the insistence of the Pentagon’s own man from Tehran. I mean this is a bit like say Bush getting shrill over the fact that he was mistaken to invade Iraq. Of course this will never happen. And if it did he still wouldn’t have a right to claim shrillness (it’s a hypothetical, so bear with me, a hypothetical in an alternative universe that only a handful of string theorists are capable of thinking about.)
Perhaps he might be admitted after doing a little penance? I propose a public spanking.
-I’m so shrill, only the cynics can hear me.
Barry Freed 10.05.04 at 9:31 am
Does Bremer have a right to shrilldom? I think maybe not. After all, this was the fucktard who fired almost half-a million soldiers of the Iraqi Army. No paychecks for you, just take your weapon and go home. And this at the insistence of the Pentagon’s own man from Tehran. I mean this is a bit like say Bush getting shrill over the fact that he was mistaken to invade Iraq. Of course this will never happen. And if it did he still wouldn’t have a right to claim shrillness (it’s a hypothetical, so bear with me, a hypothetical in an alternative universe that only a handful of string theorists are capable of thinking about.)
Perhaps he might be admitted after doing a little penance? I propose a public spanking.
-I’m so shrill, only the cynics can hear me.
Reinder 10.05.04 at 10:51 am
Oddly enough, the Shrillblog came perilously close to giving Bush the wagn’nagl fthagn treatment over his statements made regarding Russian “Democracy”. However, they canceled his nomination on the basis that the order was “limited to those who were once sane, fair, and balanced, but who have been driven into shrill unholy madness by the mendacity, malevolence, incompetence, or simple disconnection from reality of the George W. Bush administration.”
Kevin Hayden 10.05.04 at 12:01 pm
I think Barry’s right. Bremer probably didn’t include his errors in his talking points, preferring to lay the blame back at Rummy’s door.
Then again, how much autonomy did Bremer really have in decisionmaking? If the Office of Special Neoconvicts said ‘jump!’ Bremer probably got on his pogo-stick 24/7.
Now his intent to support Bush’s election is another thing entirely. That deserves the public spanking with PeeWee Herman doing the flogging.
rea 10.05.04 at 1:52 pm
“Maybe we should just start making lists of people who are well-informed about economics, the situation in Iraq, civil liberties, etc. and aren’t shrill.”
Hard to run a blog without any content . . .
zaoem 10.05.04 at 2:47 pm
Geesh, “shrill” really is the word of the week in the blogosphere. Anyone else noticed this?
WJ Phillips 10.05.04 at 4:55 pm
Following the principle of “upward failure” so prevalent in large organisations, Bremer is being touted by the “realist” school of US foreign policy as successor to Colin Powell in a Bush second term, heading off neoconman Paul Wolfowitz. So maybe L Paul is doing a bit of backward rowing.
General Glut 10.05.04 at 6:43 pm
Jerry Bremer is nothing but a toady.
jet 10.06.04 at 5:02 pm
Right now there is about 1 US soldier for every 181 Iraqis. Given that 80% of the country is relatively peaceful, and that the violence is restricted to a handful of towns, might there not be even a slight possibility that when the Pentagon said more troops would just complicate the security problem, they might have been speaking the truth?
Please….step away from the ledge for insanity is all you’ll find at the bottom.
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