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Robert Kagan Lies About Bush Lying About Iraq

Jul 31, 202048.1K Shares752.3K Views
Here I was, all set to debunk Robert Kagan’s bloviations about how it’s an “absurd conspiracy theor[y]” to say that President George W. Bush lied about the basis for the Iraq war, when Matt Duss of the Center for American Progress beat me to it.
But why stop at the invasion? Bob Woodward’s new book “The War Within”documents at absurd length how almost everything Bush said about Iraq in 2006 and early 2007 was a lie. F’rinstance:
The morning after his speech announcing the surge, the president went to Fort Benning, Ga., to address military personnel and their families. His decision had been opposed by Gen. Casey and Gen. Abizaid, his military commanders on the ground. Gen. Pace and the Joint Chiefs had suggested a smaller increase, if any at all. And Gen. Schoomaker, the Army chief, had made it clear that the five brigades didn’t really exist under the Army’s current policy of 12-month rotations. … But on this morning, the president delivered his own version of history.
“The commanders on the ground in Iraq, people who I listen to — by the way, that’s what you want your commander in chief to do. You don’t want decisions being made based upon politics or focus groups or political polls. You want your military decisions being made by military experts. And they analyzed the plan, and they said to me and to the Iraqi government, ‘This won’t work unless we help them. There needs to be a bigger presence.”
That’s just page 325. Bush went to Fort Benning, looked soldiers and their families — men and women who he sent into combat or would be sending into combat — right square in the eye, and lied. That’s just what the man does. Kagan wants you to ignore your own eyes, ears and common sense. Why is this man considered a respected foreign-policy scholar, again?
Rhyley Carney

Rhyley Carney

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