Full Speed Ahead

Cheney Vows ‘Full Speed Ahead’ on Iraq War

titanic_home2.jpg

The Bush administration is determined to continue “full speed ahead” with its policy in Iraq, regardless of Tuesday’s midterm elections, Vice President Cheney said Friday.

Cheney said in an interview with ABC News that the administration is convinced that it is pursuing the right path in Iraq.

“It may not be popular with the public. It doesn’t matter, in the sense that we have to continue what we think is right,” Cheney said. “That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re not running for office. We’re doing what we think is right.”

Iraq has been by far the largest issue in Tuesday’s election, and many analysts say it has put at risk GOP majorities in both the House and Senate. Nonetheless, Cheney said, the administration is not considering a fundamentally different course.

“I think it’ll have some effect perhaps in the Congress,” he said of the election’s outcome, “but the president’s made clear what his objective is. It’s victory in Iraq. And it’s full speed ahead on that basis. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Trackbacks & Pings

  1. Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator on 05 Nov 2006 at 2:02 am

    President wants Rumsfeld, Cheney to stay till term ends

    President Bush said Wednesday he wants Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Che

Comments

  1. Marked Hoosier wrote:

    Would it require the draft to raise enough troops to stabilize the situation in Iraq?

    Or can we add enough troops from what we have?

    Posted 05 Nov 2006 at 4:23 am

  2. commissar wrote:

    Who can say how many would be needed? Many observers feel that double to triple the current force might give us a chance to stabilize. To put it another way, it is probably necessary to put in another couple hundred thousand, but even that level may not be sufficient.

    We would need a draft to get to those levels.

    Posted 05 Nov 2006 at 9:24 am

  3. Roxanne wrote:

    The recently leaked 1999 War Game on Iraq puts it at 400,000 troops to do the job.

    http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/04/war.games.ap/index.html

    Posted 05 Nov 2006 at 10:41 am

  4. DavidC wrote:

    There’s no magic number of troops that will stabilize Iraq. If the Iraqi government is able to build an effective, loyal army, they’ll eventually stabilize things themselves. If they don’t, things will probably continue to get worse.

    Posted 05 Nov 2006 at 8:44 pm

  5. commissar wrote:

    M.H.,

    Further to the comments above …
    more troops, say Roxanne’s 400,000, early on could likely have kept the lid on the violence (e.g the looting). The likelihood that the same number (say 400,000) committed at this late date would achieve stability is much smaller.

    Posted 05 Nov 2006 at 9:25 pm

  6. canuckistani wrote:

    I’m too busy at work today to give this issue the attention it deserves, but I thought I’d stir one last pot of **** before tomorrow. What are people thinking about the Bush Administration posting all of Saddam’s pre-1991 nuclear research on the internet so that Iran can download it? I think it’s impeachable, but I’m a lefty and a foreigner.

    Posted 06 Nov 2006 at 12:09 pm

  7. The Sanity Inspector wrote:

    canuckistani:

    It’s good to have those docs out there, minus the bomb how-to, so that the aggregate power of the ‘net can sift them and present their findings. OTOH, I’m afraid not enough people will remember to be cautiously skeptical, that just because something was in a secret archive and is now on a computer screen doesn’t mean that it’s true.

    As for the bomb stuff, an American lefty magazine, The Progressive, published plans on how to make an atomic bomb about twenty five years ago. I forgot what kind of point they said they were trying to make.

    Posted 06 Nov 2006 at 6:49 pm

  8. Grim wrote:

    Ditto Sanity on the usefulness of having the documents out there. The Federation of American Scientists — hardly a pro-Bush organization, nor one that is unconcerned with proliferation — has strongly supported the document disclosure. About this particular mistake, they say this:

    http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2006/11/110306.html

    As for it being impeachable, it certainly isn’t that. The disclosure was specifically authorized by Congress. While there is some discussion about exactly what qualifies as a “high crime” or “misdemeanor,” doing something Congress specifically said you could do is plainly not a crime of any sort.

    Posted 06 Nov 2006 at 6:56 pm

  9. canuckistani wrote:

    minus the bomb how-to,

    Well, that is kinda the crux of the issue, isn’t it? Napoleon’s invasion of Russia was a pretty good idea, minus the winter.

    Posted 07 Nov 2006 at 11:54 am

« Sniper Attacks in Iraq
Saddam to Hang »