Iraq: No big smiley face on it
yahoo/ap: Congressman Questions Iraq Assessment
The Pentagon's top general acknowledged Sunday that "anything can happen" in Iraq, but he said things aren't as bad as some say. "I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well from everything you look at."
The comments drew criticism that Gen. Peter Pace is glossing over problems in the three-year-old U.S. campaign.
"Why would I believe him?" asked Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a major critic of the Bush administration's handling of the war. "This administration, including the president, (has) mischaracterized this war for the last two years."
Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cited political progress such as holding elections and writing a constitution as well as military progress like training Iraqi security forces.
"No matter where you look - at their military, their police, their society - things are much better this year than they were last," Pace said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Murtha, responding to Pace in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," said that Iraq has 60 percent unemployment, oil production below prewar levels, and water service to only 30 percent of the population.
American troops are doing everything they can militarily but "are caught in a civil war," said Murtha, a former Marine who has called on the administration to bring U.S. troops home.
"There's two participants fighting for survival and fighting for supremacy inside that country," he said of ethnic divisions. "And that's my definition of a civil war."
Murtha added: "The rhetoric is so frustrating - when they keep making statements which are very optimistic, and then it turns out to be the opposite... And the public has caught on to that, and they're very pessimistic about the outcome." Read more
The Pentagon's top general acknowledged Sunday that "anything can happen" in Iraq, but he said things aren't as bad as some say. "I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well from everything you look at."
The comments drew criticism that Gen. Peter Pace is glossing over problems in the three-year-old U.S. campaign.
"Why would I believe him?" asked Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a major critic of the Bush administration's handling of the war. "This administration, including the president, (has) mischaracterized this war for the last two years."
Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cited political progress such as holding elections and writing a constitution as well as military progress like training Iraqi security forces.
"No matter where you look - at their military, their police, their society - things are much better this year than they were last," Pace said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Murtha, responding to Pace in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," said that Iraq has 60 percent unemployment, oil production below prewar levels, and water service to only 30 percent of the population.
American troops are doing everything they can militarily but "are caught in a civil war," said Murtha, a former Marine who has called on the administration to bring U.S. troops home.
"There's two participants fighting for survival and fighting for supremacy inside that country," he said of ethnic divisions. "And that's my definition of a civil war."
Murtha added: "The rhetoric is so frustrating - when they keep making statements which are very optimistic, and then it turns out to be the opposite... And the public has caught on to that, and they're very pessimistic about the outcome." Read more
posted by exoplanet at 8:37 PM
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