Man, I really used to like Senator McCain. Maybe that’s because I really wasn’t paying attention before. So, McCain goes on Meet the Press this past Sunday tells a whopper. If you don’t know just say that you don’t know. If you are Tim Russert, on the other hand, he should know and have an answer to McCain’s misstatements. Instead he doesn’t. Russert hammered Bill Richardson on the details a couple of months ago but now that McCain is missing the major point of a major study on Iraq, Russert ain’t got squat to say. Why doesn’t he have the report in front of him? Why doesn’t someone whisper into his ear, McCain is feeding you a load of manure?
MR. RUSSERT: …Senator McCain. “Although the administration has said repeatedly that security improvements will create ‘breathing space’ for Iraqi sectarian and political forces to move” towards “national reconciliation, the Jones commission turns that equation on its head, saying that long-term security advances are impossible without political progress. Despite all that remains to be done on the military front,” the Jones commission “says, ‘the single most important event that could immediately and favorably affect Iraq’s direction and security is political reconciliation. Sustained progress within the Iraqi Security Forces depends on such’” an “‘agreement.’” So the president’s strategy has been…
SEN. McCAIN: Now, now wait a minute. First of all, that’s a Washington Post story interpretation of General Jones’ report.
MR. RUSSERT: He was on this program last week and acknowledged that’s exactly…
SEN. McCAIN: Yes. And he acknowledged exactly that. And he also acknowledged that without the, the military security situation, it was also impossible for…
MR. RUSSERT: But…
SEN. McCAIN: …the political situation…
MR. RUSSERT: But what he said was…
SEN. McCAIN: …to move forward.
MR. RUSSERT: …the current administration…
SEN. McCAIN: And he also said that…
MR. RUSSERT: Let me just finish, because he said the current administration’s thinking is that you cannot have political reconciliation without first having security. He says it’s the opposite, that you cannot have security…
SEN. McCAIN: He doesn’t say it’s the opposite.
MR. RUSSERT: …unless you have political reconciliation.
SEN. McCAIN: Tim, I’ve known Jim Jones for 30 years. It’s not what he’s saying. What he’s saying is we have to have now political progress; and he, like all of us, are very frustrated by the lack of political progress, that the Maliki government has not done the things we want them to do. And we have every right to expect it and, unless there is political progress, that we are not going to succeed in Iraq. We all understand that. We all comprehend that. But you—any counterinsurgency expert will tell you that you have to have a military security environment on the ground, and then the other aspects of it move forward. And I think it is moving forward, but it’s hard, and it’s tough, and it’s long, and it’s full of disappointments. And to say that somehow with a few troops that we can handle this situation of Iranian further incursion into southern Iraq, the—of the Syrians continuing their dislocation in the region in support of Hezbollah and Hamas, I think is a basic misreading of the security situation we face when we, “withdraw,” as is what the Democrats and John Kerry wants us to do.
Here’s what the report stated and let me add, I think that McCain, Kerry and Russert, all knew the right answer which that McCain “Mr. Straight Talk” is spinning the report. Who cares how long you have know General Jones. That sweet little fact has no baring on the fact that General Jones said the opposite of McCain’s spin.
Political reconciliation is the key to ending sectarian violence in Iraq. … [T]he single most important event that could immediately and favorably affect Iraq’s direction and security is political reconciliation focused on ending sectarian violence and hatred. Sustained progress within the Iraqi Security Forces depends on such a political agreement.
MTP - McCain on the Jones Report [2:32m]:
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Tags: Bush Administration, Domestic Issues, Election 2008, Iraq by ecthompson
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