Truespeak

Today at New York University, John Kerry delivered a speech that can only be summed up as a Democrat's wet dream. For months, hardcore Democrats have been begging for Kerry to take off the gloves and go for the throat. Today he did just that.

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell.  But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war.  The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure. 

The President has said that he “miscalculated” in Iraq and that it was a “catastrophic success.”  In fact, the President has made a series of catastrophic decisions … from the beginning … in Iraq.  At every fork in the road, he has taken the wrong turn and led us in the wrong direction.

The first and most fundamental mistake was the President’s failure to tell the truth to the American people.

He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war.  And he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens.

By one count, the President offered 23 different rationales for this war.  If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.

Kerry went on to outline a detailed four-point plan for success in Iraq.

First, the President has to get the promised international support so our men and women in uniform don’t have to go it alone.  It is late; the President must respond by moving this week to gain and regain international support.
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Second, the President must get serious about training Iraqi security forces.
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Third, the President must carry out a reconstruction plan that finally brings tangible benefits to the Iraqi people.
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Fourth, the President must take immediate, urgent, essential steps to guarantee the promised elections can be held next year.

It was a blistering speech by Kerry's standards and relentless in its attacks on the President. He even articulated his own vote to authorize the use of force:

Two years ago, Congress was right to give the President the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable.  This President… any President… would have needed the threat of force to act effectively.  This President misused that authority.

The power entrusted to the President gave him a strong hand to play in the international community.  The idea was simple.  We would get the weapons inspectors back in to verify whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  And we would convince the world to speak with one voice to Saddam: disarm or be disarmed.

Clearly, John Kerry has decided to take the fight to the President on the matter of Iraq and the facts are in Kerry's favor. Recently we learned that in July the president was presented with a National Intelligence Estimate that stated the best-case scenario for Iraq over the next eighteen months is "tenuous stability." In other words, the best we can hope for is that it doesn't get any worse than it already is. Not exactly what I would call a ringing endorsement for the president's strategy.

In addition to John Kerry, the president is now under attack from members of his own party. On the Sunday morning talk shows, no less than four Republican senators were critical of the war in Iraq and George Bush's handling of it. Senator Lugar (R-IND) called the administration incompetent while Senator Hagel (R-NEB) said "No, I don't think we're winning. We're in trouble, we're in deep trouble in Iraq."

So with everything seemingly going against him, one might think the president would defend himself. However, in a speech in New Hampshire today, the president was only able to offer the same empty rhetoric and accusations that we've heard for months.

Today, my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind, with new contradictions of his old positions on Iraq. He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, no, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he still would have voted for force, even knowing everything we know today. Incredibly, he now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power, not in prison.

John Kerry said nothing of the sort. This is the president's game, though; twist what was said into what the Conservatives are hoping he'll say.

Forty-three days before the election, my opponent has now suddenly settled on a proposal for what to do next, and it's exactly what we're currently doing. We're working with the international partners, we're training Iraqi troops, we're reconstructing the -- reconstructing the company, (sic) we're preparing for elections. They're going to have elections in January.

Once again, George Bush is playing with syntax. When John Kerry says "allies" he's referring to countries that will send more than twenty-five troops (Kazakhstan), not international partners that provide political and moral support (Philipines). When John Kerry talks about training Iraqi troops, he's referring to the fact that none of the 35,000 Iraqi police now in uniform have completed a field-training program. At this point, only 5,000 Iraqi troops of any kind are fully trained. Just because we have put them in a uniform and given them an assignment doesn't mean they are qualified. And when John Kerry talks about reconstruction, he's talking about actually spending the $18 billion that congress approved over a year ago. As of this date, only $1 billion has actually been spent and the Bush administration is asking that $3.5 billion more be reallocated to be used for security.

John Kerry has a plan for Iraq. It is clear and detailed. As of now, forty-some days before the election, we have yet to hear an actual plan from our president. All we get is the same old empty rhetoric and accusations. John Kerry is clearly more prepared to deal with the growing problem in Iraq than the current administration. Let's hope he gets the chance to do just that.