Late Edition: Even With 20/20 Hindsight, Bremer Would Do It All Again The Same Way
By Nicole Belle Saturday Mar 15, 2008 7:02pm 
Download | play 
Download | play (h/t Heather)
Former head of the Iraqi Provisional Government and Neo-Con Apologist L. Paul Bremer comes on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer on the fifth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq to admit, that yes, mistakes were made (and gosh, he had made recommendations that were ignored over assumptions that turned out to be false)...blah blah blah, but even still, he doesn't think they would have done anything differently in retrospect.
BREMER: Well, I respectfully disagree with the senator. I think under the circumstances the president faced and the country faced in 2003 with our intelligence agencies, the agencies of France, Germany, Russia, Israel, Britain all thinking that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and concerned about the possibility that Al Qaida terrorists, Islamic extremists would get their hands on this stuff, I think the decision to go into Iraq was the right one at the time.
BLITZER: You still think it was the right decision?
BREMER: Yes, I do.
BLITZER: Despite everything we now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that any connection between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein was very minimal if there was anything serious there. You still think it was the right thing to do?
BREMER: I do. I think it was the right thing to do, and I think Iraq is on the road now to becoming -- it will take time -- a democratic government in the middle of the Middle East, which is, in itself, quite an accomplishment.
So, I respectfully disagree with the senator. And I think it's not clear -- he makes the argument -- I don't think it's true -- that we are less safe than we were before. I don't think that's true. We have lost almost 4,000 Americans' lives there, and that's a tragic cost that we have had to pay.
Wow. A very tragic price to pay considering we went in for NO REASON, Bremer. And this tired meme that all these other countries agreed with our intelligence continues to be put out without any challenge. OUR OWN weapons inspectors questioned it. The UN questioned it. France and Russia questioned it.
I posit that this is an auxiliary to the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result): knowing that you have brought forth a tragedy of global and epic proportions, saying that you'd do it again make you not only mentally deranged but unworthy of being given a national platform to spout such insanity again. And Wolf? Maybe a challenge or two to the insanity spewed in front of you might make you seem a little less like a mouthpiece for the White House. Even Chris Wallace manages it occasionally.
Transcripts below the fold:
BLITZER: Welcome back. After almost five years of war and the loss of nearly 4,000 U.S. troops, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said this week Iraq's leaders so far have failed to take full advantage of the reduction in violence that resulted from the so-called military surge in troops.
And there are new reports that show that violence is actually beginning to increase somewhat, as the front line troops start to head home.
So where is the U.S. in Iraq after five years?
Joining us now to discuss this is Ambassador Paul Bremer. He was the director of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq during those crucial years immediately after the invasion, spent a year working there.
Ambassador, thanks for coming back.
BREMER: Good to be with you, Wolf.
BLITZER: You write, in the New York Times today, on the op-ed page, this. I'll read it to our viewers.
"Prewar planning provided for fewer than half the number of troops that independent studies suggested would be needed in Iraq. And we did not have a plan to provide the most basic function of any government, security for the population."
I would have pushed sooner for a more effective military strategy. Because, from 2004 to the end of 2007, Al Qaida took advantage of this gap.
Those are three important points that you made in that little paragraph right there. Why weren't there enough troops deployed to begin with?
BREMER: Well, you know, Wolf, I think part of the problem, both in terms of the number of troops and the strategy involved, a legitimate concern on the part of the military leaders, particularly the Army, that they would become overstretched -- and, indeed, it put a lot of strain, not only on the regular Army, but, as we have seen, on the National Guard and on the Reserves.
BLITZER: But General Shinseki, who was the chief of -- the Army chief of staff, he wanted more troops. And he was, sort of, rebuked, at the time, by Paul Wolfowitz, among others, for even suggesting the U.S. might need hundreds of thousands, as opposed to 150,000.
BREMER: Well, I had the luxury of being a businessman during the runup to the war.
BREMER: So I don't know what happened all but during the war. I did say before I left for Iraq that independent studies showed we needed perhaps twice as many troops as we actually had at the time.
BLITZER: 300,000.
BREMER: Yeah, or more. And we didn't have them there, and in fact, we never got them. It's really only when the president changed the strategy and put into effect the surge a year ago that we've seen some good news on the violence front.
BLITZER: Second point, you say we did not have a plan to provide the most basic function of any government. There was a plan in place that retired General Jay Garner would go in and start to deal with the civilian infrastructure immediately after the military objectives were achieved. There was a plan. What was the problem?
BREMER: Well, the plan for a reconstruction was based on, as it turned out, false assumptions. We assumed there would be large-scale humanitarian disaster, we assumed Saddam would set fire to the oil wells, we assumed there would be large-scale refugee movements inside the country. None of these things actually happened. So, General Garner, who is a wonderful, patriotic man, found himself in a situation where the planning that had been done before the war was based on assumptions that...
BLITZER: And that's when they sent you in?
BREMER: Well, that's when I arrived. And I found that in fact the situation on the ground was far worse than we thought. The economy was completely devastated, and we had quite a job trying to reconstruct it.
BLITZER: The basic criticism leveled against you is that you took charge instead of letting Iraqis take charge.
BREMER: Well, I've seen that argument. I just don't agree with it. Within 60 days of my arrival, we put in place an interim Iraqi government. I gave them full authority. They appointed the ministers who ran the government for the rest of the time I was there. I never overruled a minister my entire time I was there, though I had the authority to do it.
[snip]
BLITZER: I want you to respond to Barack Obama. He said this on Thursday, looking ahead, if he were president as far as his strategy in Iraq. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: The strategy of invading Iraq has been and continues to be a strategic failure of enormous proportions. My conclusion is at a enormous cost of blood and treasure that has also weakened our economy. It hasn't made us more safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: All right. What do you think?
BREMER: Well, I respectfully disagree with the senator. I think under the circumstances the president faced and the country faced in 2003 with our intelligence agencies, the agencies of France, Germany, Russia, Israel, Britain all thinking that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and concerned about the possibility that Al Qaida terrorists, Islamic extremists would get their hands on this stuff, I think the decision to go into Iraq was the right one at the time.
BLITZER: You still think it was the right decision?
BREMER: Yes, I do.
BLITZER: Despite everything we now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that any connection between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein was very minimal if there was anything serious there. You still think it was the right thing to do?
BREMER: I do. I think it was the right thing to do, and I think Iraq is on the road now to becoming -- it will take time -- a democratic government in the middle of the Middle East, which is, in itself, quite an accomplishment.
So, I respectfully disagree with the senator. And I think it's not clear -- he makes the argument -- I don't think it's true -- that we are less safe than we were before. I don't think that's true. We have lost almost 4,000 Americans' lives there, and that's a tragic cost that we have had to pay.
BLITZER: Ambassador Bremer, thanks for coming in.
BREMER: Good to be with you.
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No Comment!
fascists are all the same.
indignantly unapologetic to the end....Goering was the same.
OT: JP Morgan just paid TWO DOLLARS per share for Bear Stearns...
[Deleted. It's racism, conspiracy theory, off topic and spam all wrapped in one big ball of joy. Please don't waste our time with it any longer. Thank you. Site Monitor]
This is piece from The Real News is relevant. Why is the Rand report on Iraq being suppressed? One can only assume it's so Bush regime like Bremer can cover their behinds and keep lying.
Report critical of Army in Iraq suppressed
US Army suppresses RAND report
http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=978&thi...
Of course the traitor Bremmer would "do it again" because where else would he and the other neocon PNAC criminals get their hands on $8.5 BILLION is U.S, tax money (handed out by Bremmer to Bush's pals--and totally unaccounted for), along with $26 BILLION (in U.S. dollars) or Iraqi money??
What is wrong with Americans? Why aren't we putting these bastards up in front of firing squads? Instead, they are "guests" on TV shows, and STILL sitting in the White House.
What a dipshit.
The Prophet @ 4:
Away with your crypto-Nazi BS
The questions unasked of course were about the $9 billion lost (poof) under his watch, the looting of historical artifacts, the guarding of the oil fields while the entire infrastructure of Iraqi neighborhoods was destroyed and not slated for rebuilding, and what about the contractors who were supposed to rebuild but instead have pocketed our money and given our troops contaminated water and food, killed Iraqi citizens without cause, and funneled money to our "enemies." If all Iraqis are our enemies, then the Bush administration is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. That is the definition of treason. Impeachment is the only answer. Bremer needs to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Bremer is just one of many I'd send to The Hague.
OT but I think significant
JPMorgan just bought Bear Strearns for $2.00 a share or $254 million. On Friday it was worth $3.34 Billion. The fed just announced (on a Sunday evening) that they are cutting lending rates for business by a quarter point.
I'm no expert, but I think the shit just hit the fan.
........that any connection between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein was very minimal if there was anything serious there..
Earth to Wolf................. there was no connection, so why the obfuscation? Corporatist twit!!
Site monitor, I've checked the sites that The Prophet@4 posted, they're racist conspiracy sites that claim the Holocaust never happened, that there is an international Jewish banking conspiracy to control the world, was responsible for 9/11 and plans future attacks on the US. Check them yourself. Do we really want that kind of thing posted here at C&L?
Two words: KISSINGER PROTEGE.
He knows nothing about the 100 orders he supposedly cooked up from scratch in the two weeks notice he says he was given.
CPA Order #1 and #2 were forced Debaathification (which brought on the civil war), and elimination of the Iraqi security forces of all sorts (which the Pentagon had been promised for border security by Rumsfeld, as a justification for the absurdly insufficient deployment).
Bremer is top of the list for felons who should HANG.
It was worth almost 4000 American soldiers' lives.... What about perhaps 1,000,000 Iraqi lives and 3,000,000 displaced Iraqis and the destruction of a country and the ruination of a generation of Iraqis and the malnutrition and pollution....and extra hatred in the world.....Oh my.
Snowball @ 8:
Spamed here as well:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/03/15/let’s-all-say-it-together-there-is-no-freedom-agenda/
Check out the documentary, "No End in Sight", to see a good synopsis of just how badly Bremer & Co forked things up.
And you thing McWarBaby will be any better?
VietVet8666 @ 9:
The Hague has ZERO power over Bremer or any U.S. war criminal.
He can be tried by the EU itself, or by the German authorities, or by OUR laws.
Thank you site monitor, we don't need that kind of BS to distract us from the real criminal Big Oil and Military Industrial Complex corporate cabal that created this mess.
[Thanks for pointing it out. Site Monitor]
Blue Lensman @ 15:
The JOB was to foment civil war, so fucking up is the method, not the complaint about the method--and that holds true for the entire Bushco conspiracy. It's like mafiosi who 'accidentally' knock over shelves full of glass bottles during their shakedown of a 7-11 owner.
"There is no more Iraq. There will be three territories."
-- Bremer's boss, H. Kissinger, briefing his Saudi allies in early 2004
was it worth 1,000,000 dead iragi's? how many dead iraqi's equals a crime Paul?
BREMER:
"I think under the circumstances the president faced and the country faced in 2003 with our intelligence agencies, the agencies of France, Germany, Russia, Israel, Britain all thinking that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction..."
REALITY:
"Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners as yet."
— Vladimir Putin, October 2002
"If countries have persuasive proof that Iraq continues its WMD programme then this proof should be presented."
— Sergey Lavrov, January 2003
"We would like to see undeniable proof. We have not seen any reason so far to undercut the inspection process."
— Sergey Lavrov, January 2003
"I have no evidence that these weapons exist in Iraq."
— Jacques Chirac, February 2003
"In this democracy my generation has learnt, you have to make the case, and to make the case in a democracy you have to be convinced yourself, and excuse me, I am not convinced. This is my problem and I cannot go to the public and say, 'well, let's go to war because there are reasons and so on,' and I don't believe in [them]."
— Joschka Fischer, February 2003
"As far as France is concerned, we are ready to envisage everything that can be done under UNSCR 1441. [...] But I repeat that every possibility offered by the present resolution must be explored, that there are a lot of them and they still leave us with a lot of leeway when it comes to ways of achieving the objective of eliminating any weapons of mass destruction which may exist in Iraq. I'd like nevertheless to note that, as things stand at the moment, I have, to my knowledge, no indisputable proof in this sphere."
— President Jacques Chirac, Paris, February 10, 2003
Video:
http://tinyurl.com/2r92lz
"Sure I'd do it over the same way again. Isn't it every nation's foreign policy to truck in crates of cash and watch it disappear?" Paul Bremer
The only plan the Bush regime had going into Iraq was to destroy the place and privatize everything in site, especially their natural resources. The more chaos, the more they can justify a permanent occupation.
weldon @ 2:
Neat. Sweet. Petite.
.
Late Edition: Even With 20/20 Hindsight, Bremer Would Do It All Again The Same Way
... Because a million lives aren't enough!
.
Naturally Bremer would do things the same, he must have gotten a big chunk of that 8 billion dollars that went missing on his watch!
Snowball @ 22:
Exactly. Bushie's henchmen haven't screwed up anything in 7 years. They planned the messes they've made.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels
Nazi Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
I'd like to see his Swiss account.
Bremer says, We have lost almost 4,000 Americans’ lives there, and that’s a tragic cost that we have had to pay.
which is the lie that is repeated over and over - that this war is somehow necessary for the security of the US or one of its allies. The only thing that was necessary was that George W. Bush had to prove to George Herbert Walker Bush that he, the Prodigal, was a man. He failed again.
OleHippieChickHussein @ 28:
Swiss, Paraguay or Dubai??
So another incompetent bobble head friend of George W Bush still thinks it was the right thing to do... invade a sovereign nation for O.I.L. Too bad it didn't turn out the way they wanted it to. They still haven't secured those oil deals or steals is more like it. Bremmer - once a fool, always a fool. Hope he loses his ambassadorship after Barack become president.
None of these cons will ever apologize... ever. It's all about creating a new reality. The big lie repeated till it sounds familiar and respected. Tres Orwellian, no?
Kinda like how cults become religions over time. Eventually a critical mass of believers is reached and it creates its own momentum.
How else do you explain the 30%ers?
yellow dog @ 31:
Actually, when it's all over and done, even if bloodshed continues, they have secured Iraqi oil for the US. That was the goal. Signing agreements. They don't care about a few thousand American deaths and a million or so Iraqi. Their oil buddies not got the access and right to steal every last drop.
I saw the interview. The man repulses me. These neo-cons can never accept blame for anything. They just keep shoveling shit on top of shit just hoping we, the gullible public sucks it up. Shameless!
ConcernedHusseinCanuck @ 32:
Forgive my limited scope. I'm not up on hiding vast amounts of dough. :-P
I'm not patient enough to wait and see justice in the afterlife.
Paul Bremer -- excuse me, Viceroy L. Paul Bremer -- is a war criminal like the rest of Bushco.
Impeach. Indict. Imprison.
...
Why do all these stories leave out the most damning FACT regarding Bush taking us to war for no reason? That damning fact--THE UN INSPECTORS WERE ALLOWED IN, INSPECTED WHERE WE TOLD THEM TO GO, FOUND NOTHING, AND WERE TOLD TO LEAVE BY BUSH TWO WEEKS BEFORE HE INVADED IRAQ.
Instead, we are continually treated to text like that above "OUR OWN weapons inspectors questioned it. The UN questioned it. France and Russia questioned it."
Hammer these criminals with that fact at every turn, so that public opinion will support jail terms for Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell (yes him too), Rumsfield, etc.
Nicole i know that definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result), lol!
when WMD were never found Bush blamed it on faulty intelligence. Well here's the head of the CIA's Intelligence calling Bush "A Dirty Rotten Liar' on 60 minutes for the whole world to see.
as long as these thugs keep repeating the lies, i will keep posting this smoking gun...
"(CBS) When no weapons of mass destruction surfaced in Iraq, President Bush insisted that all those WMD claims before the war were the result of faulty intelligence. But a former top CIA official, Tyler Drumheller — a 26-year veteran of the agency — has decided to do something CIA officials at his level almost never do: Speak out.
He tells correspondent Ed Bradley the real failure was not in the intelligence community but in the White House. He says he saw how the Bush administration, time and again, welcomed intelligence that fit the president's determination to go to war and turned a blind eye to intelligence that did not.
"It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it’s an intelligence failure. It’s an intelligence failure. This was a policy failure," Drumheller tells Bradley.
Drumheller was the CIA's top man in Europe, the head of covert operations there, until he retired a year ago. He says he saw firsthand how the White House promoted intelligence it liked and ignored intelligence it didn’t: "
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/21/60minutes/main1527749.shtml
Cats r Flyfishn @ 33:
I hope he loses his freedom along with the rest of the administration.
The arrogance of these people is astounding.
Out-slaughtered Saddam Hussein and they'd do it all again for their rich little friends who want to control oil production in the Middle East.
Notice how he does concede that some mistakes were made. Notice also that, like most of the neo-con revisionists, he never admits his own mistakes.
These creeps will be CYA mode for the rest of their days.
The only government that is ever going to exist in Iraq is a Corporate Fascist State, created by Corporate Fascists in the United States.
what a surprize, Apparently profits are privitized and losses are nationalized when your in the big coorerate bush society, Bremmer owes me 8.5 billion, These guys have done nothing more than to open the countrys treasury and hand it out to there buddies
Obama 2008
I am tired of all this chattering here. The next time I am in the presence of one of these fools I am going to punch him in the face. It is worth going to jail for. Time for a little action.
Obama: We are less safe.
Bremer: No we’re not. We’ve lost almost 4,000 troops. Therefore, that makes us more safe.
Me: Huh?
WHAT ??????????
Hey asshole ; you and the rest of the neo-con/Chimpy administration assholes have been incorrect in every single prediction/assessment you have spewed.
How after 5 years and countless Iraqi civilian casualties alongside our own troops , can you claim that it "was the right thing to do" ?
And what's with this bullshit spew now that it's gonna' "take time" for a democratic government to take hold in Iraq ?
There wasn't a goddamn one of you lying sacks of shit that claimed anything remotely close to that when Chimpy illegally invaded Iraq 5 years ago..........
As for your "professional opinion" on the safety/security of the US ; no one gives a shit about your idiotic assessment of if we are defended properly or not.
I believe your credibility is somewhat "slightly lacking" in that area , shall we say .............
Bushed! @ 15:
Agreed! Only probably worse than that.
I have a vision: take every single person that agrees with this war and thinks the casualties are 'worth it' and drop them in Iraq for a month. What a great thing that would be! They would be screaming that they couldn't get a decent cup of coffee (or tea) and the noise at night was keeping them awake. They would soon be aware of the nightmare that is now Iraq - and they'd be wishing it was back in the 'good ol' days' when Saddam was just bad dream for them.
Anybody think McCain will go strolling in the same marketplace he did last time in his latest taxpayer financed campaign stop that he claimed was safe?
One Year Later, Market Where McCain Strolled ‘Freely’ Is Controlled By Sadr, Too Unsafe For Americans To Visit»
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/16/mccain-market-iraq/
Nah, me neither.
ConcernedHusseinCanuck @ 35:
That is NOT the goal. AIRBASES is the goal.
Caspian sea oil reserves are known to be as large as those in Iran. Pipelining that oil requires airbases. With airbases in place, multinational corporations can make TRILLIONS of dollars.
The U.S. is just their patsy.
Imichael @ 47:
The door is to your left.
and another thing these lying neo-con Bushies are pounding the airwaves with. The spin that the surge is working crap. it's Not working! the surge was supposed to reduce violence so the Iraq government can reconcile. the Iraqi government is nowhere near reconciliation..
"BAGHDAD, March 13 -- Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR200803...
It's always 'worth it' to these people. That's because it's not them forced to flee for their lives into exile, not their friends and relatives who shot, blown up or tortured to death with drills, not their lives that are either snuffed out in unspeakable horror or shattered forever beyond all hope of recovery.
Yup, these pigs have endless fortitude when it comes to enduring the suffering of others.
Imichael @ 47:
I recall Ariana Huffington saying that she saw Bill Kristol on a train. I'd have gone from carriage to carriage asking if anyone had relatives serving in Iraq (or dead as a result) and announcing the fact one of the main architects of their suffering had his smug arse comfortably reposing on that very train.
These people should never be allowed to leave their gated communities or high-sec apartments without the gnawing fear that someone they've damaged might be out there ready to mete out some rough justice.
flex @ 54:
So will he leave it up to congress to say enough is enough? Will congress do anything?
How long can we hemorrhage troops and money to keep the inevitable from happening?
This war was crap from day one and Bremer shoulders a bunch of the smelly stuff.
Necons should be held accountable for this disaster costing trillions and thousands of life. Media is still in bed with them and allowing them more propaganda.
Blue Lensman @ 38:
Justice in the afterlife requires an afterlife.
NOW is when you can fight for justice. It's not a matter of patience, it's a matter of WORK.
In light of Bremer's comments, it seem only appropriate that bush recall him to the
White House and give him another Medal of Freedom/
He, Bremer, is a sack of shit and is equally as responsible for the conditions in Iraq
as is bush, for Bremer was the fuck up as head of the Coilation Proversional Authority
installed immediately after the "take over" by the U.S. of A. of the Iraqis Gov.
Mike Mid City @ 57:
These people have zero...'0'.....conciousness. To allow others to die....for what?
Sooner or later, Iraq would have had it out with itself, or its neighbors. So what? Its what they live for, its what they wanted.
bobby poulsen @ 62:
That is incorrect. The only reason why Iraq fought with Iran was because of US-installed Saddam Hussein.
Demonizing the Iraqi people is not the answer.
Too bad Blitzer didn't grill Bremer about:
1) Firing all the Sunni Baathists, throwing millions of Iraqis (and their families) out on the street (an act of economic genocide), fueling the insurgency and blowing any chance of a smooth transition to a democratic, freedom-honoring, non-religious-terrorist-run Iraq. What was the basis for this insane Sunni eradication policy? Who was behind it? Did Bremer have any clue about the "blowback" that would occur following such an ill-advised act of revenge against all the Sunni Baathists in Iraq, including the children?
2) How often did Bremer consult with Iraqi exiles like Ahmad Chalabi? And why didn't Bremer arrest Ahmad Chalabi after Chalabi leaked to Iranian agents in Iraq that the United States had broken Iran's super-secret communication codes, thus endangering U.S. forces operating inside Iraq? Why haven't U.S. forces still in Iraq arrested Ahmad Chalabi and renditioned him to a federal court in the U.S. to be tried?
3) Bremer instituted a 15 percent flat tax as head of the CPA. So, how'd that work out? Why did you drop it? What did you establish in its place? How's that working?
Anyway, there's many more questions I'd like to ask Bremer. I'd love to grab his shoulders and shake him (and Blitzer) until We The People are given straight answers, following some probing questions.
Read "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks for a look at L. Paul Bremer and his broken, dysfunctional and counter productive relationship with the military in the bungled years after the invasion that would work as kindling to fan the flames of an eventual conflagration it started and that continues into its 5th year.
These people's inabilty to admit mistakes is way too revealing
5 years, wow.
Time sure flys when you're having.. a recession.
Alice Hussein @ 29:
BINGO, nobody should expect these WAR PROFITEERS to admit anything now, like you said they have to keep the lies going. Any admission would lead to the World Court and the Hague .
We have lost almost 4,000 Americans’ lives there, and that’s a tragic cost that we have had to pay.
What you mean "we", Kimosabe? Any of your close, personal friends or family end up buying the farm over there?
I doubt it.
To drain the US Treasury, they are willing to spend every american life that they can.
Paul in LA @ 52:
Got that right!
Actually there are more than 5000 deaths due to the Iraq War, All persons dying, off the ground in a helicopter , medic tent or even in Rammstein AFB , are NOT COUNTED as DEAD .
Not to mention those who die in the states .
He is repeating the same LIE the main stream infotainers say , one of the biggest lies by omission concerning the Invasion . NOBODY taken away from a battle scene is counted as KIA , NOBODY . If they die elsewhere . To keep the numbers down to mislead the American people .
Paul in LA @ 20:
I agree - you have to look at the documentary "No End In Sight" to get a true feel for how full of sh*t Bremer is - the disaster that is Iraq was the intent of Cheney/Bush, Bremer helped it happen as you now see it. The full version of "No End In Sight" is available on Google. Worth your time to watch it. Talk your friends into watching it too.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6182969183854471645&q
We keep letting these politicians ignore the Constitution. Its our fault, We the People. Take some blame. Make real "Change" vote for the Constitution 08. Yes, He is still in the Race. Don't believe the lies. Its too late for Party People. We need Patriots.
Bapu and the Constitution 08
So if this guy was told to piss on an electric fence, for the sake of preserving The American way of life...he'd do it...and even if he found out he was lied to he'd have pissed on the fence anyway?
When will these neocon zombies ever be held accountable for their blunders? What they have reaped on this nation is treason.
Blitzer is absolutely useless, I wish there was a way to flush him and his ilk down the commode of incompetent journalists and replace him with someone capable of formulating tough follow up questions.
Uh, Paul,
Pssst Iraq WAS a democracy BEFORE your asshole friend invaded it.
Bremer is a STUPID FUCKING MORON! It really is that simple. But then again he is a Bush crony so what do you expect.
Heckuva job Bushie!
Of course Bremer would do it all over again the same way...this disaster was their plan from the start...Mission Accomplished!
this guy's a prick - but blitzer's verbal typo is important. anyone care to point it out? would shoulda coulda?
My understanding that France,Germany and Russia was against this war because why? intelligence stupid
I'm just watching No End in Sight and it's hard because the more I watch, the sadder I get. We can only hope someone has the strength and wisdom to get everyone involved in this lie of a war taken to court to be tried for crimes against humanity.
I've been trying to find that bit from The Daily Show on Cheney's little hunting accident. I believe it was Ed Helms who explained why Cheney would do it again. If anybody can find a link I can't think of a more appropriate place to post it than here.
Disgusting low life . He and all of his neocon pals , Bush , Cheney included , ought to be strung up by their ( wal ? ) nuts for treason , sabotage , conspiracy and crimes against humanity ... just for starters . The Republicans and the Republicrats who backed them up and enabled them are not any less guilty .
Bremer You son of a whore, you've got the blood of every man,woman and child on your hand.You dirty bastard,i hope you die a slow death.
4000 soldiers die---a down payment for the hundred years of war Mc Lamo wants. And what does Bremer care about these 4000 people? None of them were his relatives or loved ones. They're just cannon fodder in their psychotic 20th century version of Manifest Destiny.
I love how American politicians and religious leaders omit Canada from everything. "Everyone thought Saddam had WMD's, that's why Canada helped us ... oh, they didn't? Oh. Why not? They didn't think we had proof? Um, oh."
"America is being attacked by god because we tolerate teh gays!"
"Canada has same-sex marriage. Why isn't god attacking them?"
"Uh. Because. God only pays attention to us, coz Jesus is from Nashville."
"Riiiiiight."
What a pathetically embarrassing example of a person put in the position of making history-breaking decisions. Ambassador Bremer, you are in over your head.
And this is why these bastards need to be permanently discredited. They're warned beforehand, and they ignore the warnings and try to destroy those warning them. They make horrible mistakes, and blame others. And they never, ever learn. Not the right lessons, anyway — we've got the Nixon and Iran-Contra gang back in charge, but they thought the crimes of Watergate and Iran-Contra were getting caught.
Alice Hussein @ 70:
Absolutely, and, as I keep saying, it's about controlling water in that region. They are installing dams on the Euphrates River, starving Iraq and Syria of water.... Turkey's doing it with US money. Control the water, the oil and the area and you're home and hosed.
Paul in LA @ 63:
Absolutely! People try to salve their conscience by poking sticks at 'the enemy' - any excuse...
You know, if you had asked Stalin, or Goebbles or Attila the Hun the same question....why do we get these rehashed affronts to our intelligence? Lord knows there are better ways to spend one's time than allowing cretins like Bremmer one more chance to insult us. Why would anyone want to print/broadcast/type this SHIT?
"Why would anyone want to print/broadcast/type this SHIT?"
They're trying their case in public.
But their politics won't work the same when 1/3 of their remaining support goes bankrupt.
And with prosecutions, the proof that there is no honor among thieves. I can't wait for Viceroy Bremer to fall to his knees and cry that he was under orders and can't be held accountable. So far, Bushco told the world that CPA was not an American operation, so therefore it operated without any applicable law. I wonder if that will be such a good defense in court, instead of in public.
Sergio De Mello's death in the rubble of the CPA-CENTCOM unguarded UN building bombing in early 2004 came ONE DAY after he made his first official complaint to J. Paul Bremer about Viceroy Bremer's participation in war crimes.
Bremer (and Bush, and Rumsfeld, and Cheney, and Rice, etc.) is directly implicated in the worst attack on the United Nations in its history.
Only a fool.
Paul Bremer, you owe the US Treasury $12 billion dollars. Pay up, asshole.
Now you talk about a controversy that should get started by the national media. This is one they aught to be all over.
They should be staked outside of this bastards house, all in his bank accounts, interviewing his friends and relatives and just driving him crazy with questions about what the hell he did with our money.
When Bush asked congress for the first several billions dollars to conduct this illegal war, demanding cash without any kind of accountability and after one of the biggest floor fights from congress in the history of congressional fights, he was allowed to have his way, only to give this bastard all that cash that was taken out of our banks in crates with no security.
It was even mentioned that this bastard had much of our money stuffed in a safe of his hotel room, still with no security.
He took all this cash out of this country and to this day have been allowed to say he just don't know what happened to any of it and get away with it.
As a retired Federal Employee, that was responsible for millions and millions of tax payer dollars, I was never able to have any kind of excess to the kind of money without any accountability this bastard had excess too with no experience of even handing that kind of money and neither has any other Federal Employee it does not matter what it is for because you have to be experienced and be accountable for it for the very reasons of what happened to it.
Either he has to be accountable or Bush, but no one is allowed that kind of excess without accountability and it makes no difference what so ever of what it is for. We have people in our General Accounting Dept to deal with any method of paying contractors or what ever lie's he was allowed to tell unsespecting people who do not know how it is dealt with. He and Bush are both liars and they stole all that money and to this day they continue to take all that cash out of this country to do what they have been allowed to do sense they started all that shit in Iraq.
I can tell you now because I have personally witnessed exactly what has and always will happen to any of us that have that kind of responsibility and it has nothing to do with the fact that he was in a war Zone, because he never should have been allowed to take that kind of cash out of this country in the first place.
I personally wrote a note to the senate floor of how I felt they should handle the money and George Bush learned that there were people with knowledge, like myself that were sending notes to the floor and he sent a black woman into the senate with a note from himself demanding they not hold up the issuance of this cash because of the critical need to get on with his illegal invasion.
Needless to say the Senate members like Hillary Clinton gave him his way and the results are now what we are all dealing with, along with this sleazy bastard sitting his ass up there talking about he would do it again.
They need to blow this bastard out of that hearing for what he and Bush has done to this country.
these neocon criminal traitors should be strung up Musolini style
StCyrlyMe2 @ 95:
He sent a black woman?
How dare he.
It's odd that you think race is pertinent. Beyond that, your claim that HRC funded Bush so he could do all these crimes, but the funding and the crimes are two separate issues.
Majorities of the Senate voted for that funding, and HRC was in arguably positioning herself in the context of a bill that was ALREADY going to pass.
Imichael @ 47:
I'm with you. It would would be well worth a stay in jail to kick the crap out of Bremer or any one of the other PNAC criminals.
david blimmo @ 98:
If you feel that way, a lot of people feel that way. However, JUSTICE is better than vigilantism, and, btw, they would probably TASE you to death if you tried what you are fantasizing about.
Well, he did get that award thingy medal from g-Dub, so he must have been doin' a heck of a job.
Somebody who won't learn from mistakes is, by definition, a fool.
If anyone has read one of many fine exposes on Bremers CPA the question is really did he get ONE thing right? The answer is no. There is not a single aspect of the reconstruction of Iraq that wasn't tainted by neocon dogma, greed and stupidity. He is more culpable in the death toll than anyone short of bush/cheney.
Ignorance is bliss. Closed minds already know. Self denial, hubris, and greed help round out his beliefs.
Nice executive type hair with the morals and conscience of a millionaire war criminal.
Tom H @ 22:
Is it too much to ask a journalist to have done his homework like this BEFORE a hand job like Bremer comes on his show to spew about "what a great idea and I'd do it again" Iraq was, instead of fawning over him and allowing him to repeat his Mister Ed's muck-stall talking points unchallenged? Oh, wait, I forgot - its Wolfie, so there'll be no questions about the missing billions. A pallet full of which is probably sitting in "Jerry's" personal self storage container and bunker in the Caymans.
That is the problem with republicans. no matter how badly something goes, no matter how many people die, or no matter how much money is wasted, or how badly it was thought through or how disasterous the consiquences they would do it all over again the same way.
That is what is wrong with America, to much republican ignorance!
I would add that the man who was Canada's prime minister at the time Jean Cretien says it was one of his proudest moments in his long political career, that despite great pressure he did not agree for Canada to become part of the coalition that invaded Iraq.
Gayle @ 107:
Good point. Yes , God Bless Jean Chreitien .He had the gonads to call Iraq as he seen it.Its bad enough Canuck troops are dying in Afghanistan for another very dubious reason.
Canada did suffer blowback ( now theres a word Americans should understand) from its refusal to believe Bushes Iraq crap and jump into line. Bush and lumber pals slapped a 28% illegal tariff on our softwood lumber industry. By the time the courts ruled in Canadas favor ? US had collected over 6 billion in illegal tariffs of which USA only paid 4 billion back in the settlement. Crime pays again in the US. With friends like that ?
Yesterdays Bushism....
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
Wow...he's sooo stupid, he's brillaint...nah, scratch that...he's dumber'n a box o' stupid.
Heck I would too if I were Bremer.
On a different topic, where are those billions that were "lost" in transit to Iraq when Bremer was in charge?
Fuscking lying, treasonous sons of bitches should be hanging from street posts. The entire world objected to this debacle, except for the lying incompetent Tony blair, who deserves his own lamp post for his participation.
Hey Bremer: You mean that you would still dis-band the Iraqi army,let them keep their weapons,and then let them go home,pissed-off at the u.s., to beat the band and they sit around without any way to support their families and think of a million ways to kill and maim our troops? You sir, are a complete and utter moron.
Of course he would do it the same again...
otherwise he would have to give back his f&^king Medal of Freedom.
:(
It has been very profitable.
For God's sake, Wolf! The two biggest, costliest mistakes that Bremer made were de-Baathification and disbanding the Iraqi army. These two blunders put thousands of men on the street with no income, no way to support their families. THIS is what created the insurgency that killed thousands of American soldiers with IEDs, car bombs and suicide bombs. And the intrepid Wolf Blitzer doesn't even mention these decisions in the interview? Unbelievable.
Another (though no less significant) in a long line of Bush morons.. This one blew any chance of making less of a disaster of our little stint in Iraq. I spent 3 trillion dollars on a war and I didn't even get any lousy oil. If Paul Bremer had a conscience he would have shot himself in the head 3 years ago, but why kill yourself when you can continue to be an A No.1 FuckUp?!
A fine example of "steal more with a briefcase, than you can with a gun". He did just what bush wanted, create chaos and disfunction, giving criminals time to slice up pie on the back of Iraqs people, while picking the pockets of americans! If a criminal tells a court "I have no remorse for my crime and I would It again", what does that say about that criminal? The first thing we need to do is rip apart the big media. If we had real news reporting in america these thugs would not have lasted an hour. Eight year nitemare, someone pinch me I can't wake up!
I'm just finishing up reading "Fiasco" - which is a must-read.
Bremer comes off as incredibly inept. From all reports, he was the one that came up with the idea of disbanding the Iraqi army and the internal security groups.
Now, he didn't actually get a plan from above and had to try to figure it out on his own, but it's clear that those particular decisions either weren't shopped around widely or had support in high places (not Rumsfeld, who thought they were a bad idea).
I used to think that it was possible that there was a conspiracy around Iraq to improve profits for the defense and oil companies - it was the only thing that made sense.
But now I think, that yes, they really did believe that Iraq would just run itself after the invasion. They really were that stupid.
And to think he received the Medal of Freedom. Sure devalued that award IMHO. He should be tried in the Hague along with the rest--starting with Bush/Cheney. How about sharing a cell with George Tenet...
Eric @ 118:
That's hilarious. Man are you being fed a line.
Bremer's orders came from the same thinktanks that cooked up this operation, and the civil war they fomented and armed was PLANNED from the beginning.
We assumed there would be large-scale humanitarian disaster, we assumed Saddam would set fire to the oil wells, we assumed there would be large-scale refugee movements inside the country. None of these things actually happened.
Am I the only one calling Bremer's bluff on two out of these three? Kick this guy to the reconstruction site already, he has some unfinished business to take care of.
'There was no humanitarian crisis'? Do 3-4 million refugees count?
Also, what's this constantly repeated BS about other intelligence services backing Bush up about the WMDs, links to al-Qaeda etc.? Most AMERICAN intelligence services didn't buy that story; what's their basis for claiming an international consesnus?
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