5 Dec 2005
Bruce W. Cobb
A REAL PLAN FOR VICTORY IN IRAQ As a former service member, I am "mad as hell" at the Administration's efforts in Iraq. Where are all the Iraqis who are supposed to be fighting for their country?To defeat the insurgency, we still need to put 200-300,000 more Iraqis under arms. We should train them in the U.S. We have the best training facilities in the world. These Iraqis should be placed in battalion-sized units where they are"cohorted" -placed together thru basic to advanced and then deployed to back to Iraq as one unit.We need to write Soldiers' Manuals(remember them) in Arabic. We need to train combat support and service support Iraqis here in the U.S. We need to expand the Iraqi air force for the insugency mission. They need at least 200 transport helicopters and about 100 Super Cobra attack helicopters, and get the Cesna corporation to remanufacture the A-37 Dragonfly attack jet for the Iraqi air force.Except for advisory and training troops, we need to slowly withdraw our troops. we can keep some Combat troops and Special Operations troops there. We should keep a " fire brigade" in Kuwait.Hopefully, this proposal beats anything the Administration has. Bruce W. Cobb (Captain USAR former).

4 Dec 2005
Barbara Williams
Honor the Warrior, not the War! Mr. Mitchell you have said it well. Honor the "Warrior" not the war. I am so sorry for your loss! The people who conceived, planned and profited from this war honor nothing except power and money. Stay the course! Your quest is just! The "Warriors" for truth and justice are growing by leaps and bounds! America is finally waking up to the sad reality that a lie of monumental proportions took us to war and created a profound void in the lives of all it has touched! This deception will not soon pass away, never to be forgotten, history will not be kind to the betrayers of this nation! Until justice is meted out to all who took us into this inconceivable war based on bold faced lies, creating so much pain in the lives of so many Americans as well as innocent Iraqis, our nation will not rest in peace! God bless you and keep you and your family Mr. Mitchell! Bless the tenacity of Cindy Sheehan, the "Gold Star Families" for keeping the fire stoked, Veterans for Common Sense as well as all the other true "Warriors for Peace and Justice" who are making this nation proud.....Once again! And as for Congressman Thomas, it stands to reason, if he is a Bush cheer leader, he is a man of little substance...

3 Dec 2005
Stuart Moyle
The question is, "Does the administration finally have a plan." The answer is, "Not only 'NO!', but 'HELL NO!' " Incompetence breeds incompetence. When incopetent people are elected into office, not because of their abilities but because of who is sponsoring them and ideaologies, this is the results. This is a country that has gone from a surplus to the worst debt it has ever seen, lowest unemployment on record to one of the highest ever recorded, one where a President even sneezed wrong to complete cover-up, one where other countries trusted and believed in us to to one of utter disdaine, one where we went into combat with justifiable reasons to one where we entered a combat under false pretenses and lies, and where when there was a major disaster the federal was right there with a quick response, no questions asked, to one of total indifferences with the response, "You shouldn't have lived there." The only plan this administration has is to serve the very rich and special interest groups, and make a lot of retortical statements based on fantisies.

2 Dec 2005
John S. Fox
If communication with Iraqis is so vital, why does the US military place propaganda in the Iraqi press, write and translate its own self serving materials, own a newspaper and pay other news outlets to give air to its propaganda? Not the ideal of Democracy! Also, if we are going to withdraw some troops for political reasons BUT replace their efforts with bombers, targetted by Iraqi personnel, we will be aiding and abetting genocide of the Sunnis as the Shiites already seem to be using their military and tribal militias to kill them off. Saving a few troops to save political face, BUT encouraging genocide, is not living up to our obligations as a sovereign nation.

2 Dec 2005
Diana Cronkhite
Now the window of opportunity is open for us to leave Iraq. We have held their hand to long, and when teaching anyone , you must let go and let them walk alone. This is the only way one learns . We cannot continue to hold the Iraqi's by their hands all their life. We are a free nation , and so are they. We are a proud nation because of all the civil wars we went through to get there. We must let them take the lead and stand up for what they want...not what we want. They have their army , and they know how to shoot. They have their courts and they know what to do in them. They want this chance to stand on their own so they too can be proud of their own accomplishments. Now is the time to leave before another one of our soldiers gets killed. Let us use this window of opportunity right now, before the door closes and we are stuck there forever.

2 Dec 2005
Mark Kern
I think the Bush Administration has no business being in Iraq, now or in 2003. As far as security goes it makes the US more subject to sabotage, etc. I've read about the War of 1812, and was in the AF during Vietnam. Nothing was won in the War of 1812 (lives was lost), and Vietnam was lost. Iraq has loads of problems from their religious community . . . the US has no business being there. They had a big clue of what happened to the British in the early 1920s . . . the Bush administration didn't pay attention to passed history. Now they are paying to price for it, and so are we.

2 Dec 2005
Richard Young
The President's "Victory in Iraq Plan" is less a plan than a slogan -- like his May 2003 "Mission Accomplished" declaration. The "Plan" is insufficient, nonsensical and is just another example of PR "spin" with no real substance. The "Plan" ignores the present reality on the ground in Iraq; conveniently forgets the President's pre-war statements of why we had to preemptively attack and invade a country which had never attacked or threatened to attack us (and which the CIA testified to Congressional committees, just prior to our attack, was not an "imminent" threat to us and would not be capable of attacking us "for the foreseeable future"), and that Iraq's oil revenues would be sufficient to pay for reconstructing Iraq after our attack and invasion, without calling upon American taxpayers to pay for what our armed forces would have to destroy; and paints a fanciful picture of the future in Iraq and the Middle East which has no basis in past and present realities in that region. The "Victory in Iraq Plan" fails to recognize the central and indisputable fact that an overwhelming majority of Iraqi people consider American troops to be invaders and "occupiers" -- not "liberators" -- and at least a large plurality of Iraqis believe that armed resistance against our occupying troops is legitimate action by patriotic Iraqi "resistance" fighters. With the exception of the Kurdish minority (less than 20% of the population), a large majority of Iraqis (both Sunni and Shia) want American troops out of Iraq within a reasonable short time (no later than the end of 2006), and (again with the exception of the Kurds) oppose permanent American military bases in Iraq. The President's "Victory in Iraq Plan" ignores these clearly stated views of the Iraqi people and -- in the name of establishing "democracy" in Iraq and throughout the "Greated Middle East" -- announces our Government's intentions to stay in Iraq as long as our Government deems it necessary to do so, while reserving the right to continue our military occupation, our establishment of permanent military bases, and our ongoing interference with and effective control over Iraq's national security, election processes, constitution drafting, legislative functioning, public administration, and --above all -- the exploitation of Iraq's vast oil and gas resources. (Note this week's story on a foreign oil company's agreement with "Kurdistan" -- supposedly an integral part of the nation of Iraq -- to explore and exploit "Kurdistan" petroleum resources, without the approval or consent of the national government of Iraq, pursuant to the recently approved Iraqi constitution which American "advisors" were instrumental in drafting and ramming through without a single vote by the Iraqi parliament.) President Bush's "Victory in Iraq Plan" is a farce, and necessarily so. How can you ever have a true "Victory" in a totally unjustifiable war of aggression? As Chief Nuremburg Prosecutor (and Supreme Court Justice) Robert Jackson put it, aggressive war is the supreme war crime, from which all other war crimes derive. If President Bush had any sense of decency, he would be standing in front of a banner entitled "Atonement for Iraq" -- and he would be begging the foregiveness of aggrieved Iraqis and Americans for his murderous and decidedly un-Christian behavior.

2 Dec 2005
Lawrence Crowley
Same old feel good propaganda. No real plan.

2 Dec 2005
constance kosuda
a lie based on a lie (a deliberate lie) is still a lie.there is blood on this Administration's hands, and it is not there by accident, it is there by deliberate, cold-blooded, criminal intent. why are they still out of prison?