Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: !!! -> Clinton: The big mistake of the Iraq war (The Independent) <- !!!

 Mi sembra che questo sia il turning point dell'avventura Irakena.
Am.
Clinton: The big mistake of the Iraq war 
 Ex-President leads the critics
 By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
 Published: 18 November 2005
 The dam has burst. Former president Bill Clinton's verdict that the war 
in Iraq was "a big mistake" is echoing around the world.
 The unease, the misgivings, and downright opposition can be contained 
no longer. From Senate Republicans, to one of the most influential 
Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill yesterday, the message has been the 
same. The Iraq war has been a disaster, and the sooner American troops 
leave the better. The alarm was sounded on Capitol Hill on Tuesday when 
Senate Republicans and Democrats joined forces to demand the White House 
explain every three months how it intends to "complete the mission" in 
Iraq.
The next day, Mr Clinton weighed in from the Middle East, saying the war 
as it unfolded was "a big mistake". It was a good thing Saddam Hussein 
had gone, the former president said, "but I don't agree with what was 
done". The administration underestimated "how easy it would be to 
overthrow Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country".
He said President George Bush had made "several errors, including the 
total dismantlement of the authority structure of Iraq". He added: "We 
never sent enough troops and didn't have enough troops to control or 
seal the borders." Across those porous borders, "the terrorists came in. 
That was the central mistake, and we're still living with that".
As passions have run higher here this week, the venerable traditions 
that foreign policy arguments "stopped at the water's edge", seems to 
have been conclusively discarded. The most recent Democratic president 
was in Dubai, in the heart of the Arab world, when he delivered his 
verdict on the war that was launched by his successor in the White House.
On Tuesday, US senators voted 79-19 to endorse a Republican amendment 
demanding a regular accounting for the war from the Bush administration. 
Not only was it a bilateral statement that things could not go on as 
they were, it came at the moment Mr Bush was in Asia, thanking Japan, 
South Korea and Mongolia for their contributions to coalition forces in 
Iraq.
From foreign soil, Mr Bush fired back at his Democratic critics, 
accusing them of "playing politics in America", with their charges that 
his administration had distorted pre-war WMD intelligence. In short, a 
foreign trip by a sitting president no longer guarantees a cessation of 
hostilities at home; indeed this time it has only served to stoke them.
Vice-President Dick Cheney, arguably the driving force behind the 
invasion, delivered a vitriolic retort to a conservative audience here 
on Wednesday, accusing Democrats of levelling "one of the most dishonest 
and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city". These critics, he 
suggested, had lost "either their memory or their backbone". They were 
peddling "cynical and pernicious falsehoods" to gain political advantage 
while US soldiers died in Iraq, at least 51 of them so far this month, 
bringing the overall toll to 2,080 since the March 2003 invasion.
But Democrats scornfully dismissed the "tired rhetoric" of a discredited 
vice-president. John Kerry, who was defeated by Mr Bush in 2004, said 
"few people have less credibility" than Mr Cheney, who said before the 
war that Saddam was "reconstituting" nuclear weapons, and the US 
invaders would be greeted with garlands. But the most significant 
developments have come on Capitol Hill, as both parties signal that 
enough is enough.
Chuck Hagel, a widely respected Republican senator from Nebraska, said 
that the bipartisan vote was a "historic turning point", with Congress 
reasserting its constitutional duty to oversee foreign policy.
And in another stunning development, John Murtha, an old-school 
Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania of 30 years' standing, demanded 
an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, "because they have 
become the target".
A decorated marine veteran and ranking Democrat on the House defence 
appropriations subcommittee, Mr Murtha has been a hawk on military 
matters, and voted for the 2003 invasion. But close to tears at times in 
a press conference, he said he had changed his mind.
"It is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering, the 
future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present 
course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in 
the best interests of the US, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf 
region." His call for an "immediate redeployment" not only flies in the 
face of the refusal of the White House to set any date for a draw-down 
of American forces. Mr Murtha went further even than liberal Democrats, 
who mostly go no further than seeking a timetable for a phased pull-out 
of the 160,000 US troops in Iraq.
The latest polls show that up to two-thirds of Americans now oppose the 
war.
 
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article327773.ece

Mi sembra che questo sia il turning point dell'avventura Irakena.
*ROTFL*
Continua a sognare :)
-Stefano

,


Grazie per il tempestivo e interessante commento. Ero sicuro che saresti 
stato il primo a capire l'importanza del post...
Am.

saresti stato il primo a capire l'importanza del post...
Certo, certo... :)
*pat pat*
-Stefano