Graham Forced To Retract Troop Level Prediction After Petraeus Contradicts Him
Graham Forced To Retract Troop Level Prediction After Petraeus Contradicts Him
On CBS’s Face The Nation this past Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-AZ), who recently returned from a taxpayer-funded trip to Iraq with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), bluntly predicted that “by the end of this year, we will be somewhere around 100,000 troops” in the country. “Most of the fighting will be done by Iraqis with us in overwatch,” said Graham.
Watch it:
The day after Graham made his prediction, however, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker presented plans to President Bush recommending that troop levels in Iraq “remain nearly the same through 2008 as at any time during five years of war.” According to the New York Times, Petraeus and Crocker’s recommendation means that it “now appears likely that any decision on major reductions in American troops from Iraq will be left to the next president.”
Though Graham’s spokesman, Kevin Bishop, “stood by the prediction” when asked about it on Sunday, Graham issued a statement yesterday claiming he “misspoke” when he predicted the 100,000 troop level:
Yesterday, I misspoke when I said we will be, ‘somewhere around 100,000 troops’ in Iraq by the end of 2008. I think we will be at pre-surge levels, about 130,000 troops, at years end. I have consistently said any changes or further reductions in troops should be based upon conditions on the ground and the advice of our commanders.
Graham has a record of making wildly false predictions about Iraq. In September 2007, after returning from another trip to Iraq, Graham predicted that “within the next weeks, not months, there will be a major breakthrough on the benchmarks regarding political reconciliation.”
Now, apparently like his close friend John McCain, when Graham gets the facts wrong, he tries to brush it aside by claiming he merely “misspoke.”
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And STILL they don’t talk about the number of Blackwater-type private contractors over there…
March 25th, 2008 at 11:25 amGrahammy needs to get his cammos on and git on over there.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:26 amWhat I want to know is exactly HOW Bush is going to keep the troop levels up? I thought that he had to start bringing troops home in March or April unless he extended their extended deployment of 15 months to 24 months? My suspicion is that is just around the corner.
When are the big-wigs in the military going to tell Bush, ENOUGH ALREADY? We can’t keep going on this way with a severely broken military. We already have a problem with officers refusing to re-enlist and recruitment is still way down from what it was after 911. The only reason why recruitment levels are not in the toilet is because of the economy. There are a lot of young Americans who are betting their lives on a secure economic future by enlisting for the enlistment bonus and promised educational benefits.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:28 amYesterday, I misspoke when I said we will be, ‘somewhere around 100,000 troops’ in Iraq by the end of 2008.
Makin’ up shit is hard work.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:29 amMisspoke? Why in the hell can’t these people just admit that they are f*ucking wrong?
March 25th, 2008 at 11:29 amWhat a total flamer this guy is! TROS: If they didn’t have an equal number of hired mercenaries over there, this war would be over long ago. It’s all typical Bush “smoke and mirrors”…..
Just like “we don’t torture”! Sure we don’t torture HERE (operative word which changes the meaning of the sentence). We ship our torturing out via rendition flights.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:29 am#5 It’s because in Bush’s Orwellian Bubble (BOB), truth equals lie. Misspeaking is then reduced to something below a lie.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:30 amI’m gonna substitute misspoke for lying my butt off and being totally ignorant of the facts at every opportunity for the rest of my life.
Misspoke just seems to carry oodles of gravitas.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:31 amCome on, boys, let’s get our lies, er, our facts, coordinated before we get up to the microphones…
Have you noticed how the latest fad seems to be the “I misspoke.” Everyone is doing it. An what a great ploy it is. Say whatever you want, then if someone catches you on it, simply say “Oops, I misspoke.” I guess the politicians think this gives them instant absolution.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:31 amIt’s time to call a spade a spade here. We’re already engaged in serious MILITARY ABUSE and groups of soldiers need to group together and bring suit against the Bush Cabal for this abuse.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:31 amAh, saw Frontline lastnight. Brutal. Absolutely brutal. Always goes back to Shinseki for me. Our poor military. Jeesh.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:32 amcerberus Says:
March 25th, 2008 at 11:29 am
We ship our torturing out via rendition flights.
______________
Hey… it’s the Amurican Way… simply another job out-sourced, to cut costs.
Perhaps they really aren’t mispoking, folks.
Perhaps we’re all just misunderstooding them…
Hmmmm… is that a new career path? Mispokesperson?
March 25th, 2008 at 11:34 am“any decision on major reductions in American troops from Iraq will be left to the next president”
Of course. This way BushCo will be able to claim “we were winning until the Democratic president lost the war.”
March 25th, 2008 at 11:34 am*
HEY! SHUT THAT CLOSET DOOR!
.
(sam seder samstituting for randi all week, btw)
March 25th, 2008 at 11:35 amCheck this out - Yikes!! The full photo of Scarface McCrazy complete with huge scar.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
The caption reads: It’s working! I don’t care what anyone says!
Well, they got the last part of it correct. McBush doesn’t give a flying rat’s a$$ what anyone thinks or says. After all, he fashions himself to be the second coming.
This quoted statement should send chills up everyone spine. Guess who could also have this statement attributed to himself? Yes, the faux president who has single-handedly destroyed this democracy in 7 short years, that’s who!
March 25th, 2008 at 11:37 amGraham misspoke, McCain misspoke, Clinton misspoke…anybody here willing to stand up and say, “Whoops, I screwed up?”
March 25th, 2008 at 11:41 amThere’s that word “misspoke” again. We’ve heard it from McCain, from Hillary Clinton, and now Lindsey Graham.
Is it because the word “misspoke” is somehow warmer and fuzzier than “lied”, “exaggerated”, “twisted to fit my agenda”, or “flapped my jaws without a clue”?
March 25th, 2008 at 11:43 am#16: Graham misspoke, McCain misspoke, Clinton misspoke…anybody here willing to stand up and say, “Whoops, I screwed up?”
- - Look where that got John Edwards.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am18 Badmoodman:
I wish I could click the “Recommend” button about 100 times for that post.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:48 amGraham is a BLASPHEMER and a HYPOCRITE.
I’m REALLY going to enjoy SMASHING HIS FACE IN when he comes here to hell. Almost as much as that PUNK Bush.
Cheers,
March 25th, 2008 at 11:51 amBush’s MASTER Satan
“misspoke” = “d*mn — I thought I could get away with this”
March 25th, 2008 at 11:52 amTo Badmoonman @ 18:
A fine point, but I think that’s actually where Edwards had some traction and credibility. I think his candidacy was torpedoed not by that candor, but by the fact that he wasn’t a duly designated corporate media darling, and thus was marginalized in the coverage. He ran an anti-corporate campaign; does anybody expect Big Media to supply coverage to an enemy?
March 25th, 2008 at 11:56 amBush said Iraq has WMD, did he speak inaccurately, inappropriately, or too hastily.
so he misspoke also and millions have died
misspokes cost lifes > DONT DO IT
March 25th, 2008 at 11:57 amEver notice how utterly pointless these trips to Iraq are?
March 25th, 2008 at 11:57 amAnd how expensive?
poor graham, forced to display an absolute lack of integrity and self-respect in print and on national television. again.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pmApparrently Bush isn’t listening to the Generals on the ground. If Petraeous said the next President will make the decision doesn’t that mean since he won’t, Bush has already made the decision? I know Generals like to fight wars, but they don’t like to lose them. This one is a loser. With Sadr now likely to end his truce, things can/will turn to sh*t in a hurry. Our “stop-lossed troops are at the breaking point and repeated tours to Iraq reduce their odds for survival and increase their sucumbing to PTSD. Bush started this war with NO plan, fought it with NO plan except ridding Saddam and getting to Baghdad. 4000 troops killed in action. No idea of the number of those killed because of the war, billions and billions of dollars lost because of the war and graft, theft and corruption, hear at home and in Iraq. Graham, McCain and Lieberman are continuously bleating for the war as the country follows those three with Bush and Cheney as ‘Judas Goats’ over the cliff into a military and economic disaster.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:04 pmThey all got their memos from Bush/Cheney, and they were reminded that the Bush Loyality Oath was signed by them with the blood of puppies and kittens.
So of course he isn’t go against the WH, no one in the MSM is allowed by their corporate masters.
Bush/Cheney
March 25th, 2008 at 12:06 pmHague Trials ‘09
So all this money was spent for Graham to go to Iraq so he could come back with all the wrong conclusions. Nice going, idiot.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:11 pmThe military cannot stand the pressure of being undermanned even at 160,000. McBush/McCrazy will need to seek out underemployed and underpaid Chinese ‘worker-mercenaries’ to double the new SuperSurge efforts to be employed soon. This is one outsourcing gig the Unions will not fight over. Fight on…past the 08 election, then who cares.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:11 pmMisspeak is Republican for “Opps, I got caught lying”.
Remember Hillary was a young republican in college, so maybe she held onto that definition as well.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:16 pm….but that Cheerleader Prince, now, he’s the real deal!
sure thing, Dick
March 25th, 2008 at 12:20 pmIt looks like we are in a ‘Misspeaking’ season…
HILLARY….Misspoke about her trip to Bosnia
March 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pmMcCain…..Misspoke about his inability to distiguish between Sunnis and shiates
Graham…..Misspoke about troops level…
woops - wrong thread. my outrage is retarding me.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pmIf they’d sent in the 300K that Shinseki recommended, and had not disbanded the Iraqi army, they’d all be home by now.
Incompetence pure and simple.
But of course, if they’d let the inspectors finish, they would never have gone, and there would be 4000 American troops still alive, 100s of thousands of Iraqis still alive, and trillions of dollars not counted on the wrong side of the national ledger.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:24 pmI always understood the word “misspoke” to mean that one knew what one wanted to say, but because of a distraction or a slip of the tongue, used a different word, perhaps similar sounding, than one intended.
In short, I always thought that “misspoke” meant an honest mistake.
Now I find out that it means “I spoke a lie and got caught in it.”
Learn something every day.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:25 pmSo this guy’s only REAL claim to fame is that there’s a cracker named after him?
March 25th, 2008 at 12:40 pmOr that he’s just a cracker himself?
BTW, isn’t this cracker from SC, not AZ???
March 25th, 2008 at 12:41 pmMy concern is that McCain will win the election. He will not change our stance in Iraq. Instead, he will attempt to continue the trend that we have seen - consistently high troop levels (130,000) and no draft. The military will continue to lower standards to bring in new recruits. Serious discipline problems will develop. Eventually, there will be a revolt of the generals. It will be very public and it will seriously damage the tradition of civilian control over the military.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:48 pmIt is so typical. Someone visits a foreign country and decide they are a foreign policy expert. It’s like going to Disney World and deciding you are now an expert in Florida politics and culture. Hillary does it with her Bosnia statement and McCain and gronies tries to sell us the idea that because they have been there “they know”. They know jack - it’s a packaged holiday trip with some cream on top. They should just stop saying “I have been there” because they haven’t. http://angryafrican.net/2008/03/25/i-have-been-there/
March 25th, 2008 at 12:50 pm“Misspoke” used to mean that you said one thing, but truly meant to say something else — it just came out wrong. However, these past few years have seen “misspoke” to be redefined to mean “talked out my ass to make my BS position on something seem more legit.”
March 25th, 2008 at 1:18 pmMisspoke – the new Republican (and DINO) talking point.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:38 pmAh. Suffering from TMKA Syndrome. (Too Much Kool-Aid)
Again.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pmIn another unfortunate case of premature Iraq elation, the Wall Street Journal last week celebrated the decline and fall of Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr. Echoing the “bring ‘em on” taunt of their former boss, ex-Bush advisers Dan Senor and Roman Martinez triumphantly asked “Whatever Happened to Moqtada?” But as the renewed turmoil in Baghdad and violent chaos in Basra suggest, the answer may be, “he’s back.”
For the details, see:
March 25th, 2008 at 1:59 pm“Moqtada Al-Sadr Answers the Wall Street Journal.”
Now, apparently like her close friend John McCain, when Hillary gets the facts wrong, she tries to brush it aside by claiming she merely “misspoke.”
There, TP — I fixed it for ya… Soon, we’ll no doubt have yet another Billary campaign ad about who you want to be mispeaking when that phone call comes in at 3am…
President-elect Obama must love it when he doesn’t have to say anything and his opponents (both repuglican and DINO) self-destruct…
March 25th, 2008 at 3:08 pm“I Misspoke” = “I’m LYING THROUGH MY TEETH!”
Spread the meme.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have to make them correct the record, on camera, instead of their spokespersons reading a statement over the phone to a reporter?
March 25th, 2008 at 3:29 pmMy concern is that McCain will win the election. He will not change our stance in Iraq.
Let me assure you that if that’s your concern, all three candidates will not change our stance in Iraq.
The day that Congress gave Bush the authority to attack Iraq, the U.S. signed onto the Bush-Cheney ‘long war’ policy. We are there, in the Middle East and Afghanistan, for the oil and we won’t be leaving until one of two things occur:
1. We have Iraq’s (and probably Iran’s) oil,
2. Or we have an economy run on a non-petroleum energy source.
Both will take years to achieve.
At least with Obama and Clinton, there will be an effort to resurrect the pre-Reagan (Jimmy Carter) days of alternative energy development. It will be faster with Obama, despite of Bill Clinton’s promises on HRC’s behalf. The problem with having the Clintons back is that they come with baggage that forces them to make good faith accommodations and concessions to the rightwing. This is the truth of both Clintons’ records - they concede far more than they achieve.
With McCain (and with HRC to a slightly lesser degree), the emphasis is going to be feeding the industrial military machine. That is the downside of being the first woman President in America - she has to prove herself to be tougher and more supportive of the military than any man.
Think of Ginger Rogers, doing everything Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels. If Maggie Thatcher was known as the Iron Lady, HRC would do backflips in order to gain the reputation of having antifreeze in her veins. An honest-to-God Iron Lady Commander-in-Chief in the US would slash the defense budget to just about nothing, pump the money into developing alternative renewable, sustainable energy, schools and health care. Do you see HRC doing that? Do you see her standing up to the Pentagon and telling them to start looking for meaning in their lives without the use of conflict and force?
The only way to leave Iraq is to leave Iraq. You don’t plan to pull x amount of troops out in 6 months. You leave, irrespective of what the Iraqis do, or what AQII does. You put one boot in front of the other and you leave. Because if you don’t, there is always going to be some justification for staying.
We left Vietnam all at once. It turned out just fine. We didn’t establish it as a base to claim the oil in the South China Sea (you really didn’t think we were there to bring them democracy, did you?), but plenty of Americans got stinking rich none the less, poverty decreased and our middle class expanded. Excepting the damage to rightwingers’ egos (they seem to think if they can’t have a foot on someone’s neck, it’s failure, a lost war), it was one of the best decisions we made.
No sooner had we left Vietnam than our nation began to heal and our stature in the world started to recover. We were able to adopt the role of wise, knowing superpower a few years later, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Even had the CIA not been there working clandestinely, we knew the Soviets would fail because of our experience in Vietnam.
But we don’t seem to learn the lesson that what goes around, comes around. We’re paying for those operations today, the CIA’s training of OBL, the mujahadeen, the northern alliance.
If you want change, if you don’t believe me, start pressuring the media to ask substantive questions about what their administrations’ foreign policy would be in the Middle East. Tell them you’re not interested in what HRC’s opinion of Reverend Wright is, or Obama’s typical syntax. Both Clinton and Obama told Canada not to pay any attention to what they’re telling voters about NAFTA. What makes you think we should pay any attention to their qualified promises to get out of Iraq?
March 25th, 2008 at 6:56 pmGive Cracker Graham a break guys, he did misspeak..what he meant to say, is “that by the end of the year we will be have somewhere around 100,000 toupes for 5 bucks”
March 25th, 2008 at 8:43 pmIts time to get out the frayed Betray US signs. Didn’t the good general promise that we would see reductions in force starting in March 08, maybe as late as summer 08? So did he betray us? Or was there anyone left in America who really believed him? If a betrayal falls in Congress and no one is there to believe it, is it a betrayal?
March 26th, 2008 at 10:02 amI think Lindsey is on the verge of spending long periods with Rick Santorum, worshipping Santorum”s Abortion preserved in a bottle.
Lindsey looks on as McCain, lieberman, Warner, Rove, and all the old players that overstayed their welcome and abused the American voters.
To bad their retirement packages could not be redealt on the evaluation of their individual contributions to legislation(s).
Maybe give them a dollar over minimum wage with bonus incentives for actually doing something besides favors for corporates etc. We might even see them get o ff their lazy rears and get a part time job at one of those great republican created jobs like Wal Mart.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:40 pm