Ignoring Uptick In Iraq Violence, Lieberman And Graham Accuse War Critics Of ‘A Crisis Of Credibility’
Ignoring Uptick In Iraq Violence, Lieberman And Graham Accuse War Critics Of ‘A Crisis Of Credibility’
Writing in the Wall Street Journal today, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) accuse critics of the Iraq war of facing “a crisis of credibility” because they “confidently predicted the failure of the surge.” But in their effort to argue that anti-war critics have “been proven decidedly wrong,” Lieberman and Graham undermine their own credibility on the issue by ignoring recent developments in the war-torn country.
As proof of the surge’s success, the two hawkish senators cite statistics that they say show “dramatic improvements in security”:
No one can deny the dramatic improvements in security in Iraq achieved by Gen. Petraeus, the brave troops under his command, and the Iraqi Security Forces. From June 2007 through February 2008, deaths from ethno-sectarian violence in Baghdad have fallen approximately 90%. American casualties have also fallen sharply, down by 70%.
The fact that Lieberman and Graham only cite statistics through February — even though numbers for March 2008 are available — undercuts their argument. Perhaps they ignored March because there was “a 25 or 30 percent increase in the number of civilian casualties” from February to March:
Overall, Iraqi deaths rose from a low of 568 in December and 541 in January to roughly 721 in February to more than 1,082 in March, according to statistics compiled by Iraq’s ministries of health, interior, and defense and confirmed by Smith. The vast majority were civilians.
“There was somewhere on the order of a 25 or 30 percent increase in the number of civilian casualties when you consider March compared to February,” Smith said, although “the numbers are still nowhere near what they had been last summer.”
Lieberman and Graham also claim that “the critics in Washington have been proven wrong” about political progress in Iraq, citing the passage of “de-Baathification, amnesty, the budget and provincial elections” legislation by the Iraqi government. But this too is not an honest assessment of what has occurred in Iraq. In a report to be released today, the experts who advised the original Iraq Study Group call political progress “superficial“:
A new assessment of U.S. policy in Iraq by the same experts who advised the original Iraq Study Group concludes that political progress is “so slow, halting and superficial” and political fragmentation “so pronounced” that the United States is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago.
Before accusing their political opponents of “a crisis of credibility,” Lieberman and Graham should make sure their arguments don’t undermine their own credibility.
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Yeah, supporting the deaths of over 4,000 American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis gives you gutter cred.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:08 amThis is somewhat like someone who has dramatically failed every test in a class, then turns in one assignment and demands recognition for “succeeding” in the course.
Guess what? You still FAILED THE COURSE.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:11 amyeah, there IS a credibility gap as big as the Grand Canyon about the Iraq war- but it does NOT belong to the critics- who have been correct about it from the get-go.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:12 amIt’s been kind of fun watching the endless spinning on this one. The creators of the surge have been just vague enough about the objective that everybody can find something to crow about — including Graham and Lieberman.
Unfortunately, digging and finding one or possibly two bright spots do not make an overall success. If the surge was really successful, the Iraqis would have established stability, they would be taking responsibility for their own security, and we would be going home.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:19 amWhat did putting thousands of additional troops into harms way have to do with the temporary reduction in violence? You had to pay people to stop killing. Face it wingnuts, that was your strategy.
And if I remember correctly, didn’t the Iraq Study Group explicitly note that an increase in U.S. forces would make for no long-term improvement of Iraq’s condition? Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Warmongers: Here, Iraq, is your bag of Skittles. Now go back to eating poop.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:20 amJoe and Lindsey don’t want to get bogged down with facts when they have bullsh*t to peddle!
PEACE
April 7th, 2008 at 11:20 amI came to know Graham through his orgy during the Alito confirmation hearings. What an arrogant tool.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:22 amOr maybe the “surge” ain’t working!
Joe and Linsey need a reality check instead of constantly spewing politically inspired nonsense.
I wonder what they think of the Blackwater controversy with Maliki. they are probably so arrogant that the would say “so what?”
April 7th, 2008 at 11:28 amwhy do we bother distinguishing the different media outlets for these propaganda idiots?
they’re all murdoch’s fascist rags.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:29 amI can’t help but think these two buffoons are auditioning for Sec. of State and Sec. of Defense. What a scary thought.
I wonder if Connecticut would like another shot at electing LaMont right about now.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:31 amOf course these yahoos would say that. They just visited the region in close proximity to Shooter Cheney and badly advised Iraqi leaders.
McCain is Moe, Lieberman is Curly, and Graham is Larry. Boink! Whack! Ow! Nrr, Nrr, Nrr…
Now who has a crisis in credibility? If you want to learn something about the Middle East visit Juan Cole’s Informed Comment and stay away from the Three Stooges attempting to repair the world in America’s image.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:34 am#5 don’t forget to include that we have locked up thousands of “suspected” terrorists as well. No one is talking about the issue of loss of basic civil rights for all those locked up who are “suspected” of posing a possible danger to the “freedom” of Iraq.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:34 am#11….LMFAO..I was just thinking the same thing.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:39 amCaption – “I tell you Jeff Gannon is this big.”
April 7th, 2008 at 11:42 amthese 2 remind of the crazy grampa’s evil nephews…
April 7th, 2008 at 11:44 amand he probably knows, buckie…
April 7th, 2008 at 11:45 amAs a matter of fact:
Period 1: March 20, 2003—-Sept 6, 2004 (approx. 18 months) total: 1,002
Period 2: Sept 7, 2004—-Oct 26, 2005 (approx 13 months) total: 2,000
Period 3: Oct 27, 2005—-Dec 31 2006 (approx 13 months) total: 3,000
Period 4: Jan 1, 2006—Mar 23, 2007 (approx 15 months) total 3, 995 (official= 3,991)
Average death rate per period (1000 / months ):
Period 1 = 55 per month.
Period 2 = 76 per month
Period 3 = 76 per month
Period 4 = 66 per month
Calendar year average (4000 / 5 years) = 800 per year or 66 per month.
The Period 4 (“Surge”) monthly average death rate was 13% LOWER than Period 2 or Period 3.
The Period 4 monthly average death rate is 20 % HIGHER than Period 1 (which was also 3 months LONGER than period 4.)
The Period 4 “Surge” monthly average death rate (66) is THE SAME as the 5-year average death rate per calendar-month (66).
So with US death rates (per calendar month) as one of the measures of the surge’s “success” there has been no improvement, and therefore no success.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:45 amThats rich. These two warmongers live in a Sparta fantasy. The blood of thousands that stain the hands of bush/cheney now coats their arms up to the elbows. I hope both are driven insane by the ghosts of the dead they are responsible for.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:45 amOn what planet do they buy their rose-colored glasses?
April 7th, 2008 at 11:52 amHeh. More like a krisis of kool-aid. As in lack thereof.
*eyeroll*
April 7th, 2008 at 11:55 amThese war mongers have a crisis of intelligence. Nothing they have predicted has come true. Lying about it now hardly helps.
First, the “surge” is not a surge at all, but an escalation. Long after the surge was supposed to be over we still have an elevated number of troops in the country and projections are that that the number of troops will stay high through the Summer. Those who insisted the “surge” was actually an escalation turn out to have been right.
The goal of the “surge” was to decrease violence so the political reconciliation process could move forward in Iraq. However, despite a minor reduction in violence, no serious political breakthroughs have been announced. The government appears as deadlocked as ever. The administration, and apologists like Lieberman, are always asking for credit even when their goals are never accomplished.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:57 amHysterical that Lieberman and Graham believe they still have any credibility or significance. But then again Kilo doesn’s seem to understand that either.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:57 amKilo Says:
April 7th, 2008 at 11:39 am
The fact that Lieberman and Graham only cite statistics through February — even though numbers for March 2008 are available — undercuts their argument.
….
Before accusing their political opponents of “a crisis of credibility,” Lieberman and Graham should make sure their arguments don’t undermine their own credibility.
LMAO. Says the blog who reported monthly violence figures the day they were released until that drop in violence occurred and we saw not a word about it for months.
And your “credibility” comes from …………………..?
April 7th, 2008 at 12:00 pmThe Reich-wing is going to lie, lie, lie for one hundred years.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:05 pmBetween 9/11/2001 and 3/19/2003, we heard Republicans try to link Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda over & over again in a deliberate attempt to justify invading Iraq.
Now, five years later, we hear almost the EXACT SAME hyperbole regarding Iran & al Qaeda, and even after “correcting” themselves over that “error”, they continue to do it. And when they claim that “the Surge is working” only to have Iran having to step in to broker PEACE when Sadr calls off his “cease fire”, they accuse US of “lacking credibility”???
April 7th, 2008 at 12:07 pmIgnore Kilo-
April 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pmJust another Administration apologist spinning his fool head off. On the Rove thread this troll spent all his time ranting on every aspect of the case EXCEPT the topic: Rove’s fingerprints showing up all over the case. On this thread it makes no attempt to refute the fact that the surge has failed miserably. Just another “shoot the messenger” troll. That’s all they’ve got because, as we all know, facts have a liberal bias.
Are these two dating? Just curious.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:11 pmMcLame for president, bootlicking neocons all of the way!!!!
April 7th, 2008 at 12:16 pmThese guys have no brains,no heart and no SOUL.I wonder how much these two Iraq War cheerleaders are making on the war, disgusting.
But this too is not an honest assessment of what has occurred in Iraq
honesty is not a concept that intersects the dissembling of the 2 republican Senators.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:17 pm.
In the words of James Carville ” If you’re explaining you’re losing “
April 7th, 2008 at 12:19 pmKilo, you obviously aren’t too worried about your own credibility either…..is that a requirement to be a right winger? flagged on sight.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:22 pmWriting in the Wall Street Journal today, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) accuse critics of the Iraq war of facing “a crisis of credibility” because they “confidently predicted the failure of the surge.” But in their effort to argue that anti-war critics have “been proven decidedly wrong,” Lieberman and Graham undermine their own credibility on the issue by ignoring recent developments in the war-torn country.
And in the meantime , let’s ignore the first 5 years and what occurred in Iraq and those of us who have been Chimpy leg humpers from the get-go ………….
April 7th, 2008 at 12:26 pm721 casualties in February to 1,082 in March is a 50% increase, not 25% 0r 30%…and who is “Smith?”
April 7th, 2008 at 12:39 pm“We are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success,” McCain said in a speech prepared for delivery Monday.
They are all three smokin’ some pretty powerful stuff.. Is this like the Wizard of Oz were Dorthy clips her heels together three times.?
April 7th, 2008 at 12:44 pmAs I understand it the extra American troops completed the forced ethnical seggregation of Baghdad during the summer of 2007.
Baghdad used to be a mixed city Sunnis and Shiites living side by side. Now Bagdhdad is a Shia city, very few Sunnis living in Sunni-only pockets, and the neighborhoods are enclosed by walls. So obviously secterian violence dropped, because there are no more Sunnis to kill, or Sunnis fighting Shiites
April 7th, 2008 at 12:48 pmTo whom are Lieberman and Graham “credible”? The credulous, perhaps?
April 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pmLieberman and Graham have credibility??
Since when?
April 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pm36 – Don’t forget the Iraqi Christian community, which is also now shattered and displaced.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:53 pmThose two are so full of sh*t, their eyes are brown. (With apologies to all you lovely brown-eyed folks out there!)
April 7th, 2008 at 1:08 pmI know Lieberman is not technically a Democrat anymore, but he is a member of the Democratic Caucus. Can’t he be kicked out of the Democratic Caucus? The Democrats should seriously consider it. Remove his committee assignments. Stip away whatever power they can from this absolute traitor. Don’t let the Republicans use him at their convention to endorse McCain the same way Bush used Zell Miller.
At this point, Lieberman is probably leaking any information he hears in the Democratic Caucus to Republicans like McCain and Bush.
April 7th, 2008 at 1:42 pmIt seems that we have now turned from a War of Occupation to fighting in the Civil War among the Iraqi Peoples on behalf of the puppet government supported by the Bush Administration. Absolutely sickening to keep hearing their spin placed on this debacle. This farce will continue with us spending 12 billion dollars a month to keep it going, as well as more deaths and wounding of American soldiers, not counting many many more dead Iraqi people. The lies, arrogance, and deceit continue unbated out of Washington.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:11 pmCoo Coo, Coo Coo
April 7th, 2008 at 7:18 pmThe claim of a 90% decline is not consistent with data from independent sources. Iraq body count has a 50% decline from June 2007 to December 2007.
Importantly, deaths as reported to congress by Petraeus (that is from coalition and Iraqi government sources) are reported with a lag. Thus the final number for a given month is higher than the number calculated one month later. This means that a constant true death rate would always give reported deaths which have declined in recent months.
On September 11 2007, Petraeus compared the most current death rate (August 2007) to a peak in late 2006. Now the peak appears to be June 2007. No honest person would report the final count for the distant past and deaths counted so far for the recent past.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:34 pmfrom US embassy Baghdad
March 27, 2008
This is to notify all U.S. citizens in Iraq that the U.S. Embassy has announced that, until further notice, all personnel under the authority of the Chief of Mission are required to wear body armor, helmet and protective eyewear anytime they are outside of building structures in the International Zone. In addition, Chief of Mission personnel in the International Zone have been advised to remain inside of hardened structures at all times, except for mission essential movements. The Department of State continues to strongly warn U.S. citizens against travel to Iraq, which remains very dangerous.
http://iraq.usembassy.gov/warden_message_03282008.html
from March 2008 Report to Congress
Anbar Province, supposedly a surge-success because of The Awakening, is only “Partially Ready For Transition.”
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/Master%20%20Mar08%20-%20final%20signed.pdf
Crocker says the conditions in Iraq are no better than they were a year ago.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:54 pmMarch 26, 2008
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: “Well, let me start by saying that the premise that drives what we do right now is the principle of conditions based withdrawals, that we look at conditions and then decide whether and how that permits us to reduce our force levels. And as you know, by this July, we’ll be basically back to where we were before the surge started, not exactly but close. That’s what conditions based withdrawals mean.”"
http://iraq.usembassy.gov/remarks_com_03262008.html
Hey,
April 8th, 2008 at 2:43 amSome send the memo to Lindsey that informs him that President Bush says ” I don’t think you can win IT “…
It seems logical that violence will decrease if everyone is dead.
Lieberman will set next to Bush & Cheney at the Hague during their war crimes trial.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:31 pmCrocker says the conditions in Iraq are no better than they were a year ago.
October 15th, 2008 at 8:56 amMarch 26, 2008
AMBASSADOR CROCKER: “Well, let me start by saying that the premise that drives what we do right now is the principle of conditions based withdrawals, that we look at conditions and then decide whether and how that permits us to reduce our force levels. And as you know, by this July, we’ll be basically back to where we were before the surge started, not nec e2000 battery,nec op-570-75303 battery exactly but close. That’s what conditions based withdrawals mean.”
While I believe its a given that Graham is a corrupt confidence man, i have enormous contempt for Leiberman. He is the worst kind of politician because he is both corrupt and is driven by a Israeli-centric, neo-con agenda. The suffering of our own troops and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians caused by this misguided war means NOTHING to him. This is a true creep.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:23 pmIf you need (or want) a computer that’s easy to take along,you can see it from nec op-570-75303 battery whcih offer the longlife and consistently reliable performance you need to get the most out of your notebook.
March 9th, 2009 at 5:31 am