Aide: Reagan Warned Before Beiurt Blast

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON -- A former defense secretary for Ronald Reagan says he implored the president to put Marines serving in Beirut in a safer position before terrorists attacked them in 1983, killing 241 servicemen.
....
Transcripts offer largely admiring portraits by Reagan's chief loyalists and Weinberger is no exception, crediting the president with restoring U.S. power and outfoxing the Soviet Union.

But he said one of his greatest regrets was in failing to overcome the arguments that "'Marines don't cut and run,' and 'We can't leave because we're there'" before the devastating suicide attack on the lightly armed force.

"They had no mission but to sit at the airport, which is just like sitting in a bull's-eye," Weinberger said. "I begged the president at least to pull them back and put them back on their transports as a more defensible position."
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.....{Nancy Reagan was} a first lady who "could ask questions that there were no answers to."

For example, she would demand details of the weather in whatever place the Reagans were going. "And she'd say: 'Rain. Why is it raining? Why is it raining in Cleveland?'" Kuhn related.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013001110.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. These Republicans could rape babies and still get away with it.

[omega minimo]

2. Whose side are you on, talkin like that? Way to kill a discussion

:thumbsdown:

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Yeah, okay, one post did it.