Rummy's "that the insurgency could last as long as a dozen years" comment

[Pirate Smile]

looks like it will be getting a lot of press coverage.

Bombing Attacks on Iraqi Forces Kill 38 in North
MOSUL, Iraq,

June 26 - Four suicide bomb attacks struck Iraqi police and an army base in a 16-hour wave of insurgent violence in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday and Sunday, killing 38 people and wounding scores more. One American commander said the violence continued a trend in the past few weeks of insurgent attacks intensely focused on Iraqi security forces.

The attacks came as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld echoed remarks by his advisers in recent months suggesting that the insurgency could last as long as a dozen years and that Iraq would become more violent before elections later this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/international/middleeast/27iraq.html

Rumsfeld braces for more violence in Iraq
Says insurgency could endure ‘for any number of years,’ perhaps until 2017

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday he anticipates even more violence in Iraq and acknowledged that the insurgency “could go on for any number of years.”

Defeating the insurgency may take as long as 12 years, he said, with Iraqi security forces, not U.S. and foreign troops, taking the lead and finishing the job.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8366705/

I wish they would also pick up on Condi's "generational commitment" comment.

[Redstone]

1. Twelve. Fucking. Years.

Let's see, Viet Nam really heated up in, oh, about 1963, and finished up in 1975, which would have been about, let me check my math here, twelve years later.

I think I'm going to go throw up now.

Redstone

[bluestateguy]

3. That way they can blame the next president for the war's failure

I can just see some pissant biographer of Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld 5-10 years from now.

"President Bush left office with Iraq on a clear path to democracy until President (insert name) ruined everything..."

[Redstone]

6. Yes, especially if it reads like this:

"President Bush left office with Iraq on a clear path to democracy until Democratic President (insert name) ruined everything..."

I think you've got it figured out.

Redstone

[Pirate Smile]

17. Here is what Think Progress has re Rummy's comments pre-War.

"Rumsfeld’s Big Mistake

Today on Meet the Press, Donald Rumsfeld said it was a big mistake to make predictions about war:

Anyone who tries to estimate the end, the time, the cost or the casualties in a war is making a big mistake.

It would have been nice if he had this attitude before the war. Prior to the invasion Rumsfeld and other top administration officials repeatedly predicted that the war would be quick and inexpensive.

Donald Rumsfeld, 3/7/03:

It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.

Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03:

I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months

New York Times, 2/2/03:

The administration’s top budget official estimated today that the cost of a war with Iraq could be in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion.

To date, the war has lasted 27 months at a cost of over 200 billion dollars. "

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/06/26/rumsfeld-big-mistake/

[Redstone]

20. Thanks for looking that up, Pirate. Now if we could just afford

billboards in every major city with those quotes next to the current statements, or radio and TV ads comparing the two...

Redstone

[ole_evil_eye]

2. well hopefully by then

we'll have a Dem in the white house who can get our allies back on our side and we can finally clean up this mess

[MichiganVote]

4. I don't think they help their case by suggesting that

[Pirate Smile]

13. I don't either. I think they are responding to all the people saying they

need to "come clean" with the American people about how long and ugly this could be - and I don't think the American people are going to like this reality check after all the lies BushCo has spread for so long.

[Just Me]

16. They're still not being honest about their plan for permanent US presence.

The BushCo/Neocon corporate cabal refuse to talk about plans for withdrawal because there are no plans for withdrawal. The plan is permanent US military presence and includes installation of puppet regimes in Iran and Syria -- a thirty year drawn out bloody war for control over the M.E. and her resources.

These pricks are not capable of "coming clean" with the American people because they BELIEVE IT APPROPRIATE to manipulate "the people" with deceptive practices in order to achieve PNAC imperialism. :grr:

[Bluebear]

5. I thought it was in its "last throes"??

Who is lying, Rumsfeld or Cheney?

[The Magistrate]

8. 'Last Throes", Mr. Bear

Can last a long damned time, eh?

[salin]

7. What they (bushadmin) are trying to do:

plant the suggestion that they had always said that this was going to be a long struggle (which they DID say about the War on Terror - but they did NOT say about Iraq, indeed www.thinkprogress has a great break down of Condi's statement per generational - vs what they actual said just pre invasion.)

They belive that they were successful in revising, in the public mind, why they sold the war on Iraq - and they are now going to try to innoculate themselves on the point that the public indicates the admin is losing points on (that it is still goingn poorly, and that it is looking like it will take a long time.) So voila - they use langauge to keep repeating the (false) idea that they had said this all along- and that the public had backed them (so message: hey public - get back in line.)

Cynical SOBs.

Talk this up - this suspected strategy - get those around you aware - and once aware - the disgust per the attempt to manipulate the public - gorws. And mentally there grows this impression that this "manipulating the public" is an MO with this Administration.

[meti57b]

9. at $100 BILLION a year, ... twelve years would be $1.2 TRILLION.

[Redstone]

10. And at 1500-plus U.S. dead in the first two years,

we're looking at about ten thousand over twelve years.

Plus the wounded and crippled for life. How many of those?

And Iraqis. Any guesses? Half a million?

Excuse me, I need to go throw up again.

Redstone

[funflower]

11. That "generational commitment" crap is straight from Rove. Now it's

backfiring on him.

[FloridaPat]

12. He said there were numerous definitions of "last throes" so maybe

there's numerous definitions to "as long as 12 years". Take Biblical dates. 1 day equals one year. So 12 years in Bushco would be 4380 days. I'm ignoring leap years because it way too late to care. So that would basically be 4380 years or an endless war, which is what we really think their up to.

Or maybe in Bushco one year is a month and the rebels will be quiet in one year!

[Pirate Smile]

14. Is that like Mary Cary saying porn years are like dog years? 1 year = 7

or 10 years.

[FloridaPat]

15. Yes!

[mopaul]

18. it won't be so bad, no sacrifice is too great for empire

[eauclaireliberal]

19. When you add that 12

..to the current 2 years that we have been there already, that's about the same amount of time as the "Vietnam Conflict"

Ah, yes...remember when Poppy said about GWI? "This will not be another Vietnam!"

What he should have said: "This will not be another Vietnam...not under my term, that is. That will be when Barbie's crotch droppings comes by."