February 1, 2007 -- 2:18 PM EST // // Post a Comment
MCCAIN: THINGS WERE GETTING BETTER IN IRAQ BEFORE THEY WERE GETTING WORSE.
Yep, more contradictions and more dissembling on escalation from John McCain. Today McCain grilled General George Casey at a Senate committee hearing, telling him that under his command things had gotten much worse in Iraq:
McCain, R-Ariz., criticized Casey for what he called misjudgments about the prospects for progress toward stabilizing Iraq during his tenure. McCain said he has "strong reservations" about Casey's nomination to become Army chief of staff."While I don't in any way question your honor, your patriotism or your service to our country, I do question some of the decisions, the judgments you've made over the past two and a half years," McCain, top Republican on the committee, told Casey. "During that time things have gotten markedly and progressively worse."
Let's review: In order to disparage and heap blame upon General Casey -- who's McCain's number one foil and scapegoat because Casey has questioned the wisdom of McCain's escalation plan -- the good Senator claimed that during the "past two and a half years" of Casey's tenure, "things have gotten markedly and progressively worse."
Wouldn't you know it, but during that same period -- that is, before the midterm elections, and before his Presidential campaign forced him get more serious about blaming the Iraq debacle on pre-escalation troop levels -- he repeatedly suggested something quite different:
CNN, March 30, 2006:
[WOLF] BLITZER: You just came back from Iraq, Senator. Glad you're back safe and sound from there. Your friend and colleague, Senator Chuck Hagel said the other day -- and he's always outspoken, Republican from Nebraska, "I don't think," he said, "Iraq's going to get better. I think it will get worse." You were just there. What do you think?MCCAIN: May I say that I have great respect and appreciation for Chuck Hagel, who is one of the smartest men in the Senate. I think things are getting better. I think they are progressing. I think that the Iraqi military is improving. I think the Iraqi police training is improving, but much more slowly.
More examples after the jump.
CNN, March 2, 2005 (via Nexis):
MCCAIN: My sense is that General Abizaid, who is one of our finest military leaders, is correct, but I think we have to emphasize that it's a long, hard, difficult struggle. You got a combination of Baathist, criminals, people from outside Iraq, and other disgruntled Sunnis that are going to make life hell for a period of time. But we are showing some progress. Judy, I think the dynamic was changed from insurgents versus U.S. forces to insurgents versus Iraqi government. We win under the latter scenario, but it's going to be long, hard and tough.[JUDY] WOODRUFF: How do you persuade the American people of that, though? Because you see these terrible incidents day after day and yet the officials and you are saying things are getting better?
MCCAIN: Well, first of all, I would say that the security that we had to be under on this last trip was greater than the first trip that I made to Iraq. I think we can tell the American people that the Iraqi military and police are being trained and they are gradually taking over more of these responsibilities. That the elected government, which was uplifting to all Iraqi people, is reaching out to Sunnis to bring them into the government. And I am optimistic over time.
WOODRUFF: Somebody who was with you in Iraq, Senator Russ Feingold, he came back and said he's very concerned about whether the situation is moving in the right direction. He said it's very much in doubt. How could the two of you have different views?
MCCAIN: Well, we're very close friends, as you know. But I believe that Russ and I just had some different impressions. But I also visited with many of our troops. They are excellent, their morale is good. They believe that they're making progress. As I mentioned, General Abizaid, the marines in Falluja we met with, are convinced that they're making progress there. [Editor's note: Recall that McCain said above that his sense was that Abizaid was "correct."]
And, finally, there's this one, which isn't as good, but still worth noting, from CBS' Face the Nation, on September 24, 2006:
Sen. McCAIN: I think the tactics have been flawed, and that's been well documented and chronicled. We didn't have enough troops over there, the looting shouldn't have taken place, the difficulties in not anticipating the enormous challenges of bringing democracy and stability to a place that has been ruled by an absolute, terrible, repressive dictator for many years. That doesn't mean to me that, therefore, we should then plan on leaving. It means that we should fix the mistakes, it means that we have to make progress.[JOHN] HARRIS: What's your level of confidence that the administration is doing that, is fixing those mistakes?
Sen. McCAIN: I think we are getting better. I still think we need more troops over there. I notice that, quote, "maintaining troop levels" is basically a troop increase. I worry about neglecting Anbar Province, the real hotbed and base of a lot of this terrorist activity.
But I also believe we are making progress in certain areas. There's parts of Iraq that are very stable, there's significant progress being made in training of the Iraqi army. I guess, John, my answer is two steps forward, one step back, and we should not raise expectations of the American people as to the difficulties of this challenge.
Update: Some commenters have asked whether anyone's compiled a list of McCain's ever ballooning number of flip-flops and self-contradictions. Well, yes -- Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report has. It's right here.
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