Finally, someone has spoken up against George Bush, and thus the uproar. The Pentagon has heavily condemned Hillary Rodham Clinton for her anti-war oratory.
A harsh reprimand has been issued by The Pentagon to Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, in opposition to her encouraging ‘enemy propaganda’. Hillary had questioned about the procedure being followed by the U.S. to pull out from Iraq in due course. She had advocated that the Pentagon should start planning the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Hillary Clinton, an affiliate of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has pressed Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace both in private and in public to start sketching the plans for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, as she anticipates it to be a ‘complicated withdrawal’ of troops, trucks and equipment.
If we’re not planning for it, it will be difficult to execute it in a safe and efficacious way
- she had argued.
Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman composed a cutting response to the questions raised by Clinton in May. The Associated Press acquired a copy of Edelman’s reply, dated July 16, Thursday.
Edelman wrote -
Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia. Such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks.
However, Edelman’s letter contains a fleeting hint that the Pentagon might actually be planning for withdrawal.
The letter says -
We are always evaluating and planning for possible contingencies. As you know, it is long-standing departmental policy that operational plans, including contingency plans, are not released outside of the department.
According to Clinton spokesperson Philippe Reines the retort by Edelman is both ‘outrageous and dangerous.’ He said that the military leaders should suggest a plan for the pullout of the forces from Iraq, rather than ‘a political plan to attack those who question them.’
Redeploying out of Iraq with the same combination of arrogance and incompetence with which the Bush administration deployed our young men and women into Iraq is completely unacceptable, and our troops deserve far better
- he further added.
Hillary is in run for the president’s office. The New York senator has been voicing her disapproval of the Bush administration’s war exertions. She has said that she intends to conclude the Iraq war if voted president.
The issue of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq has been stretched too far, perhaps. The gap between planning and execution might take some time, but it is indeed disturbing that even the strategies are yet to be formulated. Is the Bush administration finding it too difficult to pull out of Iraq?
Via : MSNBC
Image Credit : MSNBC, Five and Dime
