Quote:
Originally posted by Penske_Account
Here are a couple of quotes, below, from 2001, that led me to believe it would be a long hard struggle. I could keep looking, but I don't want to waste more time. did you really believe at the start of the Iraq campaing that it would last 6 weeks, start to finish? I didn't, I thought 5-10 years. And I still supported it. I honestly can't believe that any educated person believed the whole thing would be a quick slam dunk and the Dem Senators who run for President in 08 should be held to such a standard when they try to repudiate their votes for the war based on some assinine quote from Rumsfield.
September 20, 2001
Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.
This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.
Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.
October 8, 2001
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "It isn't going to be solved with a single counter-attack against one individual, it's going to be a long term conflict."
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I'm sorry -- I think you left out the part that you must have intended to quote, about how there would be a six-year occupation of Iraq.
Of course, since both of those quotes come from long before the Bush Admin was (publicly) discussing invading Iraq, that's hardly surprising. Those are quotes about a different, or certainly wider, war -- the war on terror, as they called it.
The "war on terror" is not coextensive with the war in Iraq (I would argue that the latter should never have been part of the former, but whatever.) Even if we had left Iraq in a month's time (or after Mission Accomplished, or while the insurgency was in its last throes, or whatever), the war on terror would still be going on (hell, we might be able to focus our military resources on that war -- that would be nice). And that is what those quotes refer to.
