National Stats during Obama Admin

[Mike M (the other one)]

(01-19-2017, 05:54 PM)Dill Wrote: Two points on this:

1. Obama doesn't exactly have the power to renegotiate "as he sees fit" when Bush has already committed the US to a withdrawal timetable, and at the time about 90% of the public wants the withdrawal to occur, and the most pressing threat to the Iraqi government was internal--the Shia dominance of the government and military.   

2. As occupiers who claim occupation is not their goal, the US cannot really behave like conquerors and looters. Also, if the new government is to have some legitimacy, it cannot be seen as a US puppet. That means it must appear to be able to decide for itself when it is ready to handle itself.  

Is he the Commander in Chief or not? He absolutely has the power to change it based on Intel... oops Forgot he wasn't paying attention to those reports. Oh well never mind.

I understand about point 2, but if intel thinks they are not ready, then they are not ready.
Now with that understood, if the "insurgents" were busy taking over cities like oncemore was telling us, then we should've known that there was still a threat to the new Leadership and that they were not ready to handle that group.

Didn't one of the Generals advise that we leave at least 35k behind instead of pulling them all out?
He even stated that there were options and that they didn't have to leave if they didn't want to. Neither Bush nor Obama had much of an after war plan. If we are going to do something like this, we have to finish it and see it thru.