The Other Thing Obama Inherited
A viable war strategy. Only for some reason, he hasn’t said boo about that Bush legacy. Cheney at Fox:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that the Bush administration had developed a new strategy on the war in Afghanistan before leaving office — a strategy that he said “bears a striking resemblance” to the one announced by President Obama in March.
In a speech to the Center for Security Policy, Cheney said the Bush administration handed Obama’s transition team a policy review of the Afghan war conducted last fall to meet the new challenges posed by the Taliban.
“They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt,” Cheney said.
Cheney’s comments countered a recent claim by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that the Obama administration had to form an Afghan war strategy from scratch because the Bush administration hadn’t asked any key questions about the war and left it “adrift.”
…
In March, Obama ordered 4,000 more troops into Afghanistan, bringing the total then to 21,000 additional soldiers since he took office.
“So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future,” he said at the time.
But rapidly deteriorating conditions and a widely disputed and unresolved election in Afghanistan gave the Obama administration pause and led to the current policy review.
“Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission,” (Cheney) said, calling on Obama to fulfill a promise he made in August to armed forces in a speech at the VFW to give them the support and resources need to get the job done.
“It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise,” he said. “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.”
“Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries,” he added. “Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.”
Funny, I was just reading Steve Huntley’s Chicago Sun-Times column about all the things Obama and his people keep saying they inherited from Bush. A viable Afghan war strategy … never mind a pacified, Saddam-free Iraq … is not one of them. Huntley went on to note the O admin’s are hard at work on their own legacy of partisan divisiveness. It’s booming in a bull bitterness market, thanks in no small part to Obama’s compounded interest in blaming everything on other people.
HotAir rates Cheney’s O-spanking “Quote of the Day.” I’d give it the whole quarter.
More from Cheney re Obama’s foreign policy via Kristol at the Weekly Standard.
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Topics: Afghanistan, Cheney, Obama
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:15 pm on Wednesday, October 21, 2009
4 Responses to “The Other Thing Obama Inherited”
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October 22nd, 2009 at 11:17 am
It’s refreshing to hear VP Cheney speak. I wonder how long it will take before even the liberal establishment will say that he changed the debate.
BTW this morning, I read in the dreaded NYT that Greg Craig is taking the heat for the lack of popularity of the Gitmo closures, which VP Cheney also challenged.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/us/politics/22craig.html?_r=1
h/t Dreadnought of Lucianne.com
Am I misremembering? I forget a lot these days. LOL
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:55 am
[...] Twisted Priorities trackback Fighting Fox News? Yes. Fighting the Taliban? No – even though, as Jules points out, he inherited a viable strategy. But apparently doesn’t have the will to follow it [...]
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden [...]
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:16 pm
[...] Crittenden looks at this whole thing and quips: Funny, I was just reading Steve Huntley’s Chicago Sun-Times column about all the things Obama [...]