Whopper of the week: Joe Biden takes credit for successes in Iraq

Here’s the video from Friday night:

Relevant part of the transcript:

“The fact of the matter is, the only thing succeeding in Iraq right now is the plan that Barack and I talked about that Petraeus is implementing … giving local control in the very areas with a limited central government.”

Ummm … no. Jeff Emanuel unloads:

For example, I suppose we are now expected to believe that when Biden said, “The president and others who support the surge have it exactly backwards,” in December 2006, he secretly meant, “Go through with the surge, Gen. Petraeus — I believe in you!”

Or, when Biden was pushing for Iraq to be divided into into three ethnically-homogeneous, unsustainable “states,” then abandoned, he was actually working behind the scenes with the freshman Senator from Illinois and General Petraeus to craft a plan to make Iraq more unified and sustainable.

We are likewise expected to believe that, when Barack Obama sponsored legislation that would have withdrawn U.S. troops from that country beginning last year — at the most sensitive point to date in the entire conflict — with a full retreat having been completed by this past March, thereby rendering every single achievement made possible by the ‘Surge,’ from the rising up of Concerned Local Citizens, to the driving out of al Qaeda in Iraq, to the quelling of sectarian violence, to the growing political reconciliation that made possible legislation passed this week setting the stage for provincial elections in that country, entirely null and void, he was actually laying the ground work for success there. Good thing General Petraeus was somehow in on the secret there, and understood that all of Obama’s posturing was actually cover for Petraeus to do what he has done to date in Iraq.

Or not. What this actually was, was simply this: perhaps the most brazen engagement in revisionist history — if not the most brazen outright lie — ever to leave the lips of a man who is known for his embellishments.

Not only that, but he’s no better than his running mate on this front, considering Barack Obama himself said back in January that “Democrats” were responsible for the successes we’d seen in Iraq:

Now, I had no doubt — and I said at the time, when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform, if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in the violence. But understand, we started in 2006 with intolerable levels of violence and a dysfunctional government. We saw a spike in the violence, the surge reduced that violence, and we now are, two years later, back where we started two years ago. We have gone full circle at enormous cost to the American people.

What we have to do is to begin a phased redeployment to send a clear signal to the Iraqi government that we are not going to be there in perpetuity. Now, it will — we should be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. I welcome the genuine reductions of violence that have taken place, although I would point out that much of that violence has been reduced because there was an agreement with tribes in Anbar province — Sunni tribes — who started to see, after the Democrats were elected in 2006, you know what, the Americans may be leaving soon, and we are going to be left very vulnerable to the Shi’as. We should start negotiating now. That’s how you change behavior.

And let’s not forget how back in May Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave credit, in part, to the “goodwill” of … the Iranians:

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.

I wish I could say it’s hard to believe Biden, Obama, and Pelosi would say such things, but it’s really not shocking at all. Disgusting, yes, but not shocking. As Emanuel noted, Joe Biden and Barack Obama both just want people to forget their opposition to the surge (Biden voted for the war while Obama, not in the Senate yet, opposed it – but Biden and Obama both voted against the surge) and their repeated criticisms of the Bush administration’s implementation of the surge. Not only that, but they don’t want people to remember how reluctant they’ve both been to praise the successes that have come from the surge – to the point that Barack Obama has said that if he had it to do all over again knowing what he knows now that he still would have voted against the surge.

Where the hell are the MSM “Fact Checkers” who are supposedly trying so hard to keep the politicos honest? Still trying to dig up information on Gov. Palin’s time as mayor in Wasilla, and perhaps questioning former ‘nam POWs about McCain’s time in captivity in an effort to try and find “discrepancies” in his story.

Infuriating.

Comments are closed.