Originally posted by: josphII
well because you have no reason to question the bush admin. in the manner in which you do - baseless arguments & wild theories mixed with completely ignoring facts. there is no other conclusion to make other than you simlpy hate bush.
I have every reason to attack the actions of the Bush administration. The Bush administration was warned by the UN, their allies and dissenting citizens that there was no reason to invade Iraq while inspections were ongoing but for reasons we can only guess at now (since the reasons Bush gave have all proved to be false) the Bush administration ignored everyone and invaded Iraq anyway. They are now courting the UN and the allies they ignored for help because they cannot handle the situation they created for no apparent reason.
I am a US citizen. A taxpayer. The actions taken by the Bush administration have a direct impact on my life as well as the lives of every other American and the lives of every Iraqi, our allies - the entire planet. So I respectively disagree. I certainly do have a reason to question the Bush administration just as anyone else does.
You have a right to defend them if you choose.
You don't have a right to deny me my rights.
Baseless arguments and wild theories?
Fact: Bush made charges against Iraq which have not been proved even though we now occupy Iraq.
Fact: the invasion of Iraq has cost 280 American live so far, approximately $94 billion, our credibility as a nation around the world as well as our security since we are now engaged in an invasion which has taken the focus from terrorism and placed it on Iraq where no terrorist ties existed. We are now engaged in an invasion and occupation which we cannot afford or handle on our own. So again, I beg to disagree. I have every right to question, criticize and lambast the Bush administration for their illegal, immoral totally irresponsible invasion and occupation of Iraq.
From the NY Times
High Cost of Occupation: U.S. Weighs a U.N. Role
By DOUGLAS JEHL
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 ?
In weighing a greater United Nations hand in the military occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration is acknowledging that the mounting costs of the operation, in both human and financial terms, are too great for the United States alone to bear.
Until now, the "vital role" that President Bush has promised for the United Nations has been limited, by American design, to a marginal contribution.
But now the American need for troops and dollars that only other countries can provide is prompting a real reconsideration of those old, narrow lines.
What broader mission might be worked out, including the possible United Nations sponsorship of a multilateral force in Iraq under American command ? the arrangement that the administration has said for the first time it might be willing to accept ? remains to be negotiated. In the Security Council, and in the administration itself, there remain deep divisions about the extent to which a broader sharing of the burdens in Iraq must go hand in hand with a broader sharing of power and decision making.
But after four months in which the American occupation of Iraq has exacted a heavy toll, and with no end in sight, the new American approach to the United Nations can be seen as a call for help in the face of a politically intolerable arithmetic.
"We're 95 percent of the deaths, 95 percent of the costs, and more than 90 percent of the troops," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Delaware Democrat, said in a telephone interview today. "The costs are staggering, the number of troops are staggering, we're seeing continuing escalation of American casualties, and we need to turn to the U.N. for help, for a U.N.-sanctioned military operation that is under U.S. command."
With nearly 140,000 American soldiers still in Iraq, the military costs alone are running at nearly $4 billion a month, administration officials have said. More American troops have been killed since major combat operations ended than during them, at least 64 of them by hostile fire in a guerrilla resistance that shows no sign of dissipating.
And while the administration had hoped that Iraqi oil revenues might cover the cost of reconstruction, that optimism has faded to the point that L. Paul Bremer, the top American official in Iraq, said this week that the country would need "several tens of billions of dollars" from the United States and other countries in the next year to help in the rebuilding.
To enlist outside help in footing that bill, the United States will convene an international donors conference in Madrid in late October, with a preliminary meeting scheduled for next week in Brussels. But many experts say it will raise little of the needed cash unless the United States offers donors a bigger hand in how the money is spent, whether that occurs through the United Nations or in some other way.
"It's hard to believe that the big donors will write a check to support an American occupation over which they have no control," said James B. Steinberg, who served as deputy national security adviser under President Clinton and is now director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
That the United States would want help from other nations in peacekeeping in Iraq and rebuilding its economy is not in itself a surprise; the administration made clear from the start that it hoped to enlist a "coalition of the willing" outside the United Nations, which it deeply mistrusts for its refusal to support the American invasion in the first place.
Indeed, even now, a multinational division is assembling in southwestern Iraq to replace the United States Marines, who are scheduled to leave in early September. The division is led by the Poles and will have brigades that are commanded by the Ukrainians and the Spanish. Other nations contributing troops including Bulgaria, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Thailand.
Apart from that force, however, what has been unexpected is the reluctance of other countries to send troops in substantial numbers to Iraq without a fresh United Nations mandate. And together with the burdens imposed by the continuing attacks on the occupying forces and the country's infrastructure, the result has been a heavier cost than the administration had foreseen. As recently as May, the administration had hoped by this fall to reduce its troops in Iraq to just 30,000, or less than a quarter of those it now expects to keep in place for the indefinite future.
Winning a new Security Council mandate is now seen as important enough an American goal that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell interrupted a vacation last week to travel to New York to meet with Kofi Annan, the secretary general. A mandate would allow American commanders to call on troops from countries like India and Pakistan that opposed the war but may be willing to contribute troops to a force if it is approved by the United Nations.
Such a mandate might also open the way for the enlistment of a NATO force, including Turkey, Mr. Biden said today.
But it is far from clear whether the administration would be willing to make the concessions necessary to enlist the support of Security Council members like France and Russia, which have said a wider United Nations role in Iraq would have to include real power.
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