Do the Democrats really want to relitigate the Iraq war? Dick Cheney served this country honorably and was a key adviser to President George W. Bush. Bush made the decision to go to war, not Cheney. The decision was supported by numerous Democrats, including Sens Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.
There is an abundance of evidence that Saddam Hussein had ties to many Islamic terrorist groups including al-Qaida and that he supported global terrorism. The Bush administration feared he might share weapons of mass destruction with one of these groups that could then launch attacks against the U.S. A 2008 Pentagon review of captured documents backs that up.
President Bush and Gen. David Patraeus won the Iraq war, and the country was stable when Bush signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in 2008. In 2011, Obama failed to obtain a new SOFA. Why? Democrats believe it was Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki’s demand for criminal jurisdiction.
Iraqi political leaders including al-Malaki told our commanders in private that they wanted U.S. troops to stay (New Yorker writer, Dexter Filkens). The commanders recommended keeping 14,000 to 18,000 troops in Iraq, which was rejected by the White House. Then 10,000 was rejected, and Obama reduced the number to 3,000 to 4,000.
Iraqi leaders realized the U.S. was not serious. Republicans believe Obama was fulfilling his campaign promise of ending the Iraq war.
Obama’s foreign policy of retreat has been a disaster. Not getting a SOFA agreement, whether by political calculation or incompetence, will go down as one of the worst foreign policy failures in U.S. history.
