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Monday, September 20, 2004

Kerry's plan for dealing with Iraq
Posted by Jill | 11:33 AM
Here's something for those who think John Kerry has no plan for handling Iraq any better than Captain Codpiece has.

Whether it'll work remains to be seen. It's not a plan that Commander Dickwave can implement, because he is universally hated around the world. It is, however, a plan that a new president who understands that we are a part of a world community, at least has a reasonable shot at implementing.

These from Kerry's speech today at New York University

First, the President has to get the promised international support so our men and women in uniform don’t have to go it alone. It is late; the President must respond by moving this week to gain and regain international support.


Bush cannot effect that, but I don't believe for one minute that the rest of the world wouldn't jump to assist President John Kerry to do this.

The President should convene a summit meeting of the world’s major powers and Iraq’s neighbors, this week, in New York, where many leaders will attend the U.N. General Assembly. He should insist that they make good on that U.N. resolution. He should offer potential troop contributors specific, but critical roles, in training Iraqi security personnel and securing Iraq’s borders. He should give other countries a stake in Iraq’s future by encouraging them to help develop Iraq’s oil resources and by letting them bid on contracts instead of locking them out of the reconstruction process.


But Bush won't do this, because he wants all the oil revenue for himself and his family's friends. Kerry understands that in order for other countries to share the risk, they must share the benefit as well.

The President should urgently expand the security forces training program inside and outside Iraq. He should strengthen the vetting of recruits, double classroom training time, and require follow-on field training. He should recruit thousands of qualified trainers from our allies, especially those who have no troops in Iraq. He should press our NATO allies to open training centers in their countries. And he should stop misleading the American people with phony, inflated numbers.


Third, the President must carry out a reconstruction plan that finally brings tangible benefits to the Iraqi people.
...

Now, the President should look at the whole reconstruction package…draw up a list of high visibility, quick impact projects… and cut through the red tape. He should use more Iraqi contractors and workers, instead of big corporations like Halliburton. He should stop paying companies under investigation for fraud or corruption. And he should fire the civilians in the Pentagon responsible for mismanaging the reconstruction effort.


This is very important. Iraq has been a cash cow for Bush family friends, with reconstruction being a mere afterthought. It's time for reconstruction to be the whole point, with Iraqis benefitting from the reconstruction of their own country, instead of being Dick Cheney's to plunder for his own benefit.

Fourth, the President must take immediate, urgent, essential steps to guarantee the promised elections can be held next year.

Credible elections are key to producing an Iraqi government that enjoys the support of the Iraqi people and an assembly to write a Constitution that yields a viable power sharing arrangement.

Because Iraqis have no experience holding free and fair elections, the President agreed six months ago that the U.N. must play a central role. Yet today, just four months before Iraqis are supposed to go to the polls, the U.N. Secretary General and administration officials themselves say the elections are in grave doubt. Because the security situation is so bad… and because not a single country has offered troops to protect the U.N. elections mission… the U.N. has less than 25 percent of the staff it needs in Iraq to get the job done.

The President should recruit troops from our friends and allies for a U.N. protection force. This won’t be easy. But even countries that refused to put boots on the ground in Iraq should still help protect the U.N. We should also intensify the training of Iraqis to manage and guard the polling places that need to be opened. Otherwise, U.S forces would end up bearing those burdens alone.


There's no way Bush can do this, because he has no credibility in the world about holding real elections even here in the U.S. Between bogus felon purges in Florida, attempts to suppress the black vote in Detroit, and potentially rigged voting machines everywhere, the Bush Administration is in no position to tell anyone how to run an election.

So read the rest of the speech; it's good stuff. Then copy it and e-mail it to all your friends to read as well. They won't see it on the 6:30 PM news tonight; after all, Britney Spears got married over the weekend, and they simply MUST cover that.
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