Kay Bailey Hutchison (R – Tx) KB was a cheerleader at the University of Texas. She has also been George W’s biggest cheerleader. This week she said (From Fort Worth Star- Telegram), “If I had known then what I know now about the weapons of mass destruction, I would not have voted to go into Iraq as we did,” said Hutchison, a Republican seeking a third term in Washington. “But I don’t think the president would have asked us to.”
John Warner (R – Va) From WaPo: The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday offered a stark assessment of the situation in Iraq after a trip there this week, saying that parts of the country have taken “steps backwards” and that the United States is at risk of losing the campaign to control an increasingly violent Baghdad.
Sen. John W. Warner (Va.) told reporters on Capitol Hill that the Iraqi government is having trouble making strides and is incapable of providing even basic human necessities to people in certain areas of the country. Though Warner praised U.S. efforts to keep Iraq under control, he was far less optimistic about the situation there than he had been over the past three years.
Richard Haass – From Time:
Iraq, said the speaker, is “a setback. You can’t sugar-coat that. We’ve reached a point where we’ve got to get real. This is not going to be a near-term success for American foreign policy. The Iraq situation’s not winnable in any meaningful sense of the word ‘winnable.’ So what the United States needs to do now is look for a way to limit the losses and costs.”
This wasn’t just any old armchair observer talking on Thursday. It was Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the President’s foreign policy team. Haass worked for Ronald Reagan, for Bush’s father and, as the policy planning boss at State under Colin Powell during Bush’s first term. By virtue of his post at CFR, he is as close as you can come these days to the voice of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
