Pelosi's new tack: Lie about the surge
Nancy Pelosi tries floating a new meme on the surge:
President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq has not been successful, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday.That's completely false: the buildup for the surge began in January, but the buildup wasn't complete until June, and it was in mid-June that the first surge operations were conducted. That's 13 1/2 months, not 18.
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“The purpose of the surge,” which started in January 2007, “was to create a secure period of time so the government of Iraq would have political room to take actions that would bring [political] reconciliation to Iraq,” Pelosi told CNSNews.com at a press conference.
“Since the surge began, 1,100 of our troops have died,” she said. “They told us it would take 60 to 90 days to do it all. It’s a year and a half and it still hasn’t happened.”
Then she tells us that they said it would take "60 to 90 days to do it all." I assume she's referring to General Casey's comment back in January 2007, when he said:
Sounding his optimistic note, he said, "You're going to see some progress gradually over the next 60 to 90 days."
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Asked when he thought some of the extra U.S. troops could be pulled back, Casey replied, "I believe the projections are late summer, but the first troops are just arriving," so nothing is sure.
Doesn't sound like anybody promised her anything. But Pelosi digs deeper:
“Whether you are talking about provincial elections ... whether you are talking about amending the constitution, whether you are talking about de-Baathification, the rest of it, it still hasn’t happened. And so the purpose of the surge has not been fulfilled,” Pelosi said.
Really? That's not what I remember. Here's what the recent assessment of Iraqi progress against those 18 benchmarks told us:
They have passed, for example, legislation that grants amnesty for some prisoners and allows former members of Saddam Hussein's political party to recover lost jobs or pensions. They also determined that provincial elections would be held by Oct. 1.
Sounds like progress has been made on the re-Baathification and provincial elections. In fact progress has been made on almost all fronts, and only someone determined to find fault would refuse to acknowledge that.
It's Nancy who's made no progress in the last year and a half.
[Cross-posted at Uncommon Misconceptions]