This will leave a mark:
Deepening the Democratic split over Iraq, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina today became the party’s first major presidential contender to oppose President Bush’s request for $87 billion to secure and reconstruct the country…
“It is clear to me that President Bush is not going to change direction unless someone stands up to him and says no,” said Edwards, who had voted in 2002 to authorize the war in Iraq.
Edwards said he did not want the United States to withdraw from Iraq, but believed that a congressional vote denying Bush the funds would compel the administration to develop a new reconstruction plan that provided a larger role to the United Nations and ensured that the rebuilding “will not be exploited as a means to give sweetheart deals to [the president’s] friends.”
From the WaPo today:
France, Russia and Germany on Tuesday dropped their demands that the United States grant the United Nations a central role in Iraq’s reconstruction and yield power to a provisional Iraqi government in the coming months.
The move constituted a major retreat by the Security Council’s chief antiwar advocates, and signaled their renewed willingness to consider the merits of a U.S. resolution aimed at conferring greater international legitimacy on its military occupation of Iraq.
All three countries seem willing to accept a resolution that would retain U.S. authority over Iraq’s political future while extending only a symbolic measure of sovereignty to Iraqis. But a major sticking point remains: The three governments made new demands, including setting a timetable for ending the U.S. military occupation in Iraq and strengthening the Security Council’s role in monitoring Iraq’s political transition.
Thanks for all your help and, ummm, leadership, Sen. Edwards.
mark
I find it ironic that senator Edwards announced his position after Dean said he would vote against the $$ too, if he were in Congress. It’s almost like they are running left to try to get to Dennis Kucinich’s position.
And I think it would be nice if you had a contest to see who can link to the first story that does NOT have a candidate mention “sweetheart deals” for Halliburton and this $$ in the same sentence.
Andrew Lazarus
Not one thing the Democrats said hurt Bush’s poll standings as much as BUSH’S OWN request for the $87Bn. Given that we have already, even before the $87Bn, sunk in MORE than the LARGEST specific prewar estimate that the Administration was willing to give, Middle America realized for the first time that GWB was winging it, and the general aura that everything has been anticipated and is going according to plan is a smokescreen. (A lot of people on this blog don’t get it yet, but as the line from Tolkien goes, “He can see through a brick wall in time.”)
The $87Bn includes $20Bn for reconstruction with no sign it’s the last such request.Here’s the head of USAID in April saying that the cost to the US taxpayer for reconstruction would be $1.7Bn (that is, the current DOWN PAYMENT is over 10 times as much as the prewar total estimate)
Edwards and Dean are taking an opportunity to show up the Bush Administration as incompetent and unprepared. That’s what opposition candidates do.
Incidentally, I would vote FOR the $87Bn as long as it came with the heads of Rice and Rumsfeld. Since we don’t have a Parliamentary system, I can’t really demand Bush and Cheney, too.
Jay Caruso
Oh this is a good one. I expect we’ll see many compliments from all of the frothing left wingers about Bush’s foreign policy success.
Sure. And Don Zimmer is going to make out with Pedro Martinez.
David Perron
Ah. So it’s not a waste of money if it’s used to forward your personal vendetta, Andrew? And you accuse Republicans of having petty agendas.
Kimmitt
More like, “The money is obviously needed, but I don’t trust the guys you’ve got currently administering it.”
I was impressed by Bush’s diplomatic success at the UN, and I hope that he will continue to have successes, especially ones which lead to increases in troop levels and assistance with funding.
Andrew Lazarus
David, when a school district needs extra millions of dollars, the state is entitled to (and often does) fire the superintendent, etc. I don’t see why the Iraq cost overrun should be treated any differently.
When liberal programs screw up and cost vastly more than intended you guys say it discredits our entire political philosophy. But when your program screws up and costs vastly more than intended, the patriotic thing to do is quickly shuffle the cards and go on to the next hand. No thanks guys.
Matthew
The New Republic was pretty harsh on Edwards, too. This move was just craven — Edwards is trying to buy a VP slot from the far left.
Kimmitt
I disagree, actually. I think Edwards has finally come to realize that he was sold a bill of goods.
David Perron
“David, when a school district needs extra millions of dollars, the state is entitled to (and often does) fire the superintendent, etc.”
Once again, bad example. If said superintendent, etc had through sheer incompetence made it necessary for the state to come up with said millions, yes.
Still, what the firings of Rice and Rumsfeld have to do with anything Andrew Natsios said is entirely unclear to me. And if you read the transcript, the $1.7 billion is reconstruction costs minus oil revenues back to us for said reconstruction. I believe at the present we’re considering forgoing those revenues, so I’m pretty sure you don’t yet have a case. Also, not all of the $87 billion was for reconstruction; IIRC it was more like $20 billion; the rest is for military presence and training.
Andrew Lazarus
Right. David, the $1.7Bn should be compared to the $20Bn for reconstruction, not the $87Bn. *And that’s what I did.* (I believe we also allocated $6Bn for reconstruction earlier.)
Whether the reconstruction costs increase because we are “foregoing these revenues” (to which we are not entitled, which if we took would simply INCREASE dollar-for-dollar the amount we would have to contribute saving us nothing, and which are in any case MUCH LOWER than predicted before the war) or because we underestimated the cost, we blew it. In fact, the $20Bn is more than even the rosiest prewar estimates of the TOTAL revenues available from Iraqi oil production.
“Once again, bad example. If said superintendent, etc had through sheer incompetence made it necessary for the state to come up with said millions, yes.”
Exactly. My version is: If said secretary of defense et al had through sheer incompetence made it necessary for the state to come up with extra *B*illions….
Which argument would you like to make: They knew the true cost in advance and played bait-and-switch, or they underestimated the true cost in advance by factors of 10, 20, and up, in which case I think their competence is very much open to question. There is no third choice here.
David Perron
Hmmm…you make it sound as if the SecDef were responsible for the cost of reconstruction. Being of rather shaky intellectual constitution today, I’d like to request some connecting-of-the-dots on that one. Last I looked, SecDef was responsible for DEstruction. Is it your case that he…overdid it?
David Perron
Oops. Well, hit post two soon both times.
Are we to assume that your conditional acceptance of $87 billion tab constitutes tacit approval of the military portion of the expenditure? If so, what’s that say about your opinion of Rumsfeld, considering he’s exclusively working the military portion? And what exact degree of blame do you believe ought to rest on the shoulders of the National Security Advisor, and why hers and not, say, Colin Powell’s?
Not saying there’s no amount of accountability there. Just a little stunned that you picked the two people in government whose roles are about as far as it’s possible to get from the reconstruction of Iraq to pin the blame on.
David Perron
“two” = “too”
Have I mentioned that I’m intellectually…underfunded today?