1999 Centcom Report: Even With 400,000 Troops in Iraq, We’d Still Be In a Mess
According to a report first published in 1999 (and made public in early November 2006), the United States would face significant stability problems in Iraq, even if it deployed a force of 400,000 troops. At the time of the invasion, the report was largely dismissed by the neoconservatives at the Pentagon, even though it was based on a strong body of research conducted by Centcom. It’s important to note that the Pentagon planned the invasion of Iraq, and Marine General Anthony Zinni (ret), who conducted a series of war games as a part of the report, had warned members of Congress on numerous occasions of deficiencies in their pre-and post-invasion strategies.
From the abstract of the report:
Washington D.C., November 4, 2006 – In late April 1999, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), led by Marine General Anthony Zinni (ret.), conducted a series of war games known as Desert Crossing in order to assess potential outcomes of an invasion of Iraq aimed at unseating Saddam Hussein. The documents posted here today covered the initial pre-war game planning phase from April-May 1999 through the detailed after-action reporting of June and July 1999.
The Desert Crossing war games, which amounted to a feasibility study for part of the main war plan for Iraq — OPLAN 1003-98 — tested “worst case” and “most likely” scenarios of a post-war, post-Saddam, Iraq. The After Action Report presented its recommendations for further planning regarding regime change in Iraq and was an interagency production assisted by the departments of defense and state, as well as the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency, among others.
The results of Desert Crossing, however, drew pessimistic conclusions regarding the immediate possible outcomes of such action. Some of these conclusions are interestingly similar to the events which actually occurred after Saddam was overthrown. (Note 1) The report forewarned that regime change may cause regional instability by opening the doors to “rival forces bidding for power” which, in turn, could cause societal “fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines” and antagonize “aggressive neighbors.” Further, the report illuminated worries that secure borders and a restoration of civil order may not be enough to stabilize Iraq if the replacement government were perceived as weak, subservient to outside powers, or out of touch with other regional governments. An exit strategy, the report said, would also be complicated by differing visions for a post-Saddam Iraq among those involved in the conflict.
The media has known about this report for several years, but its specific recommendations had not been reported until recently.
CNN issued a quick story on the subject the day it was released, November 4, 2006. But not surprisingly, the story was drowned out by election coverage.
It has been suggested by many Republican pundits and politicians that in planning for the war, the Pentagon and President George W. Bush relied on the best intelligence they had been provided. This report is yet another illustration of how the Bush administration selectively chose intelligence reports to build its case for war.
Considering the report was published by Centcom and relied on the expert testimony of a Marine General, it seems hard to believe that its relevancy was simply not noticed. Rather, more likely, the report was dismissed for political reasons by the Pentagon.
CenLamar 
What we have caused in Iraq is reprehensible. I say we as an American, although I actively wrote my senators, representatives, and President Bush to disuade them from invading Iraq. There is no end there that could possibly be couched as the “victory” the President has insisted we can and will achieve. There may be no end at all. Even Colin Powell who, in large part, sold the war to the U.N. calls the conflict a civil war and regrets his part in pushing for it. He, like the others involved, makes the excuse that he was using the best information he had at the time. Unfortunately, the President and his hawk advisors did not pay heed to the findings of Desert Crossings. They wanted this war, and they got it.
so go ahead and let sadam murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people as well as the possiblity that he could control most of the world’s oil. yea, grat fucking idea!!! unfortunately, war is sometimes necessary. And sadam’s actions necessitated us going to war.
dlc you have been brainwashed. The last numbers I saw showed that 650,000 Iraqi’s had been killed since we invaded. That’s way more than Sadamm even thought about killing. We had and continue to have no moral ground on which to stand for invading Iraq. We have created an awful mess and there is no hope for a stable government there any time in the near future.
brainwashed??? you are absolutely right, i cant think for myself, the evil karl rove and his minions have taken over my mind. where would you rather fight the terrorist here or there. there is so much more to this war than you and your Kos Kiddies have the mental capacity to ever understand.
The 9-11 terrorists were mostly from Saudi Arabia. There weren’t terrorists in Iraq. It was mostly a secular country, ruled admittedly by a dictator, but not terrorist zealots. There are a lot of nasty dictators the world over and we can’t and shouldn’t invade them all. That we invaded Iraq to ‘fight the terrorists over there and not here’ is another lie you’ve been fed and swallowed without even examining it.
dlc I don’t know what you mean by “Kos Kiddie.” If it refers to age, I am a baby boomer and have tons of gray hair. I am an attorney and work hard to provide for my family. It scares me that so many of us have forgotten history. It saddens me that so many young people have died in Iraq and that so much money that could be used here at home, for our schools, our roads, our libraries, our public hospitals,…. (the list goes on and on) has been spent there on what has become a tar baby with no real way out. We also could have spent the money and human energy securing our own country. As a collective we got sucked in by Bush and chose to believe him. For me it was listening to Colin Powell – I am an army brat and figured if he said we needed to go to war then it had to be true. I don’t know whether he was lied to, but I feel lied to and ashamed I didn’t listen to my conscience that kept screaming at me that we had no real reason to invade, except maybe to invade with food and a helping hand. What if we are now faced with a real battle that we have to fight? We are exhausted by one we didn’t have to.
The problem in America is that too many of us listen to CNN or better known as al Jazeera West. If you cannot connect the dots with Iraq and terrorism then you’re fools and don’t see the overall picture. The democrats and the media are scared shitless that George Bush will succeed in Iraq and leave them out of any future elections and they’re willing to do anything to undermine his efforts!
Here’s an article I read this morning that helps make my case. If you read it, please think about what you’re reading.
FROM WORLD DEFENSE REVIEW
Published 30 Nov 06
Democrats, terrorists and ‘brotherly way’
By Vasko Kohlmayer
Special to World Defense Review
In one of the most startling incidents in our history, America’s
sworn enemy used the term ‘brotherly’ when referring to one of our
major political parties. The remarkable pronouncement came amidst the
celebrations that erupted in the terrorist ranks after the democratic
victory in the latest elections.
Given all that the democrats have done, the affection in which they
are held by our foes is neither unjustified nor surprising. They have
more than earned it by systematically subverting this country’s war
effort while simultaneously proffering assistance to those who have
pledged to destroy us.
Democrats’ devious deeds are too numerous to be fully recounted, but
here at least are some of the highlights:
· They have tried to prevent us from listening on
terrorists’ phone calls
· They have sought to stop us from properly interrogating
captured terrorists
· They have tried to stop us from monitoring terrorists’
financial transactions
· They have revealed the existence of secret national
security programs
· They have opposed vital components of the Patriot Act
· They have sought to confer unmerited legal rights on
terrorists
· They have opposed profiling to identify the terrorists in
our midst
· They have impugned and demeaned our military
· They have insinuated that the president is a war criminal
· They have forced the resignation of a committed defense
secretary
· They have repeatedly tried to de-legitimize our war effort
· They want to quit the battlefield in the midst of war.
To see just how bad things really are, ponder this question: If the
terrorists were represented by a party in our political system, how
would their foreign policy program substantially differ from that of
the present-day democrats?
By effectively becoming a political arm of our sworn enemy, the
Democratic Party has staked out a position that is unparalleled in
our country’s history. They have gone so far that now even the
terrorists toss about the term ‘brotherly’ when celebrating their
electoral success. This is truly something to marvel at, since
democrats are infidels too and as such should be anathema in
Islamists’ eyes. How many times have they told us that in their world
the Allah-less must either convert or die? So helpful have the
democrats been, however, that even these virulent fanatics are
willing — for the time being at least — to overlook their
faithlessness and instead speak of them in the most endearing of
terms.
The suspicion that many democrats are not on our side has been
grating on the American psyche for some time now. But since most
people can’t fathom why some Americans would want us to lose, the
suspicion has not coalesced into a firm conviction. To put it
differently, there is a reluctance to conclude the obvious, because
we don’t want to believe that such treachery could possibly reside in
American hearts.
The inability to grasp their motive, however, should not preclude us
from making the correct inference based on the evidence of their
actions. And the mass of that evidence points overwhelmingly toward
this conclusion: America’s liberal elites want us to lose this war
and they are using the Democratic Party to accomplish their objective.
It would not be the first time they have tried to do this. Some three
decades ago, they did all they could to bring about our disgrace in
Vietnam. In the end they succeeded and the United States suffered the
most humiliating and ignominious defeat in its history.
It is as revealing as it is worrisome that almost all of the current
democratic leadership was actively involved in that effort. Bill and
Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Chuck Schumer,
Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi were all in one way or another
personally engaged in the anti-war movement. And when at last it bore
its disastrous fruit, they gloated and danced in the streets.
Exhilarated and jubilant, they deemed America’s disgrace their finest
hour. In their skewed world, America’s defeat came to represent their
personal triumph.
Today these very people hold the reins of the Democratic Party and
are trying to achieve in Iraq what they did in Vietnam. Should they
succeed, we will face consequences too terrible to contemplate. While
the Vietnamese communists were content with humiliating us on their
own soil, the Islamists will come after us with a vengeance which is
something they have pledged over and over again. This time the toll
will not be confined to our military casualties, but will translate
into death and mayhem in our midst.
The terrorists’ exhilaration at the election results show just how
certain they are where the democrats’ allegiance lies. Even though
they live behind the ocean, they understand something we have tried
so hard to overlook: The Democratic establishment will give them its
support and assistance all the while stripping America of the tools
and abilities to carry on the fight.
It is time that the American people finally realized what the
terrorists know all too well: America’s liberals are not on our side
and will do all they possibly can to bring about our defeat. The fact
that most of us cannot relate to their dark desire does not mean it’s
not real. An honest look at their behavior reveals just how powerful
it really is and to what lengths they are willing to go to see it
fulfilled.
Wise men and prophets throughout the ages have warned against the
darkness that lurks in the human heart. That this darkness takes many
forms is attested by the ignominy and perfidy that comprise much of
mankind’s history. In our time and place, hatred of one’s country is
one of its most insidious manifestations. Sadly, the Democratic Party
has become a willing receptacle for those who under its spell.
Not all democrats dislike their own country, but some clearly do.
Most importantly, this dislike is endemic among the liberal
leadership of the Democratic establishment. So embittered are they
that they are willing to do virtually anything to demean America,
even to have her beaten by our enemies. Thirty years ago they brought
about our humiliation at the hands of the Vietnamese communists and
today they seek a repeat with Islamic terrorists.
It is unsettling that even after the agonizing lessons of Vietnam
these people are once again succeeding in duping many well-meaning
citizens into supporting policies that cannot but result in a defeat
that will be even more painful and dire.
The terrorists have grasped the truth about the Democratic Party some
time ago. Let’s hope that the American public will do so before it’s
too late.
Hope hell, let’s PRAY for a miracle because the ‘American public’
evidently isnt even aware that we are fighting a war! This is scary.
Thank you for posting one of the strangest, most ridiculous articles of the year!
I wish I had real awards to hand out, because this definitely merits some type of prize.
It’s disheartening to see some conservatives hop back on the Limbaugh rhetorical wagon, spinning every question posed by the opposition party as somehow emboldening terrorists.
Mr. Kohlmayer is wrong on nearly every count, and one has to wonder if he is simply being sarcastic or if he truly believes in what he is writing.
Perhaps readers will feel inclined to ask him personally. His e-mail address is vasko_kohlmayer@msn.com.
The Democrats have not attempted to prevent the government from listening to “terrorists’ phone calls.” I suppose that if Kohlmayer had done just an hour of research, he would have uncovered that the Democratic opposition had to do with warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens. The problem was a perceived abuse of presidential authority. No one has questioned the importance of using surveillance technology to track and monitor terrorists; that’s precisely why our government established a secret court to handle requests for such tactics. President Bush, however, bypassed the secret court and ordered phones to be tapped without any judicial oversight. Mr. Kolhmayer may need to sit in a high school civics class; then, perhaps he’d understand the reason America has three branches of government, each maintaining checks and balances over one another.
The Democrats have never attempted to stop the government from properly interrogating captured terrorists. Where is your source, Mr. Kolhmayer? Can you name one piece of Democratic legislation that has sought to prevent the government from proper interrogation? (I seem to recall Senator McCain and Vice President Cheney battling one another on the definition of torture). No, the problem, once again, is that in America, there are laws of decency, and internationally, there is something called the Geneva Convention, which established proper protocol in dealing with enemy troops. The Bush administration has attempted to bypass the Geneva Convention on rhetorical grounds, claiming that because terrorists are not fighting for any particular nation-state, they are not subject to the Geneva Convention, and therefore, the US can engage in acts typically considered to be “torture.”
Also Kolhmayer claims that Democrats have attempted to “stop us from monitoring terrorists’ financial transactions.” This is a lie. A flat-out, unsubstantiated lie.
He claims the Democrats revealed secret national security programs. So did President Bush.
And yes, he’s right. Many Democrats (and even some Republicans) have opposed parts of the Patriot Act, namely the parts that infringe on the civil liberties of Americans.
And yes sir, many people believe that terrorists still have the right to be represented. If you do away with our judicial process and you convict and execute people without a fair trial, then you become the terrorist. There is no doubt that most of these people are guilty of the crimes of which they are accused, but also consider the number of people who have been released– after years of internment– from Guantanamo Bay.
Racial profiling has not been proven to be an effective strategy, particularly when one considers that we are fighting a dispersed, multi-national threat. Republicans and Democrats have both recognized the pitfalls of strictly funding profiling as a methodology.
No one has impugned or demeaned our military, sir.
The Democratic Party has never stated that President Bush is a “war criminal.”
Donald Rumsfeld may have been a committed secretary, but after hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, nearly 3,000 American deaths, and thousands and thousands of casualties (with no real plan for the future), it finally became apparent that Rumsfeld needed to go.
I don’t even feel like wasting more time on this guy; he’s like Ann Coulter with a dictionary.
One more thing:
“The democrats and the media are scared shitless that George Bush will succeed in Iraq and leave them out of any future elections and they’re willing to do anything to undermine his efforts!”
Hahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Obviously Lamar you only believe what the communist news network feeds you. Ever watch CSpan and see the hateful rhetoric spewed by some of the democrats for the past several years?
Do you really think that I have formed my opinions on the War in Iraq based on the infotainment provided by CNN?
Now, granted, until today, I wasn’t familiar with the works of Kohlmayer, but I have done a ton of reading on the subject– by both conservative and liberal authors.
I think the argument being expressed by Kohlmayer is a blind-sided partisan refutation that represents the far fringes of the Republican Party.
That is, most conservatives are beginning to recognize that Iraq is a quagmire. Colin Powell and others have declared it to be a “civil war.” And no amount of rhetorical acrobatics can change the facts on the ground.
To suggest that Democratic skepticism of the war has somehow undermined its mission is to shift responsibility for poor planning and execution, and the report to which I linked, known as Desert Crossing, is clearly illustrative of the type of cherry-picking the Bush administration engaged in when building, defining, and marketing their case for war in Iraq. If it had been made public in 2003, for example, that a Centcom report suggested that we would need 400,000 troops on the ground in Iraq, it would have been more difficult for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company to make the case.
You need only to read “Dereliction of Duty” by Ltc Robert (Buzz) Patterson, ret to learn what the Clintons and his team thinks/thought of the military.
Do you not recall the remarks made publicly by the great (wishing he was late) John f’ing Kerry? He has done nothing but demean the military since he returned from Vietnam. He was and still is a traitorous bastard in the eyes of many former soldiers, myself included. He met with our enemies in Paris while still a member of the Navy he so traitously served.
John Murtha convicted our troops of murder on the floor of congress before their trials had even taken place. Our enemies are listening to all the shit the democrats spew and the are loving it!
Regarding your hatred of Kerry, I suppose it is all based on his testimony, as a young man, of what he witnessed in Vietnam. Here it is for your review:
April, 1971:
“…I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of 1,000 which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony….
WINTER SOLDIER INVESTIGATION
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command….
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
We call this investigation the “Winter Soldier Investigation.” The term “Winter Soldier” is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.
FEELINGS OF MEN COMING BACK FROM VIETNAM
…In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart….
WHAT WAS FOUND AND LEARNED IN VIETNAM
We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.
We found most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone on peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Vietcong, North Vietnamese, or American.
We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by our flag, as blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs as well as by search and destroy missions, as well as by Vietcong terrorism, and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong.
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.
We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.
We watched the U.S. falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against “oriental human beings,” with quotation marks around that. We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater or let us say a non-third-world people theater, and so we watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the high for the reoccupation by the North Vietnamese because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn’t lose, and we couldn’t retreat, and because it didn’t matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point. And so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 881’s and Fire Base 6’s and so many others.
VIETNAMIZATION
Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese….
Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say they we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won’t be, and these are his words, “the first President to lose a war.”
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? But we are trying to do that, and we are doing it with thousands of rationalizations, and if you read carefully the President’s last speech to the people of this country, you can see that he says and says clearly:
But the issue, gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the question is whether or not we will leave that country to the Communists or whether or not we will try to give it hope to be a free people.
But the point is they are not a free people now under us. They are not a free people, and we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now….
REQUEST FOR ACTION BY CONGRESS
We are asking here in Washington for some action, action from the Congress of the United States of America which as the power to raise and maintain armies, and which by the Constitution also has the power to declare war.
We have come here, not to the President, because we believe that this body can be responsive to the will of the people, and we believe that the will of the people says that we should be out of Vietnam now….
WHERE IS THE LEADERSHIP?
We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric, and so many others. Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded.
The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching begin them in the sun in this country.”
Already, in Iraq, we have learned of Americans committing cold-blooded murders against civilians. One US solider recently admitted to killing an Iraqi family after raping their fourteen-year-old daughter. Here’s the story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1948755,00.html
And let’s not forget about Abu Ghraib.
Please understand, when someone points out these hard truths, they are not issuing a wholesale indictment of all US soldiers.
For one reason or another, some people believe that when one talks about the tragedies of war, they are undermining the soldiers who serve in it. To me, that’s ridiculous.
If anything, I believe, people who speak truth to power, who report objectively about the real status on the ground, are a service to all thinking Americans who wish to preserve our country’s freedoms and ensure that our power is used wisely and morally.
The book you referenced, Dereliction of Duty, is about President Clinton’s failures in national security. I think it may be an important read, and obviously, it has informed your understanding of politics. It was written because the author believed in the same very concept of an open government– speaking the truth, sharing your experiences, and debunking myths.
I do not believe that the truth belongs to any one political party.
Please also consider that the recent hack job done on Kerry was the work of Karl Rove, who somehow managed to get a group of Vietnam vets (none of whom had ever actually served with Kerry and one of whom was Nixon’s right-hand man in dealing with Kerry’s testimony), formed a PAC, financed it through a Houston real estate millionaire, and filmed a commercial claiming that Kerry was somehow a “bad soldier.” (Let’s not point out the fact that their candidate, Mr. Bush, was actually missing for a month from the Alabama National Guard and never served a day in the Vietnam War).
It was a good move, because it enabled Bush/Rove to put an all-new spin on Kerry’s 1971 testimony. Indeed, the whole campaign against Kerry was intended to remind the nation about this testimony– because when taken of out context by uninformed voters who base their decision on cable news and slick, million dollar commercials, Kerry is accusing Americans ALL OVER AGAIN. It deflected any questions over Bush’s missing month and took Kerry’s greatest strength (his decorated military service) and turned it into a weakness.
I’ll have to dig up the book or article where I read that the “men” who associated with Kerry during his traitorous testimony were men who, in fact, never served in the military, much less Vietnam.
Regarding the Swiftboat veterans. Do you have any actual proof, other than the shit you read on cnn or any of the news media for that matter, that those men never served with Kerry?
Kerry spent FOUR months in Vietnam, most men served a year. Kerry used the military to pad his resume for political aspirations. All accounts that I’ve read have been that his wounds were so minor as to not even need medical attention and at least one was self-inflicted.
Whether or not the Vietnam War was just, he still committed treason for meeting with our stated enemies while still in the military.
While I’m about it, the inflated figures for the number of Iraqis killed during this conflict are monumentally ignorant. Consider that if 50 Iraqis are killed every day for 4 years it would only total 73,000. It ain’t happened folks.
Many of the men who spoke out against the war with John Kerry were most definitely Vietnam veterans; I have no idea what type of revisionist history book you’re reading, but it’s delusional and bizarre to roundly dismiss those claims as some sort of plot by individuals who, like our current President, never actually served in Vietnam.
As to the Swift Boat claims, none of the people who spoke in that commercial were assigned to Kerry’s unit; one person claimed to have treated Kerry for his injuries (no record of such treatment exists) and another one, who was Kerry’s superior at the time, later recanted his claims. Learn more about the Swift Boat truth here:
http://www.factcheck.org/article231.html
Concerning the number of people killed in Iraq. 650,000 represents the median of a range; the organization that conducted this study is a legitimate, non-political group that relied on solid statistical methodologies in order to arrive at their conclusions. Even by your standards, sir, (150 people per day) Mr. Bush would still be dramatically underestimating the death count. According to their study, the number 650,000 would mean one death for every forty Iraqis.
Read more about their analysis here:
http://iraqmortality.org/analysis
Oh and do some real reading on this so-called “secret” meeting Kerry had with our enemies. Your claims are funny.
Kerry participated in a peace conference in Paris with representatives of the United States, France, and the head of the provisional government for SOUTH Vietnam, Madame Binh.
Binh made an offer: Set a timetable for withdrawal (sound familiar?) and maybe they’ll release your POWs back into your custody. Remember, during the Vietnam, there were HUNDREDS of POWs. He spoke about this peace conference during his Senate testimony back in the early 70s (which begs the question, how could it be a secret?). Anyway, the point is that Kerry never personally met with any North Vietnamese in Paris; he never met with America’s enemies.