This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5087
October 25, 2011
October 25, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - General Jack Keane [Ret.] widely regarded as the architect behind the Bush administration's successful Iraqi "surge" has slammed president Obama's precipitous and unilateral decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq, a move which reportedly was resisted at the highest levels by American military leaders.
In a statement made on Fox News Gen. Keane said, "...the Bush admin in 2009 turned over to the Obama administration a relatively stable and secure Iraq. Violence was down 90% and what the Iraqi's wanted more than anything to go forward was a strategic partnership with the United States, a normal allied relationship with us. We started a pushback on that through ambassador Christopher Hill in 2010 and the Iraqi's got shaky as a result of it and started to put in play hedging strategies and of course that welcomed in the Iranians...and now we are walking away..."
Keane specifically rejected claims made by Leon Panetta [Secretary of DOD] that we can continue to exercise influence on Iraqi affairs via the presence of 40,000 American troops in the region, i.e., in other countries but not Iraq, "...the Iranian's without our presence will have more influence over the Iraqi's going forward than we do...Moqtada al-Sadr [a powerful Iranian controlled warlord with a significant presence in the Iraqi parliament] has already made that statement that he is going after that U.S. embassy..."
This was the end game which Team Obama has always sought in Iraq, holding to the leftist notion that U.S. forces in the region were occupiers rather than liberators. The administration's announcements over the last week have only provided punctuation to the widely held belief [among national security experts] that the president's policy in Iraq will lead to a geopolitical disaster.
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http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=iraq10252011101%2Ehtm
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5087