Hey man,
Nothing I said had anything to do with the contested election results (re-read my post).
What I said was that in 2000 the democrats (and also the team of reporters on GWB's campaign bus -- ever hear the headlines about them acknowledging there was no way in hell GWB was going to be elected president?) thought that they would beat GWB pretty easily with Gore.
My comments had nothing to do with the actual legitimacy of the election. Both sides try to rig elections -- the Republicans just tend to get caught more (ever hear of Watergate?).
Anyway, back to the mess that our weak President has allowed the neocons to get us into -
100 Mistakes for the President to Choose From
May 3, 2004
During a prime time press conference on April 13, President Bush was asked to name a mistake that he has made since taking office and what he has learned from it. Bush, who was unable to answer the question, admitted "maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with [a mistake]." But weeks later, Bush still hasn't answered the question. In the interest of assisting the President with this surprisingly difficult task we've compiled this list of 100 mistakes he has made since taking office:
Iraq
1. Failing to build a real international coalition prior to the Iraq invasion, forcing the US to shoulder the full cost and consequences of the war.
2. Approving the demobilization of the Iraqi Army in May, 2003 â bypassing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reversing an earlier position, the President left hundreds of thousands of armed Iraqis disgruntled and unemployed, contributing significantly to the massive security problems American troops have faced during occupation.
3. Not equipping troops in Iraq with adequate body armor or armored HUMVEES.
4. Ignoring the advice Gen. Eric Shinseki regarding the need for more troops in Iraq â now Bush is belatedly adding troops, having allowed the security situation to deteriorate in exactly the way Shinseki said it would if there were not enough troops.
5. Ignoring plans drawn up by the Army War College and other war-planning agencies, which predicted most of the worst security and infrastructure problems America faced in the early days of the Iraq occupation.
6. Making a case for war which ignored intelligence that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.
7. Deriding "nation-building" during the 2000 debates, then engaging American troops in one of the most explicit instances of nation building in American history.
8. Predicting along with others in his administration that US troops would be greeted as liberators in Iraq.
9. Predicting Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction.
10. Wildly underestimating the cost of the war.
11. Trusting Ahmed Chalabi, who has dismissed faulty intelligence he provided the President as necessary for getting the Americans to topple Saddam.
12. Disbanding the Sunni Baathist managers responsible for Iraq's water, electricity, sewer system and all the other critical parts of that country's infrastructure.
13. Failing to give UN weapons inspectors enough time to certify if weapons existed in Iraq.
14. Including discredited intelligence concerning Nigerian Yellow Cake in his 2003 State of the Union.
15. Announcing that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, below a "Mission Accomplished" banner â more U.S. soldiers have died in combat since Bush's announcement than before it.
16. Awarding a multi-billion dollar contract to Halliburton in Iraq, which then repeatedly overcharged the government and served troops dirty food.
17. Refusing to cede any control of Post-invasion Iraq to the international community, meaning reconstruction has received limited aid from European allies or the U.N.
18. Failing to convince NATO allies why invading Iraq was important.
19. Having no real plan for the occupation of Iraq.
20. Limiting bidding on Iraq construction projects to "coalition partners," unnecessarily alienating important allies France, Germany and Russia.
21. Diverting $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress.
22. Shutting down an Iraqi newspaper for "inciting violence" â the move, which led in short order to street fighting in Fallujah, incited more violence than the newspaper ever had.
23. Telling Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan about plans to go to war with Iraq before Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Counterterrorism
24. Allowing several members of the Bin Laden family to leave the country just days after 9/11, some of them without being questioned by the FBI.
25. Focusing on missile defense at the expense of counterterrorism prior to 9/11.
26. Thinking al Qaeda could not attack without state sponsors, and ignoring evidence of a growing threat unassociated with "rogue states" like Iraq or North Korea.
27. Threatening to veto the Homeland Security department â The President now concedes such a department "provides the ability for our agencies to coordinate better and to work together better than it was before."
28. Opposing the creation of the September 11th commission, which the President now expects "to contain important recommendations for preventing future attacks."
29. Denying documents to the 9/11 commission, only relenting after the commissioners threatened a subpoena.
30. Failing to pay more attention to an August 6, 2001 PDB entitled "Bin laden Determined to Attack in U.S."
31. Repeatedly ignoring warnings of terrorists planning to use aircraft before 9/11.
32. Appointing the ultra-secretive Henry Kissinger to head the 9/11 commission â Kissinger stepped down weeks later due to conflicts of interest.
33. Asking for testimony before the 9/11 commission be limited to one hour, a position from which the president later backtracked.
34. Not allowing national Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to testify before the 9/11 commission â Bush changed his mind as pressure mounted.
35. Cutting an FBI request for counterterrorism funds by two-thirds after 9/11.
36. Telling Americans there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
37. Failing to adequately secure the nation's nuclear weapons labs.
38. Not feeling a sense of urgency about terrorism or al Qaeda before 9/11.
Afghanistan
39. Reducing resources and troop levels in Afghanistan and out before it was fully secure.
40. Not providing security in Afghanistan outside of Kabul, leaving nearly 80% of the Afghan population unprotected in areas controlled by Feudal warlords and local militias.
41. Committing inadequate resources for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
42. Counting too heavily on locally trained troops to fill the void in Afghanistan once U.S. forces were relocated to Iraq.
43. Not committing US ground troops to the capture of Osama Bin Laden, when he was cornered in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in November, 2001.
44. Allowing opium production to resume on a massive scale after the ouster of the Taliban.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
45. Opposing an independent inquiry into the intelligence failures surrounding WMD â later, upon signing off on just such a commission, Bush claimed he was "determined to make sure that American intelligence is as accurate as possible for every challenge in the future."
46. Saying: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories."
47. Trusting intelligence gathered by Vice President Cheney's and Secretary Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans."
48. Spending $6.5 billion on nuclear weapons this year to develop new nuclear weapons this year â 50% more in real dollars than the average during the cold war â while shortchanging the troops on body armor.
Foreign Policy
49. Ignoring the importance of the Middle East peace process, which has deteriorated with little oversight or strategy evident in the region.
50. Siding with China in February, 2004 against a democratic referenda proposed by Taiwan, a notable shift from an earlier pledge to stand with "oppressed peoples until the day of their freedom finally arrives."
51. Undermining the War on Terrorism by preemptively invading Iraq.
52. Failing to develop a specific plan for dealing with North Korea.
53. Abandoning the United States' traditional role as an evenhanded negotiator in the Middle East peace process.
(continued on the web page at http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=64326)
