This is as good a post as any to reply to, now that I looked it up. Not having followed this, not having known anything about it prior to your post, it seems I pegged it exactly right. No wonder you refused to post the link you claimed showed we went from 3 combat ready Iraqi battalions down to 1 since May because they simply fell out of readiness. For all I wrote, you refused to seem to comprehend that other reasons for the discrepancy were obviously possible, such as evaluation methods employed. How lovely to have captured you in this fine chain of posts, claiming over and over that the General said we literally went backwards.
Here's part of a reporters question the very next day. Interesting that the reporter seems to confirm my speculation that the General DID NOT explain that we in fact went in reverse as your original post alleged he said. Here:
"Q: You keep raising -- I just want to make sure we've nailed down, so everybody precisely understands what the facts are here. You've described how you keep raising the bar, and therefore the number goes down. But it's a function of raising the bar, as opposed to going back. That's what you've described here."
Boy am I glad I didn't believe you without looking! You were dead wrong from the get go!
Here's the General's response to the question above:
"Remember we started this in May. Okay? We didn't have a readiness assessment reporting on the Iraqis until May. So the first one we did, we said, all right, let's get it out there and let's have people try it. We knew it was going to take several iterations for everyone to understand the standards properly and to report accurately. So the very first one came back and we got three. There were three in there. And we looked at that, and we answered their questions from the field, and we adjusted the standards and things so it was all more understandable, and then they came back and it was one. And it was actually different units. The three that were there was one brigade and two battalions. They dropped out, and the second time it was different units."
But the first thing I learned here is that there are 100 battalions all told. 100 actually out there fighting the fight.
You were concerned that we were going backwards, so this information should hearten you. In fact, here's some more of what was said (by Rumsfeld, standing with your General friend):
"The important fact is what I said, and that is that every day, every week, every month, the Iraqi security forces are larger, they're better equipped, they're better trained and they're more experienced. And that is the central fact."
Just as I thought. There was no story of battalions falling into disorder told at all. I'll tell you right now, if I wasn't aware of your inability to judge facts accurately, I'd call you a damn liar rather than simply wrong. I'm sure close to calling you a liar though. I mean, the above quoted stuff IS the General's explanation, and it simply is NOT as you've paraphrased/characterized it at all. It is exactly as I surmised early on, after all. How you could possibly simply be wrong about the General's explanation, is difficult for me to understand indeed. Good lord, if you been reading me and obviously you have...and you went and found C-span links and looked there (though you refused to provide them)...and yet you kept it up here...GEESH!
You couldn't be that dense. I swear, you MUST simply be a liar.
Dan B. |
