I love Sundays. You get talking heads on Sundays. Here’s Secretary Rumsfeld on that 87 billion dollars.
“On the other hand, if you cast it [$87 billion dollars kplzthx] directly, that the $87 billion is part of the global war on terror, and that it is a lot better to be fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan than it is in the United States, and that the effort is one that has not as its purpose, I think, as you phrased it, rebuilding Iraq. Iraqis are going to have to rebuild Iraq.”
Well, yeah, it’s better to be fighting terrorists in Iraq if you don’t happen to be an Iraqi. Sorry about chosing your country as our battlefield against Al Qaeda, guys. And you can just rebuild your own country, cause that 87 billion is battlefield money.
Mind you, this is not what the President said. Someone’s getting way too far off message!
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It’s not wholly inconsistent with what the president said, either.
“Our strategy in Iraq will require new resources. We have conducted a thorough assessment of our military and reconstruction needs in Iraq, and also in Afghanistan. I will soon submit to Congress a request for 87 billion dollars. The request will cover ongoing military and intelligence operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, which we expect will cost 66 billion dollars over the next year.”
So yeah, the majority of it is not going to reconstruction. The remaining quarter is to be split between Iraq and Afghanistan.
And if you’re just focusing on the message – the message includes the well-known-fact that Iraq chose to invite Al Qaeda. The U.S. merely followed Al Qaeda to their bases of operations.