General Clinton demands OpPlan
Apparently while I was asleep last night, Hillary Clinton (who acts too much like a man for either me or Elizabeth Edwards) was granted a commission in the Armed Forces and immediately promoted to six-star general (for your information, there has been only one six-star general in our history – George Washington who was promoted to that rank in 1975 – that’s on the test, by the way). But anyway, newly commissioned General Clinton has demanded an operational plan for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The response from the Pentagon;
In a stinging rebuke to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman responded to questions Clinton raised in May in which she urged the Pentagon to start planning now for the withdrawal of American forces.
A copy of Edelman’s response, dated July 16, was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.
“Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia,” Edelman wrote.
He added that “such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks.”
Of course, Mr Edelman is right. There’s a contingency plan for every movement the military might make – including the defense of Syracuse, NY from invading multi-tentacled aliens on hover bikes. For Clinton to think [s]he’s getting out ahead of the Pentagon on this one is just laughable. And besides that, it’s none of h[er] business. [S]he just helps the other 99 Senators write checks for the military, [s]he’s not in charge of overseeing the drafting of Operational Planning.
But, [s]he thinks [s]he has a campaign issue;
She said Edelman had ducked her questions and “instead made spurious arguments to avoid addressing contingency planning.”
“Undersecretary Edelman has his priorities backward,” Clinton wrote, calling his claim “outrageous and dangerous.”
She repeated her request for a briefing – classified if necessary – on the issue of end-of-war planning.
The senator’s spokesman Philippe Reines said: “We sent a serious letter to the Secretary of Defense, and unacceptably got a political response back.”
No, you got that backwards, Junior – you sent a political letter and got a serious response back. Considering how leaky the Senate has been lately, I wouldn’t give them the plans to install new soda machines in the E-Ring snack bar.
From Day by Day
Â
Â
Category: Politics, Terror War
