Military What was done is being undone...Iraq

No he didn't. He said that turning Iraq over to the newly elected Iraqi government happened on Bush's watch, which is a fact. Bush didn't actually withdraw the troops.

You conveniently left out the rest of his response . . .

"In order for us to maintain troops in Iraq, we needed the invitation of the Iraqi government, and we needed assurances that our personnel would be immune from prosecution if, for example, they were protecting themselves and ended up getting in a firefight with Iraqis, that they wouldn’t be hauled before an Iraqi judicial system.

"And the Iraqi government, based on its political considerations, in part because Iraqis were tired of a U.S. occupation, declined to provide us those assurances. And on that basis, we left. We had offered to leave additional troops. So when you hear people say, do you regret, Mr. President, not leaving more troops, that presupposes that I would have overridden this sovereign government that we had turned the keys back over to and said, you know what, you’re democratic, you’re sovereign, except if I decide that it’s good for you to keep 10,000 or 15,000 or 25,000 Marines in your country, you don’t have a choice -- which would have kind of run contrary to the entire argument we were making about turning over the country back to Iraqis, an argument not just made by me, but made by the previous administration.

So let’s just be clear: The reason that we did not have a follow-on force in Iraq was because the Iraqis were -- a majority of Iraqis did not want U.S. troops there, and politically they could not pass the kind of laws that would be required to protect our troops in Iraq."

 

No, that is a sober Democratic political claim. You realize Hillary is a candidate for President? The reason she left the administration was to establish her own political identity for 2016. It's important for her to establish that she's her own person and not Barrack Obama. It's been a long time since 2008 when she clashed with Obama on many issues. She also needs to draw a line between her work and that of John Kerry. You will be hearing more talk from Hillary outlining her own views rather than Obama's.

 

I don't claim this. I claim that the vitriol is coming from right-wing sources. I claim that the unsupportable accusations are coming from the political right. The President makes a hard decision on matters in which there are no good options and he is branded as "incompetent". No evidence of true incompetence. Not even decisions that they disapprove of politically. Just making political hay in a situation where Americans should be pulling together.

 

But this is nonsense! Bush had no influence at all on any policy after he left. Schedules were changed for sure. Obstacles came up and had to be death with. Much diplomacy went on and the "plan" was changed many times. Ultimately, Iraq forced the situation by asking us to leave and insisting on the right to try US troops in Iraqi courts.

Here is the kicker . . . if this is all simply Bush's plan being carried out, how exactly are the consequences of it Obama's fault? You are trying to have it both ways.

What? When exactly did that happen?

Here is what Malik said . . . Iraqi Prime Minister: Immunity Issue Scuttled US Troop Deal

“When the Americans asked for immunity, the Iraqi side answered that it was not possible,” al-Maliki told reporters in Baghdad. “The discussions over the number of trainers and the place of training stopped. Now that the issue of immunity was decided and that no immunity to be given, the withdrawal has started.”​