FIVE YEARS LATER COLEMAN STILL SAYS IT WAS RIGHT TO INVADE IRAQ

06/23/2008

New web video shows Coleman saying he still supports Bush Iraq policy, even with benefit of hindsight


DFL
St. Paul, MN
June 22, 2008


The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released a new web ad today featuring an interview from last week in which Republican Senator Norm Coleman says that even knowing what he knows now, his support for invading Iraq was the right decision. More than 4,000 American soldiers have lost their lives in a war that has cost $524 billion, shows no end in sight and has made the United States less safe, according to most analysts.



“They say hindsight is 20/20, yet Norm Coleman continues to blindly follow George Bush and his failed policy in Iraq,” DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller said. “If Norm Coleman doesn’t think his original support of the war was a mistake, then sending him back to Washington for another six years to make decisions on war and peace is a mistake Minnesotans won’t make.”



Click here to view video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjH8i10d6ek



Al Qaeda has gotten stronger while America diverted in Iraq. According to Bush’s Director of National Intelligence, Al-Qaeda`s central leadership based on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border “is its most dangerous component” and in the past three years it “has been able to regenerate the core operational capabilities needed to conduct attacks in the Homeland.” [Director of National Intelligence Annual Threat Assessment, 2/7/08]



Commanders in Afghanistan say they need 10,000-12,000 more troops. “U.S. commanders in Afghanistan believe they need an additional three brigades of American forces, between 10,000 and 12,000 troops, to combat the Taliban and to speed the training of Afghanistan's security forces. The requests will go unmet until U.S. troop levels in Iraq start coming down.” [Wall Street Journal, 5/6/08]



Pentagon Said Iraq is limiting military readiness for other crises. “A classified Pentagon assessment concludes that long battlefield tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with persistent terrorist activity and other threats, have prevented the U.S. military from improving its ability to respond to any new crisis, The Associated Press has learned. Despite security gains in Iraq, there is still a "significant" risk that the strained U.S. military cannot quickly and fully respond to another outbreak elsewhere in the world, according to the report.” [Associated Press, 2/9/08]