The Pentagon told Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton that her questions about how the U.S. plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq boosts enemy propaganda.
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.”
Hillary responds by telling Edelman his response is “dangerous” and basically promising to get him fired:
Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines called Edelman’s answer “at once outrageous and dangerous,” and said the senator would respond to his boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Of course, Edelman is exactly right. It has to be incredibly hard for our soldiers to fight a war so many politicians here at home are trying to lose. I can’t imagine getting up every day, putting in 24 hours or so on patrol and risking my life, all for a war some politician at home says isn’t worth fighting.
And can you imagine what people like Hillary Clinton are doing to our ability to gain trust from the Iraqis? How do we get them to understand that we’re going to help them when all people like Hillary Clinton (along with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi) can talk about is abandoning them?
These Democrats are making our mission in Iraq all but impossible to complete, and before anyone trots out the old “dissent is patriotic” line let’s remember that the Democrats aren’t doing this out of concern for sound foreign policy. They’re doing it because they want to win the political war against Bush and the Republicans here at home.