Dick Cheney recently criticized Vice President Biden for giving credit to the Obama administration for withdrawing troops from Iraq and reallocating troops to Afghanistan or in essence taking credit for success in Iraq.  First, lets establish that the United States should never have gone to Iraq in the first place but thanks to you Mr. Cheney we are there.  This is YOUR mess sir, the current administration is just cleaning it up.  Now lets establish what success is in Iraq…getting out of Iraq as soon as possible and reallocating America’s resources to America for Americans.  Now that we have established some facts take a look at what Cheney said yesterday on This Week regarding the role of the Bush administration in the success of the Iraq troop withdrawal:

Cheney: “Its being done in accordance to the timetable that we initiated (??? the Iraqi Prime Minister initiated) that we inau..that we negotiated with a…with the Iraqis…I mean that was our policy.”

Really Mr. Cheney?  That was your policy?  We respectfully disagree.  In fact the Bush policy was exactly the opposite of  a timetable for withdrawal as evidenced by Bush  himself in 2008:

Bush Orders Halt in Iraq Withdrawals  4/2008:  The president said that only as conditions in Iraq improve will he bring more troops home, a policy he calls “return on success.”

Bush Emphasizes His Opposition to Timetable for Iraq Withdrawal  7/16/2008:  [Bush] reiterated his opposition to what he called “an artificial timetable for withdrawal.”

For those who see continuity between the Bush administration and the Obama administration on this issue it is because the Bush administration reactively changed its position at the tail end of 2008 due to a decision by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government and pressure from the American public then being informed and persuaded by presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama.  Candidate Obama campaigned on an Iraq timetable for American troop withdrawal from the genesis of his presidential campaign in 2007.  At such time, George W. Bush repeatedly railed against an ”artificial timetable for withdrawal”  and was intent on achieving “victory” before withdrawing troops. It was only when the Prime Minister of Iraq said that he endorsed a timetable for U.S withdrawal [then being advocated by Sen. Obama] that President Bush was forced to acquiesce to such a timetable three days after stating his strong opposition to the measure.

Bush, in a Shift, Accept concept of Iraq Timeline7/19/2008:   “Under pressure from political parties wanting a diminishing American role, Mr. Maliki began demanding something in the agreement that would make it clear that American troops were on the way out. Iraq’s statement on Friday, reflecting those internal sensitivities, referred more specifically than the American version to ‘a time frame for the complete transfer of the security responsibilities to the hands of the Iraqi security as preface to decrease the number of the American forces and withdraw them later from Iraq.’ ”

“It came on the eve of a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, who has vowed to pursue a strict phased timetable for withdrawing most combat troops from Iraq over 16 months beginning next year. He has cited Iraq’s eagerness for a timetable as support for his strategy.”

So Mr. Cheney, withdrawing from Iraq was not  the George W. Bush administration policy.  The Bush administration simply co-opted the policy of candidate Barack Obama.  In addition, it is the Obama administration that planned and is implementing the Iraq exit strategy from January 2009 to present day.  All the Bush administration did was make stole the announcement.  That dear sir is why the Obama administration deserves credit for withdrawing troops from Iraq and reallocating such resources to Afghanistan.

Many on the Republican side of the isle have criticized the current administration on its handling of the Christmas day bomber.  You know, the continued and tired meme that Democrats are soft on terrorism.  There are however some very inconvenient facts working against the GOP in this instance.  Lets examine those facts by taking a look at what was suppose to happen on Christmas day.  Al Qaeda had actually staged a multi-prong attack on the U.S. for Christmas day that was prevented thanks to our brave men and women in the military and the intelligence community under the leadership of the President.  According to David Martin, CBS national security correspondent, in addition to the attempted attack on the Northwest flight 253 there was also a specific plot by al Qaeda to attack the U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Christmas day but the attack was prevented by way of preemptive strikes by the United States* via jets and cruise missiles off-shore one day prior.  The U.S. military struck two terrorist training camps in Yemen killing senior al Qaeda operators.  General Patraeus also said that the U.S. intercepted FOUR suicide bombers who were on their way to the Capitol. So the U.S. conducted, controlled, and initiated a strike based on its gathered intelligence that preempted an attack on United States targets all according to the instruction of the current Commander in Chief, Barack Obama.  Tell us again who is soft on terrorism and who is the effective and strategic leader in the fight?

Real world to GOP:  lets keep some perspective shall we?  This is not to say that there were not serious lapses that need IMMEDIATE attention which the President is rightly addressing but lets also keep in mind the larger picture.

*Though the article cites Yemen as the instigator of the preempted strikes, David Martin, CBS national security correspondent, corrected the record on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.

In an unusually pointed and spot-on response to a statement released by former Vice President Dick Cheney claiming that the President doesn’t know we’re at war the White House communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, delivered a sticker of a counter punch.  Pfeiffer blogged that the President does not “need to beat his chest” to prove his commitment to bring down al Qaeda and its extremist allies.  Yes Mr. Cheney, action and deeds are how this president demonstrates his promise and pledge to protect this country not by using a script from an old spaghetti western.  A word from the observant:  aggressiveness is best used on the battlefield and not during a photo op.

It is good to see the White House hitting back against this hypocritical bulls#%t.  Did we also mention that eleven of the Guantanamo detainees released by the Bush administration rejoined al Qaeda? One of whom is alleged to have instructed the Christmas attacker.  See the full statement from the White House below.

Written by Dan Pfeiffer, White House Communications Director

There has been a lot of discussion online and in the mainstream media about our response to various critics of the President, specifically former Vice President Cheney, who have been coming out of the woodwork since the incident on Christmas Day.  I think we all agree that there should be honest debate about these issues, but it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers. Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer.

First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years.  It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia.  And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.

Second, the former Vice President makes the clearly untrue claimthat the President – who is this nation’s Commander-in-Chief – needs to realize we are at War. I don’t think anyone realizes this very hard reality more than President Obama. In his inaugural, the President said “our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” In a recent speech, Assistant to the President for Terrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan said “Instead, as the president has made clear, we are at war with al-Qaida, which attacked us on 9/11 and killed 3,000 people. We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al-Qaida’s murderous agenda. These are the terrorists we will destroy; these are the extremists we will defeat.” At West Point, the President told the nation why it was “in our vital national interest” to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to fight the war in Afghanistan, adding that as Commander in Chief, “I see firsthand the terrible wages of war.” And at Oslo, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the President said, “We are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.”

There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.